Aspirations Day

On Tuesday we learnt about aspirations. We started the term with an assembly from Mrs Law. She taught us what it means to aspire. Then we headed back to class to discuss our Big Question ‘What is a good life?’ We decided that having a good life meant spending time with our friends and families, going on holidays and playing video games! To do lots of these things you need to have a job to earn money. We spoke about having a job that you enjoy and one that provides you with enough money to live the lifestyle you aspire to have is important. The children were told that they had three visitors coming into school to tell them about their jobs; a self-employed Makeup Artist who owns her own Salon; a biomedical scientist and a manager for a housing company who help people get back on their feet. The children learnt briefly what these job roles meant so that they could write questions for the speakers on question cards. The visitors came in and spoke about what their job roles are, how they got their jobs, some great achievements they’ve had and the skills/attributes they need to be good at their job. The children asked the visitors their questions. The makeup artists favourite question was ‘What makeup would you put on a Labrador?’

Later that morning the children wrote about what skills would make a person a good scientist/makeup artist/manager. The children also spoke about some job roles that they liked the sound of (electricians, refuse collectors and even black pudding makers) and discussed what skills they would need.

In the afternoon we had a circle time to discuss again our Big Question ‘What is a good life?’ This tie we had some focus questions e.g. Does having a good life mean that you are happy all of the time? What’s more important – money or happiness? Then we thought about our own aspirations and what sounded like a good life to us. Lots of the children thought that having a good life meant having a safe place to live, having food to eat and clean water to drink. Some of the children spoke about the lives they wished to lead when they are adults. Some children wanted to explore the world, one wanted to visit every beach in England and some wanted to have families of their own. The children then wrote down their aspirations on a golden star to put on a display in our classrooms.

 

Money Sense Day

Wednesday was a day jam packed with fun. We had music in the morning and P.E in the afternoon but on top of all of that it was Money Sense Day. We really focused on learning about the value of money. In the morning the children were told that instead of earning house points and superstar learner cards, they would earn ‘money’. They were given fake £1 coins throughout the morning for showing ‘The Chilton Way’. They were told that at the end of the morning they would pool their money together and use it to buy items for a class party. Whilst they were trying to earn their money, we spoke about the reality of managing money as an adult. We spoke about how much money an adult earning minimum wage takes home every month. The children thought this sounded like a lot of money and we discussed what they would buy with that money. Lots of children wanted to buy toys!

Then we looked at the things an adult needs to spend their money on e.g. a home, electricity, water, gas, mobile phone, internet, council tax, transport and food. The children were shocked by how much money needed to spent on the things we need. We then spoke about the things that an adult might save money towards e.g. holidays, home repairs or birthday/holiday presents. Then we spoke about the things that we want to spend our money on e.g. meals out, cinema trips, ice cream at the beach, new shoes, a car or a pet. The children worked out for themselves that there wasn’t enough money left to buy all of these things. They decided that it would be sensible to save some money towards holidays and home repairs and spend a little bit of money on things that would help us enjoy of lives. We spoke about whether things were ‘worth’ spending our money on. We then sorted words like air, phone, computer, boat and sweets into ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ categories. We had some interesting debates, for example, is a bike essential? If it is somebody’s way of getting to work then yes, they do need it. If it is just for fun then it is a ‘want’.

At the end of the morning we counted up how much money we had earnt. Both classes earnt roughly £100. The children had to decide how to spent their money. The options for entertainment were Netflix (£50 for the whole class to enjoy), Spotify (£20), karaoke (£100) or a bouncy castle (£500). We had some great discussions about what was worth spending our money on. We couldn’t afford a bouncy castle and the karaoke would have used up too much of our budget so we decided to pay for Netflix. Then we had decorations, crafts, food and drink to decide on. Team Indigo wanted cakes that cost £1 per person and they even wanted to buy enough for their teachers to have one. Team Royal chose biscuits instead of cake because they were much cheaper and then they had more money left to spend on crafts and balloons. Both classes decided that paying £30 for everybody to enjoy fresh lemonade was too expensive so they bought some blackcurrant squash for £2 a bottle instead.  Both classes voted very respectfully for their party items.

We had our class parties on Thursday afternoon and had a lovely time.

Liven up the Library

What a fun week we have had at Chilton! We also got to take part in a school wide competition to redesign the library. The winning design will decide how the library will be redecorated. Year one visited the library on Thursday afternoon to look at what is already in there. We then went back to our classrooms and looked and some inspirational library designs. We spoke about different ways we could change the library e.g. paint, furniture, rugs, themes, murals etc.. The children then designed their dream library. On Friday afternoon the children looked over their designs and then wrote a letter to Mrs Law telling her what is so fantastic about their designs and why she should pick theirs. We created some very cool designs.

 

Maths

This week in Maths, we have been learning to subtract using a hundred square.

This is really tricky but we have done really well.

 

Next week

In Maths… We will be learning to use hundred squares to add and subtract.

In RWI… we will be continuing to practise our sounds, use punctuation, practise our writing and learn the red words.

In Topic… We will start our new topic ‘Staying Alive’. On Monday we will be growing beans!

Love 2 Learn

Create your own 100 square. Use your rhymes to help you:

Challenge: Use your hundred square to answer these questions:
 

6 - 3 =

28 - 11 =

89 – 16 =

If you would like to, you could plant a seed. You will need a seed, a plant pot, some soil, some water and a sunny spot.

 

.Reminders… 

• Tuesday - 30 minutes of extra PE (wear uniform with trainers)
• PE is on Wednesdays. Please remember to wear PE kit and tie hair back. 
• Thursdays – Regular school uniform.
• On Monday 13^th June we will be going on a local walk as the introduction to our new topic ‘Staying Alive’ where we will be learning about plants including trees.

Have an amazing weekend and we look forward to seeing you next week!

Mrs Winchcombe, Miss Hall, Mr Allen and Miss Miles