Friday 13 December 2019

Weekly News 13th Dec


We are so proud of all of our Year 1 children this week. What an amazing show they put on for us all! We do hope you enjoyed it as much as we and they did. Not surprisingly we have some very sleepy children today.

This week we also enjoyed our Christmas lunch. It was very yummy and made us feel lovely and festive.




Even though we have had a super busy week we have still managed to fit in some other learning.

In Maths we have been continuing to learn about Subtraction / Taking-Away up to 20. This week we used objects to work out the answer. Some children worked out the answers in their head by counting backwards.

In RE this week, we learnt about the Christmas Story and next week, we are going to write our own story books about it. We are working hard to remember to use capital letters, finger spaces and full stops in our sentences.

We have also been doing a Phonics check with the children to see if they can apply their knowledge of phase 2-5 sounds in their reading.  We have been very impressed at their enthusiasm and how well they have been able to sound out and blend a variety of real and alien words.

The children all look amazingly festive today in their Christmas jumpers and as a school, we will have raised lots of money for Save the Children.  Thank you for your generosity.

Thank you also for all your support with our Christmas Fayre and Christmas Show over the last week.

Have a restful weekend and we wish you all a wonderful Christmas holiday (when it arrives!)
Year 1 Team

Notices:
  • Last week we put some spellings on the blog but it did not upload properly until Monday. As a result, we did not do a spelling test this week. We will do this at the beginning of next week instead to give you extra time to practise. They words to learn were: we, so, there, what.
  • Please can we have all word bags back on Monday so that we can sort through them over the holidays. We will pop the trolley out on Monday morning for you to replace them. Thank you. 

Monday 9 December 2019

Weekly News w/c 02.12.19

What a magical start to the week! 

On Monday, the children came into class to discover Father Christmas’ footprints and a letter! In his letter he told us about how busy he is at the moment, how he is excited to deliver presents, and how he will be coming to our Christmas Fayre. He also wanted to know if the children had been kind, trying their best and what presents they would like for Christmas. The children wrote some great letters back to him using ‘because’ to explain why they wanted something. Some children included a question for Father Christmas.




In Maths this week, we have started learning about Subtraction. We discussed how when we subtract, or take-away, the number/amount gets smaller. We solved subtraction number sentences by splatting snowballs! For example, 10 – 4 = ? meant that the children made 10 snowballs, splatted 4 and counted how many were left to find the answer (6!).





Our challenges this week are Christmas-themed. The children are making paper chains showing number bonds to 10, completing Christmas word searches, making stockings and building Santa’s sleigh.



As you can imagine we have been super busy practising for our Christmas show ‘Countdown to Christmas’. This week we have been using our costumes, props, lighting and microphones! The children are very excited to show you this next week.

Notices:
  • Spellings for next week are: we, so, there, what
  • We will shortly be sending home a little spelling report to let you know how your child has got on with their spellings this half term and any words that may need further practice.

Friday 29 November 2019

Weekly News w/c 25.11.19

In English this week, we wrote sentences to say what we have enjoyed doing this term.  We used the word 'because' to explain why we liked what we had chosen.  Here are some of the things we said:


  • I enjoyed the Reading Cafe because it was with Mum.   - Esme
  • I enjoyed making truffles because they were tasty.   - Isla
  • I enjoyed making chocolate lollies because you could take them home.   - Matthew
  • I liked chocolate Wow day because we tasted chocolate.   Ronnie M

In maths, we used a variety of resources, including Numicon, counters, number lines and our fingers, to find the missing number on part-whole models.  


We also practised our adding by doing an addition colour by numbers as one of our weekly challenges.



In Phonics, we have started learning the split digraphs, i_e and o_e.  We have practised using these using phoneme cubes and by playing games such as Buried Treasure, where we read and sort a mixture of real and alien words.



Reminder
  • Please remember to send your child's costume for the Christmas show in a named carrier bag on Monday, if you haven't done so already.

Spellings
  • This week's words are:  no,  her,  some,  one
Thank you and have a lovely weekend.
The Year 1 Team

Friday 22 November 2019

Weekly News - w/c 18.11.19

We have had so many visitors this week to help us with our learning!

This week in English, we wrote questions that we would like to ask John Cadbury, the founder of the Cadbury chocolate company.  Our questions included:

  • When were you born?
  • When did you start the chocolate factory?
  • How long have you been making chocolate?
  • How do you make chocolate bars?  
On Thursday, we had a visit from John Cadbury (thank you Ian for acting the part).  We asked him some of our questions and learnt about his life and how the Cadbury chocolate company started.  After that, we wrote fact files to show what we had learned.



In maths, we have been learning our number bonds to 10 and some children have extended this understanding to number bonds to 20.


We learnt a song (to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat) to help us:

9 and 1 are number bonds
So are 8 and 2
7 and 3
6 and 4
5 and 5 are twins.

In RE this week we have continued learning about Christianity. As part of this Rev. Adrian Miller visited us on Tuesday to tell us about Christian life and the Church. He even performed a mini, pretend wedding. The children were excellent actors and loved taking part.



We have been practising hard for our Christmas show and tonight a letter will come home explaining what is required for children's costumes.  Please ask if you are unsure what is needed.

Spellings for this week: to, you, all, little.

Have a lovely weekend, 
The Year 1 Team


  

Friday 15 November 2019

Weekly News - 15.11.19


Firstly we would like to say a big thank you to everyone who was able to attend our Learning Café this week. The children really enjoy having you there and we hope you found it useful.




At the start of the week we made chocolate truffles! We thought about the imperative verbs (bossy verbs) that tell us what to do (the action).  These included: mix, melt, stir, put, crush, break. At the end of the week we sequenced pictures from our truffle making and wrote the instructions. We are starting to encourage many children to use capital letters at the start of their sentences.




In Maths this week we have continued learning to add numbers together. This week we used a number line. We addressed the misconception that when adding on a number line you must count the jumps and not the numbers. Some children counted the first number which meant that 2 + 3 = 4 not 5! We encouraged them children to put their pen on the number before drawing/counting the jumps.

In History this week we looked at shops today and shops in the past. We discussed how the experience of shopping has changed over the last 100 years. The children were amazed that you had to go to lots of different shops just to get the items you needed for one meal! We also looked at how you can order things now using phones, iPads and computers.

Notices:
- Your child has brought home a letter with their part in the Christmas Show either today or yesterday. We will be practising frequently from Monday so please do help them to learn their line (if they have one).
- Spellings this week: into, they, she, like

Friday 8 November 2019

Weekly News 8.11.19


We are learning so much at the moment in Year 1.

This week, in English, we have been busy writing Bonfire Night poems. We though about the  things we might see at a Bonfire party (fireworks, bonfires, hot dogs, sparklers, people, rides) and what those things would be doing (zooming, banging, burning, sizzling, glittering, watching, spinning).
We explained how we were using the suffix '-ing'.
These poems, along with our chocolate poems, are making a display in the lower school hall which you will be able to see at our Reading Café next week.


In Maths we have been using a bar model to split numbers into two parts. We learnt to write the addition sentence to say what it showed.
Later in the week we moved on to adding numbers using objects. Some children added 1-digit numbers together and some moved on to adding teen numbers together.



In History this week we learnt about the real-life story of Guy Fawkes. The children cut up and sequenced the story and learnt why we celebrate Bonfire Night every Year on the 5th November.

We have started Phase 5 phonics. So far we have learnt the following sounds: ay, ou, ir, oy, ie, ea, ue, aw. At our Reading Café next week the children will be making their own Phase 5 flashcards to take home.


Notices:
- Home learning has been sent home today.
- The four spellings this week are: go, are, were, have. We will test these on Wednesday.
- Reading Café is on Thursday 14th at 9:00am in Lower School Hall - this will be a phonics workshop and chance for you to hear about the Phonics Screening Check at the end of Year 1.


Friday 1 November 2019

Weekly News 28.10.19

Welcome back, we hope you had a lovely half term break.

On Monday, we started a block of lessons on poetry by reading two poems about chocolate, including this one by Michael Rosen.   Then we each melted a chocolate button in our hand to inspire us to describe what we could see, feel, smell and taste.  We created group mind maps of our descriptions and will use these to help us write our own chocolate poems.


In maths, we finished our place value unit by looking at number lines.  We solved clues to identify mystery numbers and found where they went on the number line.   Today, we started addition and subtraction and used a part whole model to find different ways of split numbers into two parts.  This will lead into writing addition number sentences.




In geography, we listened to a rap and learnt about the seven continents of the world.  We know that countries closer to the equator are hotter and those further away are colder, so we worked out what their climates would be like based on their location.  One of our independent challenges this week is to re-create a map of the world showing where each continent is.

Home Learning
Thank you for all the wonderful home learning you completed with your children last half term.  We hope you had fun doing the different activities.  The home learning books will be sent out again next week with a new set of activities for you to enjoy.

As we said on a previous post, we are starting spelling homework this half term.  The children will have 4 spellings to practice each week.  We recommend using the Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check strategy.  Look at the word, say it aloud, cover it and try to write it, then check the spelling.  The words can be written in the back of their reading record.  The words for this week are:
  • the
  • said
  • was
  • come


Thank you and have a lovely weekend.
The Year 1 Team

Friday 18 October 2019

18.10.19


What a lovely end to the first half term we have had!

This week, the children have been telling us their monster stories. All of their stories followed the format of 'Grendel: A Cautionary Tale about Chocolate'. We used story scribing as a way of allowing all children to tell a story from beginning to end. Some children wrote the entire story themselves, some wrote part and an adult wrote the rest , and some filled in the missing words to their story once the teacher had written it.  This lasted a few days as they also performed their stories to the class.

In Maths this week, we consolidated our Place Value unit of work. We have reminded ourselves about representing numbers in different ways, counting forwards and backs, one more and one less, comparing and ordering numbers to 20. After half term we will move on to addition and subtraction.

This week, in Geography, we looked in more detail about where Chocolate comes from and where Cacao trees grow in the world. We learnt about hot and cold locations of the world in relation to the Equator, the North and South Poles. We coloured and labelled a map of the world to show our learning.

A big thank you for all your support so far with your children's learning. We are seeing lots of super home learning and loads of comments in reading records. Please do remember to log on to Bug Club and see what is available on there. The username is the first 4 letters of your child's first name, followed by the first 4 letters of their surname (John Smith would be johnsmit). The password is Caterpillars19 or Ladybirds19 depending on your child's class, and the school code is 99kq.

Have a lovely half term,
The Year 1 Team.

Friday 11 October 2019

Weekly News 11.10.19

This week we have been very creative in Year 1.
On Monday, we made some clay monsters - our own characters for our monster story! We then wrote some adjectives to describe our monsters. We thought about the size, shape, amount of eyes, colours and texture.



Later in the week we used the structure of the Grendel story to plan our own monster story. We thought of 3 things our monster loved, a wish and a problem. Next week we will be doing Story Scribing to write our stories in more detail.

In maths this week, we have been learning to order numbers. Some children ordered numbers to 10, whilst others ordered numbers to 20. We used the language of 'most' and 'least'. The children really enjoyed playing this game online.


If you would like to find some fun learning games online for your child like the one above we can recommend the 'Topmarks' website and the 'ICT Games' website - both of which have some fun counting, comparing and ordering number games.

In Science this week, we completed an experiment called 'What can our hands do?'. We found out that our hands can tell amount, size, weight and temperature, but they cannot tell us the colour!

Friday 4 October 2019

Weekly news 4.10.19

Another lovely, hard-working week in Year 1.

In Maths this week we have been comparing numbers to 20 using the language 'more than', 'less than' and 'equal' We began by practically building the numbers with Numicon and cubes before writing the numbers in our books. Later in the week, we introduced 'greater than' and 'fewer than'. Some children could tell us how much bigger one number was compared to other by working out the difference.


In English, we have been retelling the entire story of Grendel by using actions. We also made story maps / story boards and wrote words and sentences to go with the pictures.
The children are working very hard to segment the sound in words to help them spel and to use finger spaces correctly. 


Thank you for all your support with the children's home learning activities. The books will be coming home again today ready for a second piece to be completed before half term.

Have  a lovely weekend,
from the Year 1 team. 

Friday 27 September 2019

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!





Monday 23 September 2019

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.

Friday 20 September 2019

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.

Friday 13 September 2019

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

Friday 6 September 2019

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