Friday 8 December 2017

Reading for pleasure




We have had great fun reading and sharing our favourite books over the last few weeks at our book club. This has helped the children understand the importance of reading for pleasure which has been a school focus this half term. Our Reading Champion who comes in to hear the children read each week also talked to the children about the importance of reading and why she loves it so much.



Friday 1 December 2017

Ho Ho Ho!

We had a very exciting start to the week when we arrived on Monday. There were snowy footprints on the carpet and the children noticed a letter. It was from Father Christmas! So the children did some wonderful writing and wrote letters back to him letting him know what they would like for Christmas. He told us he will see us at the Christmas Fayre!




Thursday 23 November 2017

Enchanted Woodland

Caterpillar class have been loving their latest topic of 'The Enchanted Woodland.' We had an afternoon outside helped to make a bug hotel for our new sensory garden with Tim the ranger who has been building the new garden. The children collected twigs, leaves, sticks, feathers and fir cones from the field and woodland areas and then pushed them carefully into the pallet structure. 


We have also had lots of fun designing and making enchanted story boxes in Design and Technology. The children were asked to try and include a moving part and some enchanted features in their design brief. They also used these to help them write some fantastic enchanted stories.






Friday 17 November 2017

Weekly News 17.11.17

This week we have been super star authors, writing our own stories set in an Enchanted Woodland! We have been using brilliant time adverbs and amazing adjectives to make our stories exciting.

In Maths we have been learning about doubling numbers, including working out how to double teen numbers. We have also started learning about subtraction. We used cubes to help us work out the answers but we had to remember to always start with the largest number first.

We were wowed by how brilliant our spellings were this week. We were amazing at remembering how to write the tricky words that we can’t sound out. We have sent home the next set of tricky words to practise at home, ready for next Friday 24th November.

We have also been busy becoming pop stars and recording a Christmas CD. We sang the songs that we have been practising in our class and assemblies, including a song in German.
If you would like to purchase a copy of the CD, they will be on sale at the Christmas Fayre, 1st December, 5-7pm.

Our shoebox project has now finished the planning and preparation stage so we will be starting to use our shoeboxes next week. We have taken influence from our brilliant story writing to create a story shoebox with characters, backgrounds and lots of other decorations. Please bring your shoebox in next week, ready for us to start using them if you have not yet brought one in..


Have a lovely weekend – the year 1 team. 

Friday 10 November 2017

Week Beginning 6th November

This week at school we have enjoyed listening to the story of ‘The Bog Baby’ which we then made a story map of.  This story has inspired us to create our own stories using a story mountain format, we have planned the characters, setting, beginning, middle and end.  Next week we will begin using the shoe boxes to create our story world and write up our final version of the story.

In maths this week we have been learning about odd and even numbers and sorting numbers to 100 into this pattern.  We have continued this learning to then count in 2’s and fill in missing numbers on a number line.  We learnt that you can say number 1 quietly and then 2 loudly, 3 quietly and then 4 loudly to help with this.

Thank you for your support with the children’s spellings – these will be checked in a very informal way during our daily phonic session.  The children are used to having to think of ways to spell and write words during these sessions.  The next sets of spellings we have sent home you will see are all tricky words and this is the way that we will continue for now.

We’ve begun practising the songs for our Christmas performances and so far these are going very well!  What a choir of angels we already have – hope you will agree as you will probably hear them practising at home.

We have sent home the next home learning – the first piece needs to be handed in by Wednesday 22nd November and we will return your child’s book by Friday 24th November.  The second piece will then be due by Wednesday 6th December.

Have a great Weekend – The Year 1 team. 

Friday 3 November 2017

Weekly News 3.11.17

We have had a fantastic week starting our Enchanted Woodland topic. On Monday we made title pages for our topic books and learnt to measure using balance scales in maths. The children then used the cookery room to make fairy cup cakes by using two eggs and measured out ingredients by balancing the flour, sugar and butter with the eggs.
On Tuesday it was our Enchanted Woodland WOW day which was a huge success. The children had so much fun and thank you all for providing some excellent costumes. Activities included wand making, magic potions, lolly stick fairies, fairy doors, dream catchers, stick crowns and the children decorated their cup cakes. Thank you also to the parents who came to help, we really appreciated the extra adults to allow so many activities.
In Science we have been learning about plants and trees. The children have been on a tree hunt outside and used a spotter sheet to identify trees using their leaves. We also learnt how to classify deciduous and evergreen trees. The children enjoyed watching some videos of Andy Goldsworthy making some art using leaves.
We have given out a spellings book to all of the children with 5 spellings to learn. These will go home each week for the children to practise and we will do a short spelling test on a Friday. Please make sure they keep their spelling books in their book bags so that they have them at school to practise and for us to stick the new spellings in each Friday. Please see the letter inside the cover with more information.


Reminder- Please can the children bring in a shoe box in next week which we will be using for a DT project.











Thursday 19 October 2017

What an exciting week we have had!

On Monday a box appeared in our classroom, it looked like a pet carrier but…something had nibbled its way out and gone missing! A letter told us that it was a pet that had come from the pet shop but it was a mystery creature that no one had ever seen before.
In English we made and wrote leaflets to help Mr. Jones, the pet shop owner, know all about this mystery creature and how to look after it. We considered the types of food it might eat, things it might want to play with and even thought of possible names.
In Maths we learnt about 3D shapes and had a go at describing their properties. We then used the shapes to construct houses for our mystery creature to keep it safe while we are looking after it for Mr. Jones.
In Science we were investigating in the outside area to see if our mystery creature would survive in the wild. We soon discovered that it was too brightly coloured and would not be camouflaged.
We were also very lucky to have a special visit from Eva Markestein, Joseph’s mummy. She told us all about her job as a vet and working with small animals. We had a brilliant time listening to the information and even got the chance to dress up as a vet, use a stethoscope and practise bandaging on a toy dog.

After half term our P.E days are temporarily changing.
Ladybirds and Caterpillars will be having their P.E sessions on a Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning.
Bumblebees will be having their P.E sessions on a Monday afternoon and Thursday morning.

We are also going to start focussing on spellings. Each week your child will bring home a short list of spellings, please can you practise at home as we will be having mini spelling tests the following week. A letter will be in the front of the children’s spelling books with further information.

Please save your shoeboxes!
After half term we are starting a new exciting topic. We will be starting a D.T project and every child will need a shoebox. Please save your shoeboxes over the next couple of weeks and bring them in after half term.
On Tuesday 31st we are having a WOW day to introduce our new topic officially. Our topic is Enchanted Woodlands so children are welcome to dress up as fairies, pixies, elves and other mystical woodland creatures. Please could we ask for a £1 donation from each child towards craft materials and cooking . Further reminders will follow.


Thank you for coming to parents evening this week. We enjoyed sharing your children’s wonderful learning with you.


 

Thursday 12 October 2017

We have had a great week in Year 1 learning about tigers as part of our ‘Paws, Claws and Whiskers Topic.’ We started the week by listening to ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea.’ The children helped to sequence the story on the carpet and then made their own zig zag books which include captions and sentences as well as excellent illustrations. They all worked really hard to colour them in too. Later in the week children worked in groups of 4 and helped retell the story by acting it out.

In Maths we have been learning one more and one less than a given number. First we practised counting forwards and backwards on a number line to help with fluency. Then they used number lines with missing numbers and later had a go at doing it in their heads.

In Geography we continued with the tiger theme learning where the big cats live and also labelled maps with the 7 continents. In Art the children drew and painted some lovely tiger faces.
We have also been busy with Daily Activities, which the children do independently. This has included designing a tin of tiger food in case the tiger comes for tea again!

We have stuck the children’s passwords for Education city and Bug Club in their green reading record books on the inside of the back cover.

Please could your child have a spare pair of socks in their PE bag for changing into – especially girls wearing tights.

Could we encourage you to not allow the children to have lots of keyrings attached to their school bags as we are experiencing some difficulties with them getting broken and lost.  Thank you for your support with this.



We wish you all a lovely weekend, 
From the Year 1 team

Wednesday 11 October 2017

Reading Cafe







We had great fun at our Reading Cafe listening to 'The Mixed up Chameleon'.

Tuesday 10 October 2017

Tiger Who Came to Tea

This week we have been learning about tigers as part of our 'Paws, Claws and Whiskers' topic. We have enjoyed listening the 'Tiger Who Came to Tea' and we have learnt where the big cats live in the world.

Sunday 1 October 2017

Welcome to our new blog...

Welcome to our new blog...

We're the Hungry Caterpillars and we are hungry to learn!