Weekly News 27.9.19

We began the week by designing and describing a chocolate / sweety land. The children worked collaboratively, in their colour groups, to draw a land using colouring pens, pencils and oil pastels. Each child then wrote their own label using adjectives to describe different parts, for example; 'likable house', 'yummy flowers', 'spotty moon'.

Later in the week, the children found a letter from Grendel (the character of our story) In the story Grendel had 3 wishes and one of them was to turn everything he touched into chocolate. However, Grendel has realised his mistake now that his Mum is chocolate! In his letter he asked for the children's help. They wrote some amazing letters back to him with some super advice. We are eagerly awaiting his reply.

In Maths we have been learning about one more and one less than a given number. Some children were able to explain this with numbers up to 100! We also consolidated one-to-one counting of objects.

Our foundation subject challenge this week has been a Science challenge. We have learnt about the 5 senses and which part of the body they are associated with. In the investigation area the children found smelly pots, feely tubs, interesting pictures and headphones.

This week, we have also set up weekly challenges. Every week the children will now have 5 challenges to complete (including the one linked to a foundation subject).  If, by the end of the week, they have completed all 5 they will achieve 2 house points.

Thank you for using the word bags that we put out in the morning, and we are seeing lots of super comments in reading records. We have now set-up Bug Club which is a great online resource that your children can log onto at home (tablets and computers). The information about how to access this can be found in the previous blog post.

Have a lovely weekend!

Education City and Bug Club

All the children now have usernames and passwords for Education City and Bug Club. 
These are excellent resources that the school subscribes to, which you can use with your child at home. 

Education City     www.educationcity.com
Bug Club             www.activelearnprimary.co.uk

Education City passwords will be sent home in the children's book bags tonight.  Bug Club user details are as follows:

Username - 1st four characters of the child's first and surnames, e.g. Robert Smith would be robesmit
Password - Caterpillars19 or Ladybirds19 (depending on which class they are in)
School code - 99kq

If you have any problems accessing these, please speak to your child's class teacher or the school office.

Thank you.

Weekly News 20.9.19

What a busy and fun week we have had!

We have been reading more of our Power of Reading book - 'Grendel - A cautionary tale of chocolate'. We found out the Grendel loves his Mum, his dog, but most of all chocolate! The children wrote about the things that they love and drew pictures to illustrate. Later in the week Grendel was granted 3 wishes. We wrote a wish, discussed our reasons for choosing it and some children even discussed what the consequences of their wish could be.

In Maths, we have consolidated our understanding of representing numbers in different ways. The children wrote the numeral, drew a representation, counted out objects, showed it using Numicon, made it with play dough, etc. We have also been practising counting forwards and backwards from any number. Please continue to practise counting with your children at home.

This week, we have introduced our weekly challenges. Every week we will have at least one challenge linked to the foundation subjects (science, art, geography, etc.). The children complete these independently at some point during the week. This week the challenge was to label the parts of the human body. A

ll the children have a peg on the wall with their name on where their work gets put once completed.

We went on a phonics hunt to consolidate some of our sounds (or, ow, oi, igh and oa). The children enjoyed applying their segmenting and blending skills to read the words.

Notices:
- Remember home learning will be coming home today. You will see a note on the home learning about spellings. We will not be starting these until after half term. However, just to let you know in advance, we will be putting the four spellings for the week on our blog (every Friday) so please do remember to look.
- Knowledge organiser. You will see a knowledge organiser attached to the home learning. This includes some keys facts about our topic that we would like the children to learn. Please discuss these with your children.

Weekly News w/c 09.09.19

We survived our first full week in Year 1 and have done some brilliant learning.

Our Chocolate Wow Day to launch our new topic was a big success.  We began the day by watching a video about where chocolate comes from and how it is made.  Throughout the day, the children accessed various activities including making their own chocolate lolly, estimating how many M&Ms were in a jar and designing our own chocolate bars. We ended the day by sampling some different types of chocolate.  Caterpillars liked the caramel one best, however Ladybirds preferred the white chocolate!

In Maths, we have been practising sorting and counting objects and writing labels to show how many there are.  We also looked at how to represent number using Numicon and made number lines to 10,  We also learnt how to make teen numbers, remembering that the 1 always goes first and that the 1 is worth ten!

In English, we have introduced our Power of Reading book, Grendel, a Cautionary Tale of Chocolate.  We thought about some initial questions such as, "who is he?"  "what does he like doing" and some children also used adjectives to describe him.

In Continuous Provision, the children have enjoyed using the chocolate Play-Doh in our new chocolate factory role play area and also the mud kitchen has been open for the first time.

Notices

We have started to send home Reading Rhino and Maths Monkey.  These will come home every Friday with one child in each class.  When it is your child's turn, please do a maths activity (counting, shape hunting etc) or read a book.  You could record this with a photo, a bit of writing or a drawing in the book provided.  These need to be returned to school on the following Monday.

Next Friday, Home Learning books will be sent home.  There will be a Home Learning sheet with a number of activities and instructions on how to complete.  These are intended to be fun activities for you to do with your children.

Have a lovely weekend,
From the Year 1 Team

Welcome to Year 1

We have had a great start to life in Year 1.

One Wednesday, we explored the base and found out about the different areas and activities that are available to us, such as woodwork, small world, role play, a reading tent, craft area, iPad corner, investigation area and funky fingers.

These are some of our highlights this week...

The reading tent has been a big hit as the children enjoyed cosying up outside with a book.

There has been lots of interest in the woodwork area as the children have enjoyed constructing with the saws and hammers.  If you have any small off-cuts of wood that we could use here, they would be much appreciated.  Thanks.

We have been very impressed with the children's problem solving skills when they have been playing with the pipes and guttering to transport the balls.  It was lovely to see them working together collaboratively to find the best ways of doing things.

We have also enjoyed learning about the human body in our science investigation area.

It has been lovely to hear about some of the things the children got up to during the summer as they shared their memory bags.  If they have not brought their bag in, please could they do this Monday so that they will be able to share their memories.

We have been very impressed with the children's behaviour and enthusiasm this week and look forward to lots more learning and having fun!

Notes

• Our PE lessons will be Tuesday and Wednesday.  Please ensure that your child brings in their PE kit ready for this if they have not already done so.
• From Monday, we will be putting a trolley of word bags by the Year 1 entrance.  You may continue to access these as you did in Reception as your child learns the new words.  We will explain how this works to our new parents.
• We have been hearing the children read this week and have started sending them home with new reading records and books.  Please try to hear your child read - little and often - ideally daily if possible.  It would also help us if you could add your comments each week to let us know how they are getting on with their reading at home.
• If any parents would like to help out in Year 1 on a regular basis or with one-off events, please let the team know how you can help us.
• Finally, on Monday, we will be sending home a note about the 'Chocolate WOW Day' we will be having to launch our new topic.

Have a lovely weekend,

The Year 1 Team