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. 

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.

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

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

  

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

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.

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