Welcome to the Summer Term!

We have had a lovely start to the new term, exploring our enquiry question: ‘How does your garden grow?’

In science we learnt about the process of pollination. We watched some short video clips which showed how pollination occurs and Year 1 children drew a comic strip to explain the process themselves. We enjoyed examining parts of flowers, including the parts where the pollen is taken from.

Our English learning this week, has been based around the story of Peter Rabbit. We familiarised ourselves with the story and wrote a character description of Peter. We re-told the story verbally, and drew a story map of the events.

Our art lesson this week, involved studying bluebells and sketching different parts of the flowers. The children excelled themselves with some extremely careful observational sketches. We then used watercolours to practice mixing the right colours and shades.

We have also been enjoying practicing songs which will be performed at ‘The Big Green’ and we look forward to seeing you next Thursday afternoon if you are able to be there.

Have a lovely weekend!

From the Penhallow Team

Hello Everyone!

Spring is in the air, and we have been busy drawing daffodils this week. We made careful observations of different varieties of daffodils and then used oil pastels to create the different colours and shapes that we observed.

This week, we also finished our English work on Quentin Blake’s ‘Mrs Armitage on Wheels.’ Everyone has made up a story of their own, based on the original story, and Year 1 have written some amazing story sequels. We have been very proud of our results.

Both year groups have been busy learning all about length and measure this week in maths. We made and compared different lengths using play dough, measured and compared objects around the classroom, and Year one began to use standard measures to carefully measure objects.

We had a lovely end to this week, on our trip to The Theatre Royal in Plymouth. The Little Red Hen performance did not disappoint, and had the children participated well throughout the show. The children’s happy faces, showed how much they enjoyed and benefitted from the whole experience, and we are extremely proud of how well they behaved throughout the whole day.

Hello Everyone!

There was a lot of excitement this week in Penhallow as some mysterious spotty egg shells and dinosaur shaped footprints were discovered in the outside area. We also found a note from the cleaner, who had spotted a large creature running away from the classroom. We therefore used our English lessons to create some  'missing dinosaur' posters, just in case anyone in the school had spotted them. So far, there have been no dinosaur sightings.

During our computing lesson this week, we learnt about coding, by creating mazes for a robotic mouse. Each team gave the mouse precise instructions, so that they could reach the cheese via a series of tunnels and steps. There was some fantastic collaboration and team work throughout the lesson.

In Geography, Year 1 continued to learn about the countries of the UK. We learnt about the capital cities and sang a song to help us to remember the 4 countries. We have also been enjoying singing the 'Spring Chicken' song which linked with our learning about Easter and seasonal changes.

In maths, we have been comparing length and height. We made use of the school garden and found sticks and objects to make comparisons using mathematical language. 

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

From The Penhallow Team.

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Hello Everyone!

This week Penhallow have enjoyed a dinosaur themed music lesson, where they were able to use a range of percussion instruments to make different accompaniments to a song.

In Geography, we learnt about the location of the 4 countries of the British Isles and found out some of the key characteristics of these countries. 

In our science lesson this week, we learnt about which animals are herbivores, carnivores and omnivores. We looked at the different types of teeth that these animals have, and compared them with our own teeth. 

During our RE lesson, we found out about Palm Sunday, made some palm leaves and learnt a song with actions, which Year 1 taught to Reception.

Our English lessons this week, have been focused on Quentin Blake’s story of Mrs Armitage on Wheels. We really enjoyed the story and the characters. So far, we have labelled Mrs Armitage’s bike, and drawn a story map to explain what happened in the story.

We hope you enjoy your weekend!

From the Penhallow Team

Hello Everyone!

Penhallow have had a very eventful week.

Tuesday was shrove Tuesday/pancake day, so we learnt about the origins of pancake day. We then made our own pancakes and enjoyed eating them with a selection of toppings. Year 1 wrote instructions for how to make pancakes, while Reception sequenced pictures of how they were made. In the afternoon, as you can see from the picture, we enjoyed some pancake races, which then turned into designing our own obstacle race/pancake races.

World Book Day on Thursday was was a lot of fun. We spent some time with Landaviddy choosing books and reading together. We also learnt about 2 different authors; David McKee and Neil Gaiman. Both authors have written stories about animals. We read the story of Elmer, by David McKee, and talked about how sometimes we try to be like everybody else, instead of being happy with our differences. In the story, Elmer tries to camouflage himself. We finished the day with some time in the school garden, where we tried to camouflage objects, so that our friends couldn't find them. 

We hope you have a lovely weekend!

From the Penhallow Team

Hello Everyone!

We have really enjoyed our first week of our enquiry question; 'Can I travel by dinosaur?' 

In English we have learnt the story 'Gigantosaurus' by Jonny Duddle. We have been using adjectives to describe dinosaurs, using different verbs to explain how dinosaurs move, and using actions to retell the story as a group.

During our maths lessons, Reception have been learning about capacity, while Year 1 have been finding out more about place value. We have been using tens frames, bead strings and tens and ones to represent different 2 digit numbers.

Year 1 have been finding out about the countries and Capital cities in the UK, during their Geography lessons. This week, we focussed on London. Some children were keen to tell us all about trips to London that they have been on. We found out about some famous London landmarks and then located them on a map.

Reception have created a wonderful land for dinosaurs to explore, and they were inspired to add more details and to act out stories in this land, after reading 'Tom and the Dinosaurs' during our daily story time at the end of every day.

I look forward to seeing you next week at our Parent/Teacher meetings.

Have a lovely weekend!

From the Penhallow Team

Hello Everyone!

We have enjoyed a great final week of learning based around our enquiry question; ‘Why aren’t Space Ships made of jelly?’

In science, we have enjoyed investigating and sorting magnetic and non-magnetic materials. 

We have been developing our speaking and listening skills in our space rocket role play area, after listening to conversations held by astronauts and technicians at NASA. Using our weekly ‘I see, I think, I wonder’ activity, we have also discussed the surface of the moon.

In maths this week, reception have been comparing weight and mass, while Year 1 have been busy refining their place value skills,  by representing numbers in different ways. 

Our art topic finished with some amazing outside sculptures using different natural materials. We used the knowledge, ideas and techniques of Andy Goldsworthy that we have built up throughout this half term. The results were both amazing and unique. The children thoroughly enjoyed their time in the school garden, collaborating with each other to collect, sort and present the natural materials that they found. Well done everybody. It was lovely to see such brilliant collaboration and creativity. 

We hope you have a lovely half term.

From The Penhallow Team.

Hello Everyone,

We have enjoyed working with clay this week in Penhallow, as part of our learning about the artist and sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. We chose objects to make imprints into clay, and then used them to make patterns on finger pots that we had made. We are looking forward to finding out how they have dried next week, so that we can paint them.

During our English lessons we continued to use the text; ‘Field Trip to the Moon’ by John Hare to inspire our writing. Year 1 have written some superb recounts, all about their trip to the Moon, while Reception have been busy writing labels, captions and even some onomatopoeia words, after watching a clip of a rocket taking off. They thought of some fantastic vocabulary and used their knowledge of phonics to write their own words.

We have been enjoying our new rocket role play area, and have been busy writing space log books, painting different planets and preparing for journeys into space. We have also used different construction materials to make additions and inventions for the rocket. 

It is now the Chinese New Year, so this week, we have also learnt about the story of the great race, as well as finding out about some of the traditions involved in Chinese New Year. Reception have managed to write a list of some of the animals that were involved in the race.

Have a lovely weekend! 

From the Penhallow team.