Lots and lots of listening!

Year 1
Welcome back!
This week we have been looking at the poem There's Something in the Garden Shed which is about a sly monster hiding in the garden shed. We listened to it being read then joined in using clear voices. On Monday we had some fun added actions to each part of the poem.

Here are two children in 1A acting out their favourite verse.

Year 2
Our theme this half term is Tropical Rainforests. We began our week looking at and listening to the sounds of the rainforest.
We gathered a range of descriptive vocabulary then we used them to create a class poem. This will enable us to write our own poem later in the week.
Here are 2F's ideas.

Here is 2S's poem.

After listening to the rainforest sounds 2D  worked together as a class to write the first verse of a poem. Once we had a verse we went away and wrote our own version of the poem.

 Danny 2D

Scott 2D

Check back next week for more examples of our hard work.

Cooking for Colin

Year 1

This week in Literacy we had our first go at hot seating. We worked in pairs to take on the role of Colin (the hungry caterpillar) and an interviewer. We took on the role of Colin the give us ideas of how he was feeling once he had eaten a gigantic amount of food in preparation for our diary writing next week. 
To show that we were Colin we made our physicality really fat and we tried to look as queasy as we could.

Children in 1M

On Friday we learnt some grammar rules to help us improve our writing. Here is Julia's work on possessive apostrophes. She was able to identify the proper noun and add the apostrophe to show possession. 

Julia 1A

Year 2

This week Year 2 have been looking at instructions and recipes. On Thursday 2S wrote a recipe for a huge, rude monster…

Nisa 2S

The monster’s soup contained a range of ingredients such as massive bats, horrible, hard and old marshmallows!

As well as using descriptive ingredients, 2S also had to remember to use imperative verbs and adverbs.

Finan 2F

Finan has used time connectives and the imperative verb in his work. To make his delicious recipe even more detailed he now needs to add adverbs to describe the imperative verb.

Look Out! Witch!

Year 1
On Wednesday we watched a short video about a stalk called Peck who worked for Gus. Gus would create various animal babies out of clouds and magic then Peck would deliver them to their families. However, Peck did not enjoy his job as it often meant delivering dangerous animals. We pretended to be Peck writing a letter of resignation explaining to Gus that we have had enough!
Here is Jessica's letter:

On Thursday we went on our trip to The Look Out Discovery Center. We had a wonderful day filled with hands on science fun. There were five 'zones' to explore but majority favored the Build It Zone.

 Children in 1A experimenting with the digger!

 Child in 1A building a wall.

 Child in 1A calling the construction company for more bricks. 

 Boys from 1M hitting the bottom of plastic tubes creating music.

Child in 1M making ripples in water by creating a vibration.

Year 2

WANTED!

2F have been practicing writing through their theme topic of witches and wizards.

Please help! The crazy witch Andy is on the loose creating chaos in town! 2F have created wanted posters to help catch this wizard. Senuth in 2F has described some of Andy the witches' tricks such as turning all the buses in town pink, hiding all the tasty food and covering every single car in zebra print.

Senuth has used a range of different adjectives and an exclamation mark to add emphasis to the word wanted. To develop his work further he must continue to green pen edit checking over his spelling. 

Please comment on our blog and let us know what we are doing. Thank you!

Wiggly worms and healthy bodies

Year 1
Last week we explored What the Ladybird Heard by Julia Donaldson through a variety of drama and retelling activities. This week we hugged the text by using it as a model to write our own version- What the Wiggly Worm Heard.

Here is Luke's fantastic story. We wrote the opening and build up on Wednesday then completed the problem, resolution and ending on Thursday. 

Luke 1A

Here is another examples of our stories. Iria has written her  the resolution and ending then edited it to make it even better.

Iria 1M

Year 2

In Science, we are looking at how we stay healthy.

This week we looked at how exercise effects our body. We carried out an experiment by exercising for a length of time and then recorded how our bodies changed as a result.

Oliver 2S

What a busy, exciting week!

Year 1
It has been such an exciting week at The Grove Academy! We have had international week across the school and it was also World Book Day on Thursday.

In 1D we have been learning all about Barbados where Miss Devonish is from! As part of international week we found out about the food, culture, weather and things to do on the island. When we were learning about Barbados we were discussing why it needs to have a capital letter when written...

Child from 1D

1A wrote their own stories based on the characters that they came dressed as for World Book Day. Here are a few of us reading them on the carpet.

Can you tell who we are?

Year 2

Egypt was Year 2’s focus country for International Week this year.  We learnt about how the Ancient Egyptian Kings and Queens lived. An important part of Ancient Egyptian life was taking care of animals. Cats were revered by the Ancient Egyptians and many Egyptian kings or pharaohs kept cats as trusty pets.

2F have written poems about an imaginary pharaoh and his cat using videos and pictures for inspiration.

Lilly’s poem:

The pharaoh’s cat is as red as apples.

The pharaoh’s cat is as beautiful as a labrador.

The pharaoh’s cat is as fast as a relay.

The pharaohs cat has golden jewels.

Keisha 2S

In aid of International Week, 2D have been lucky enough to have vistiors come in and speak their native language. On Monday Mrs Hamadouche came in to teach us how to speak Berber and French. Here is a video of us learning numbers 1 – 10 in French.

On an additional note:

Congratulations to Amy, Ashwin, Sophia-Mai and Finan in Year 2, who came first in the Challenge Cup competition for art. They beat 6 other schools to win the prize.

The children had to design a sister for the popular Julia Donaldson character  "the Gruffalo," as well as create a scene for her to explore.

"We made the spikes on her back pink because that's her favourite colour" Finan 

"Our backdrop is a forest at night becasue she likes to sneak out at night time." Amy

"I used a box to make the tree so that it would be 3D" Ashwin

"I used this rough paper for the bark because it feels bumpy just like a real tree." Sophia-Mai

The judges praised the children's creative artwork and the fact that they could give reasons why they chose particular materials. 

Thank you for looking at our blog! Any comments please leave them below!

I have 6 legs. Can you guess what I am?

Year 1

This week in Year 1 we have been looking at a variety of minibeasts as inspiration for our acrostic poems. On Tuesday we generated lots of ambitious vocabulary and similes to use in our writing.

Children in 1A describing a butterfly

'His wings are orange like the sunset.' Julia 1D


Traveling ladybirds zoom through the plants as fast as a dragonfly.' Careis 1D

We then wrote our own poems, following the acrostic structure we had learnt, so the first letter of each verse spelt 'INSECT'.

Daisy 1D

Year 2

This week in Year 2 we have been learning to write riddles. We went outside to find an object that we found interesting but we couldn't show anyone else.

I wiggle like a worm.

In the tree I am hard to see.

I am green, brown and black.

Yuck! I taste like dirt.

People use me to make pictures and I am small.

What am I?

-Alfie 2D

Alexis 2S

 Can you guess the answer to these riddles?

2F have been practicing their grammar skills outside this week. Using the playground they acted out a range of verbs and added their own adverbs to describe the actions. Here is one group displaying the verbs jump and their chosen adverb was gleefully. The second verb was crouch and they decided that the adverb sneakily was a good match for this verb.

Children in 2F

Thank you for reading! We look forward to your comments. Check back next week for some World Book Day antics.

Story Telling Week

This week across the whole school we have been celebrating story telling! Year 1's Literacy has been centred around Roahl Dahl, looking at a variety of his wonderful work. We are primarily focusing on George's Marvellous Medicine and have been acting as both George and his rather moody Grandma! We have explored this by 'hot-seating' characters and then interviewing them. This was really exciting and we all had a lot of fun acting as different characters.

Children in 1M

On Monday we were all treated to a storyteller visiting the school and we listened to wonderful story Atlas and Hercules. After this we have been discussing the qualities of a good reader and as a result we identified that you must varying expression and voice whilst reading to help portray character emotions.

Here are some photos of us listening to the story teller and joining in-

These are some of our responses-

"I felt a bit sorry for Atlas having to hold up the sky"- Kalem 1A

"I really liked the sound of the 100 heads dragon, that would be scary!" - Zeba 1A


"The King asked Hercules to get three golden apples"- Swayde 1D


"There was a dragon flying and everyone was laughing"- Ife 1D

"It was really funny! I laughed"- Hasim 2F

"My favourite part was the story about the insects. It was a story we could join in with"- Preston 2F


"I thought it was great that we got to learn a new story"- Ewan 2D


"He was really easy to listen to"- Wesley 2D


Have a lovely half term!