We will be taking a journey back to the times of Florence Nightingale and Marie Curie. We will explore the significant impact that Florence Nightingale had on modern nursing. Many of her theories around good hygiene and simple hand washing couldn’t be more relevant today! Above all, we want to capture the incredible will of these women to help and support others in need and learn how we can apply their compassion, determination and resilience to the challenges we face with modern day life.

Week 1

We have had a busy week in Dolphins class! We have started our new question and discovered that the Lady with the lamp is called Florence Nightingale.

In Maths, we started looking at measurement. We now all understand the meaning of taller/smaller, longer/shorter and we looked at comparing objects. We also as a class, worked out who was the tallest and smallest in the class and then let the children organise themselves by height. We also measured how tall we were, using our height chart outside the classroom.

In English, we started our new Talk for Writing story. We are looking at a warning story this term. We completed our cold task on why we should not open the basket that was on Miss McGraths table. We were very impressed with the stories that Dolphins wrote. We read our story about Jack and Ellie and we learned what warnings are and discussed them as a class before acting out this story.

In science, we have started to look at the human body. We looked at labelling the different body parts with chalk out in the playground. 

In history, we looked at Florence Nightingale. We discussed Florence Nightingale and the amazing work she did. We then created a timeline of her life including all of her important milestones.

Take a look at some photos of our week below!

Week 2

Another busy this week in Dolphin class! We had some AMAZING outfits for World Book Day as you will see below. 

In English, we started to innovate our warning text.  We also started looking at using suffixes in our writing.  We looked at emotions and how the different parts of the text made us feel.

In maths, we are continuing to look at measurement. We have learned to use rulers to help us measure different items. We have been measuring in centimetres using our rulers.

In history, we looked at the conditions of the hospital before Florence Nightingale started working in them.  We discussed how in those days the hospitals were very basic and that soldiers did not receive good food and medicine to help them get better. We also discussed how Florence cleaned the wards, set up a hospital kitchen and how she provided the soldiers with quality care. As a result of these improvements, soldiers health improved and their was less disease spreading in the hospital.

In science, we continued to look at the body. We used our senses to investigate the different parts of the body.  We used a microscope and wrote about what we could see. We used some super adjectives to describe what we could see under the microscopes! We also used our height chart outside again to record our height in our book along with our eye colour.

Week 3

This week in English we have been drawing the different parts of our warning stories in preparation for our hot task on Friday. We have also been working really hard on re-reading our work and using our green pens to spot and fix our mistakes.

In maths, we have been continuing to look at measurement. We had a lot of fun this week in maths using the scales! We continued to look at finding which objects were lighter, heavier and balanced before using cubes to weigh different objects in the classroom.

In science, we have been looking at the senses and the importance of each sense. We looked at different scenarios and what senses we use for things like catching a ball, reading a book and eating food.

In history, we are continuing to learn and look at Florence Nightingale. We have been exploring the changes that Florence introduced into the hospitals and how her changes improved the soldiers health.

In art, we have used our art skills from the previous week and drawn a portrait of Florence Nightingale. We used water colour paints to paint our portraits of Florence Nightingale.

Take a look at our learning in the pictures below.

Week 4

Another busy week in year 1 we had two guest visitors in school this week, both discussed their jobs and inspired the children. The children prepared questions for the nurse who visited our class room. They told her about conditions in hospitals before Florence Nightingale became a nurse. They asked very important questions and got super amazing answers. We also had an explorer called James Ketchell come and talk to about his amazing adventures. Dolphins were so inspired after this talk, that they all wrote letters to James telling him what adventures they were going to go on! We also watched a live lesson for science week on minibeasts. We then used bug pots throughout the week to catch some mini beasts of our own. We then would show each other the mini beasts we caught and we would discuss them before realising them back into their habitats. We also dressed up in blue and yellow clothes to show support to the Ukraine. We also had some rainbow girls wear their uniforms to school on St. Patrick's Day! I told Dolphins why Irish people celebrate this day and why it is important to them. We watched a video of how other countries celebrate St. Patricks Day by turning their famous monuments green for the day!

In English, we continued working on sentences and making sure we are using capital letters, finger spaces and full stops. We also worked on editing this week in our books. We have started to use green pens in our books to show we have re-read our work and spotted our mistakes. We all know that is it is okay to make mistakes in our work but it is even better if we can spot and fix our own mistakes!

In maths, we started to look at volume and capacity. We had some super fun lessons this week in maths with filling cups and jugs with different liquids to show the different volume of each cup/jug.

In history and ICT, we made fact files on Marie Curie. In history we wrote out the facts we would like to include in our files. In ICT, we used the chrome books to create fact files on Marie Curie using purplemash. The children loved using the chrome books and typing up their fact files so a huge thank you to the PTA for organising the chrome books for the school.

Week 5

Wow what another fantastic week in year 1! We had a radiologist come and talk to us and show us x-rays on a x- ray machine. He spoke to the children about his job and how he became a radiologist and answered the children's questions. 

In English, we read the book 'The day the crayons quit'. We wrote sentences about how the crayons were feeling and why they were feeling this way. We used a range of conjunctions and adjectives in our writing.

In maths, we have continued learning about measurement. We have just started looking at comparing in measurement. The children are really enjoying this maths topic.

In D&T this week, we started to look at sliders and levers. We used our cutting skills to cut around a rabbit, a hat and a car. We used our gluing skills to stick our cars and rabbits on to lolly pop sticks. We really enjoyed this lesson and are excited to make our Florence Nightingale slider!

This week we also made vegetable skeletons! The children really enjoyed this activity! We used peppers, mushrooms, carrots, brocolli and hummus. Dolphins decided to be adventurous and try any vegetables that were new to them. Lots of us tried mushrooms for the first time and for some of us it was a hit and for others they were not a fan! We got our leftover vegetables and hummus and went outside under the big tree for a picnic and a story. The children really enjoyed this and because of the super weather, we have been going outside and sitting under a tree for story time at the end of the day. 

Parents it was also lovely to see you all and chat to you on Friday!

Week 6

In DT, we drew and painted our background to our slider and levers. We then drew Marie Curie for our slider. Take a look below for how they turned out!

We looked at daffodils and tulips and drew some of our own!!

We also did some writing which is on the windows in our classroom. Our topic wall was also complete. 

We finished the term with an Easter egg hunt and we also got to enjoy our class treat. We watched the movie 'Inside Out' and ate some popcorn!