Welcome to Chestnut Class!

We are a happy class of 30 Year 1 and Year 2 children.

Class Teachers

Chesnut Class is now taught by Mrs Giomarelli.  She will also teach the Year 1's for maths, and the Year 2s are taught by either Mrs Evans or Mrs Ginty with the other Year 2s.

Teaching Assistants

We also have other amazing adults in our class who help us. Mrs Eastwood and Miss Pickles are in our class most of the time and Miss White joins us in the afternoons. 

Other Useful Information

Our P.E Days

Wednesday: Outdoor P.E 

Friday: Indoor P.E 

Don't forget to come to school in full P.E uniform on these days.  Have a look at the Uniform Policy if you are unsure.

Topic Homework

Each half term, you will receive a topic homework sheet which links with the topic in school. On it you will find lots of fun activities that your child can do. We recommended that your child completes some of their chosen activities and each completed activity is rewarded with house points.  These homework grids will be sent home but are also available on our website in the 'Children' section.

Weekly Homework

Lots of our weekly homework will need to be completed online. We will support children who are unable to access this at home. Your child will have a copy of their login details in the front of their reading diary. Over the first few weeks of term, we will teach your children how to login and direct them to the correct homework for the week. If you are unsure about any of these, please pop in for a chat.

• Spelling Shed Spelling Shed - Spelling Shed - Spelling made awesome!
• Sum Dog to support maths Sumdog
• TT Rockstars (Year 2) Times Tables Rock Stars: Play (ttrockstars.com)
• Numbots (Maths Year 1 and 2) NumBots | Motivational maths practice for schools and families.

Homework will be set from Week 2 onwards.

Reading

Please support your child by helping them to bring their reading book and diary every single day. All children will have a yellow reading bookmark, which gives examples of questions you could ask whilst your child is reading. This encourages them to gain confidence with comprehension and retrieval.

Your child will also have a 'Reading Trail' in the back of their diary. Certificates and rewards are given for completed reading trails. Please have a go at the different challenges. The local libraries have lots of books which your child can borrow for free and they often hold their own reading challenges for children as well. We also have lots of lovely books in school which your child is welcome to borrow.

Every time your child reads at home they will be awarded with raffle tickets and entered into our weekly raffle prize draw!

• Bug Club to support reading         ActiveLearn: Login (activelearnprimary.co.uk)

Spring Term 2

This term we will continue to find out more about explorers and find out what a human needs to survive.

Have a try at some of our topic homework activities....

Science Day In Chesnut Class

World Book Day

We had a fantastic time this Thursday as we celebrated World Book day.  We all had some fantastic costumes and really enjoyed Mrs Potatoe Head leading our assembly.  We also had a visit from one of our governors who read us an exciting story -Jumanji, complete with sound effects and Mrs Holt came to entertain us with her reading of Mr Bump.  Mrs Giomarelli shared one of her favourite stories from her childhood- Bramley Hedge- A Spring Story, and we designed our own Bramley Hedge house.  We had a competition to design the best house and our three winners won a bar of chocolate!! Well done, Matilda, Austin and Ralphie.  

Strange Animals in the Woodland

This week we got a phone call from the Woodland Ranger asking for our help.  He had spotted some animals in our woodland area who shouldn't be there.  So we went down to explore.  We found lots of unhappy animals that were not used to our climate.  We took photos and reported back to the Ranger.  He sent us an information book to help us find out more about them. 

Outdoor Learning- SURVIVAL

Our new topic this term is 'Survival' so as part of our learning journey we went into the woodland to practice some essential skills to keep us safe in the forest.  Inspired by Hansel in the story 'Hansel and Gretal' we discussed ways to 'track' our paths in the forest so we didn't get lost.  The children decided they could mark their way using flour, sticks or bits of cloth.  We decided  not to use the bird seed as we thought it might get eaten.  

We split into 2 teams and got camouflaged using face paints so we could hide in the woods. One team stayed at base camp playing some team building games and the other went off to leave a trail and hide.  Then we switched. We had great fun!

We finished the afternoon with a well deserved hot chocolate and biscuit!!

Number Day

We had a fantastic time on number day -dancing and counting with Jack Hartman, playing number games together and being part of the number trail.  The weather was awful so we couldn't do our number hunt- but watch this space!

Aliens in Chesnut Class!!!

What an exciting term we have had - we began the year with an alien invasion- our classroom had been covered in slime and video footage showed a strange spacecraft zooming around our playground!

We think the aliens crept onto to Spaceman Bob's rocket ship when he wasn't looking! We have a great space themed role play and have loved learning about Neil Armstrong and finding space facts in our topic books.

Spring Term 1

Welcome back!! 

We hope you have all had a lovely break and are well rested.  We have a very exciting term ahead of us.  Our theme is Explorers and to get you in the mood for learning have a look at our new homework grid.  We cant wait to see what you can achieve!

AUTUMN TERM 2

Key Stage 1 Christmas Party!!!

We had a wonderful time at our Christmas party! We played games in the hall- Corners, Pass the Parcel and Musical bumps and of course, lots of dancing! We then enjoyed the winter sunshine and what was left of the snow.  We built up quite a appetite after all that fun so enjoyed snacks in the hall with all our friends.  When we finally returned to our classrooms we found that Dougie had been left a message from Santa and a large sack!!  He had sent Mrs Giomarelli an email and when we opened it we saw that Santa had flown over our yard and left us some early presents to say thank you for all our hard work this term!!

Happy Christmas everyone!!

The Moonshine Theatre Company

Outdoor Learning 10.11.22

Working in pairs, we gathered autumnal leaves to which we added a little glitter and water to create decorative globes. We loved watching the leaves and glitter swirling around.

Our next challenge required us to locate a number of stations hidden around our woodland area. Our fantastic teams then utilised their sense of smell to identify the mystery ingredients of the potions. These included rose, lavender, lemon and a Chestnut class favourite, peppermint.

FORAGING FUN!

Today, we watched a video of fireworks in the sky. We used our senses to describe the sounds, sights and smells as they zoomed into the sky! Then we made a list of words that we used to describe them. We had to try to remember the words for our activity outside.

The best part of the afternoon was next... chocolate! We thought about the shapes of fireworks and then we got the chance to make our own sparklers with chocolate fingers dipped in syrup and sprinkles. Here we are eating them. Delicious!

Next, we went out into the forest to forage for anything that we could use to make a bonfire picture. Colourful leaves were our favourite but we also collected twigs and berries. Luckily, autumn is such a colourful season, so we had lots to choose from.

Finally, we got into groups and created our pictures. Some of us included a bonfire whilst others chose just fireworks bursting in the sky. All the words that we had remembered from the start of the lesson were added in white chalk finished our pictures off nicely. What do you think of our artwork?

AUTUMN TERM

What a fantastic start to the year! All the children settled into their new class with ease and have already had lots of fun.

Outdoor Learning 19.10.22

Today we rose to the challenge of collecting a variety of natural objects to match our colour cards. We found a plethora of lovely things which we then used to create wristbands. We followed this by having a wonderful time playing in the long grass before having a go at the traditional game of bobbing for apples.

Outdoor Learning 14.10.22

First we listened to the story of the 'Leaf Man' by Lois Ehlert. Then Mrs. Eastwood talked to us about why trees shed their leaves in Autumn and we shared ideas for creating our own leaf animals or people. Outside, it was a beautiful Autumn morning and we spotted mushrooms, apples, autumn leaves and many more lovely things. We tried very hard to create our characters despite the wind which kept blowing away all the natural materials we had collected! We had lots of fun and Mrs. Eastwood was really impressed with our leaf characters.

Bog Baby

We received a phone call last week from Spiderman who had picked up a strange-looking blue object on his satellite. Chestnut Class were on the case! We went searching for the mystery object and finally found it hidden in the undergrowth. What we found will amaze you! Have a look at the photos...