7A Let's Go to the Movies- Week 1

Hello everyone!

What a funny old week it has been this week! We hope that all of you are keeping safe and well and that you’ve all had a good rest over the Christmas holidays.

Boris announced on Monday night that schools were to close so we have found ourselves with half of you in school and half of you at home. But that will not a problem for 7A! We will be in class working with those of you who are accessing school, and we will be seeing those of you who are at home via our weekly Teams calls and speaking to you on the phone too to see what you have been getting up to.

Mum and Dad’s of pupils who are accessing learning while at home, it would be wonderful if you could upload photos to Evidence for Learning or email me or Mrs Crouch with photos of things that you have been doing at home so that we can add these to our weekly blog.

On a more positive note, we have a new member of staff who has joined us in 7A. Mr Stokes has moved to be with 9G and we have got Miss Fraser who will be working with our class as a teaching assistant. Miss Fraser has heard all about all of you and she cannot wait to be able to meet you all properly. For those of you who have requested a weekly greeting video on Evidence for Learning, you will be able to see a short video from Ms Carter, Mrs Taylor and Miss Fraser too. We are very sure that Miss Fraser will fit in well in 7A.

So what have we been getting up to in school this week?

Our new theme for this term is Let’s Go to the Movies. On Tuesday when pupils came into school there was still a lot of snow around the school grounds and it was very icy too. We have a new Playdoh Gym that is movie themed that we all had a go at, and those of you who are at home can join in too as it is now on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBoGh9jMlDg Then we took part in a My Thinking and Problem Solving lesson. We started with a game of Numicon bingo which turned into 3 games as everyone enjoyed it so much! Owen G won each game, he is very lucky! Some of us found it very hard when we didn’t win so we talked about how it’s OK to be disappointed when we haven’t won but that we should say “well done” to our friend who has won, and that we might win next time. Then it was time for some group work, one group were matching Numicon shapes to the correct number and the other group were building number bonds to 10 using the Numicon shapes. Everyone worked really hard and even completed their challenges too!

In the afternoon we all did a My Creativity session which was all about music and the pulse/beat of a song. We listened carefully to You’ve Got a Friend in Me from Toy Story and the staff clapped along to the pulse of the song. We talked about the pulse being the heartbeat of the song and that it was a steady beat. We practiced clapping in time, this can be very tricky! Some of us needed some hand over hand help to get it just right but everyone tried really hard and had a go. We listened to another song from a film- Ghostbusters and had a go at tapping different parts of our body to the pulse of the song. Connor and Owen G came up to the front to model different ways we can keep to the pulse and the rest of the class copied what they were doing. Excellent work 7A! Because the weather has been so cold and icy, we haven’t been able to go on the climbing frame or use the bikes this week.

On Wednesday, we had another My Thinking and Problem session where some of us took part in a Kahoot quiz on the board. This was lots of fun, but we sometimes need to remember to take our time when we are choosing our answer as when we are excited, we sometimes rush and choose the wrong answer which means we get cross. We also played some pairs matching games where pupils had to count the objects on the card and match it to the correct Numicon shape. In the afternoon we did some My Community work where we were focusing on road safety and finding a safe place to cross the road. We looked at some information on the board about crossing safely and then split into small groups to complete some activities. Some of us looked at pictures of the different stages of crossing the road and put them in the correct order, while the rest of us looked at pictures of different scenarios concerning crossing the road and had to decide if they were safe or unsafe. Most of us said at the beginning of the session that we didn’t know much about crossing the road and that we would need lots of help with our work, but by the end of the session lots of us were able to complete our activity with minimal support! Super work!

On Thursday, Ms Carter led a My Communication lesson. We have decided to focus on the first Toy Story film so we started to watch it in class together. We watched up to the part where Andy’s toys meet Buzz Lightyear for the first time. Then we split into groups to complete our work. Some of us were using the Colourful Semantics layout to help us structure our sentence correctly, some of us were building and writing sentences and remembering to use a finger space in between words, and some of us were using Book Creator to build sentences about the pictures from the film using Colourful Semantics. Megan has been joining in with this activity from home too and Dad has uploaded some photos to Evidence for Learning so that we can all see Megan’s work- thanks Dad! Everyone worked really hard to complete their work, well done 7A! In the afternoon it was time for Me and My Body, and this week we had a Just Dance disco in class! Some of 7A absolutely LOVE Just Dance and pupils took it in turns to choose songs for everyone to dance to. Everyone tried really hard to copy the people on the screen. Jake was chief photographer and took photos of everyone before Ms Carter set him the challenge of using his iPad to edit and crop some of the photos he had taken so that they showed individual pupils rather than group shots.

Finally, today has been another busy day in class. My Communication again this morning where we continued to watch some more of the Toy Story film and repeated our activities from yesterday but with new pictures taken from the part of the film we watched today. Then Golden Time this afternoon gave everyone an opportunity to take a breath and calm down ready to go home.

Our Star of the Week in 7A this week is…

Owen R! Owen has been using the Proloquo2Go app on his iPad without support from a member of staff to choose what he would like for his lunch and at snack time too! Brilliant work, Owen!

What a hectic week! We hope you all have a lovely weekend and we will see those of you who are in school next Monday.

Any problems or any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact myself or Mrs Crouch via email and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

Mrs Fisher, Mrs Crouch, Ms Carter, Mrs Taylor and Miss Fraser