Spring Term 2018

W.C 19.03.18

That's Week 5, ticked off! One more to go, we break up on Thursday 29th March. Don't forget our Bingo evening that same night, eyes down at 6:30pm. We've had some wonderful learning this week, trying our best and doing some great listening.

In English we have been learning the story of Little Red Riding Hood, drawing symbols to represent the characters and events and then acting out the story. We then wrote it out by ourselves with capital letters for names and at the start of sentences, finger spaces between words and full stops at the end of each sentence. Some of us even included an exclamation mark! Next week we will be looking at twisted fairytales, where they have been changed and even having a go at writing our own changed version, applying all of the skills we have learnt these past few weeks.

In Maths we have continued our learning about measurement, this week looking at weight and capacity. We have used the balance scales comparing and talking about objects being heavier, lighter or equal. We have weighed objects using a non-standard unit of measurement, using cubes to predict and then record their weight. We moved on to capacity, discussing volume and measuring containers using the language of full, half full and empty and measured their volume using cups as a unit of measurement. 

Our Science topic this half term has been Plants. We have learnt about the parts of plants, decidious and evergreen trees, and have planted beans and sunflowers. After checking our sunflowers and seeing how much they have grown we watched some BBC clips and talked about what plants need to grow. Then we planted some carrots, radishes and spring onions outside, looking at the different sorts of seeds and watering them carefully.

We've also had some time for ICT using Maths Whizz on the laptops and playing on the iPads. On Friday it was Sport Relief which we marked by wearing sports clothes to school and by taking part in a whole school mass sporting trial on the field! There were hula hoops, skipping ropes, balls of every description, balancing blocks, games, bats and some budding gymnasts. Well done to everyone for a lovely time, we really enjoyed ourselves.

Dates for your diary:

Easter holidays begin on Good Friday, 30th March (Last day of school is Thursday 29th)

Bingo! Thursday 29th March, eyes down at 6:30pm

W.C 12.03.18

The end of another wonderful week in Year 1, I don't know about you but the grown ups are getting ready for another rest...it really does not stop in this class! We are immensely proud of how grown up and mature the children are becoming, the signs that they are ready for Year 2 are coming thick and fast at the moment.

In English this week we've continued our learning about fairytales, a topic that we're all really enjoying. We've learnt about question marks and exclamation marks, sentences openers, the conjunctions and, but, so and because as well as how to use a story mountain. We'll be continuing with the story mountains next week, learning how to use one to write out a story as well as doing some talk for writing symbols and actions.

In Maths we have been measuring. Firstly with non-standard units such as cubes and hands, then with standard units of centimetres (cm) and learning about millimetres (mm) and metres (m). We have used the vocabulary longer and smaller, taller and shorter to compare height and length. 

In Science we learned about evergreen and decidious trees, going on a tree hunt around the school field looking at whether or not the trees had leaves. We know that everygreen trees keep their leaves all year round and decidious trees loose their leave in autumn, have bare branches in winter and grow new leaves and blossom in spring. We also completed our bean diaries before they were sent home. They were beginning to grow so tall they were taking over the classroom! We hope you don't get any giant visits now that they are at home... We planted sunflower seeds to take the place of our beanstalks. We were lucky enough to have a Science dome visit us on Thursday, we learnt about different dinosaurs in a brilliant learning environment which was such a treat.

Dates for your diary:

BINGO! Thursday 29th March in the school hall, eyes down at 6:30pm.

W.C 05.03.18

Back with a bang, thats the Year 1 style! What a tremendous week of learning, making up for those snow days last week. We started off with our belated World Book Day celebrations on Monday and what a huge effort everyone made! Thank you!

In English we've continued with our fairytale theme, this week looking at character descriptions, using our senses to think about how the big bad wolf might look, feel and sound. We've created wanted posters, used adjectives and even learnt about similies to write a fantastic description.

In Maths we've been looking at one more and one less of numbers within 50 as well as comparing numbers using greater than, less than and equal too and reminding ourselves of the  < > and = symbols. All of the grown ups are very impressed at our incredible number knowledge. Next week we move on to measurement, using non-standard and standard units to measure height first. 

In Science we've had a bumper week. This week we've seen our magical beanstalks quite literally growing before our very eyes, they are definitely going to be up to the clouds soon so we can meet some giants! We've drawn and measured our beanstalks, learnt about the parts of flowers and labelled a diagram, pulled apart flowers to look at all their different parts and planted some lettuce seeds to grow lettuces just like the ones from the witches garden in the story of 'Rapunzel'. Next week the beanstalks will be going home and we'll be planting some sunflowers. 

Thank you to all of the grown ups who came to parents evening or who have seen Miss Cragg after school. It's wonderful to show off how hard all of the children are working! Please see Miss Cragg if you would like to make an after school appointment to look at books. 

W.C 26.02.18

Well, we were having a wonderful week of learning until the "Beast from the East" descended on us! Here's some pictures of us having fun in the snow before our three days off school. We hope you had lots of fun on those days, sledging and building snowmen!

W.C 19.02.18

Welcome back! We hope you had a wonderful week off with plenty of time to recharge your batteries ready to get back down to the hard work of being in Year One. 

We have a new face this half term, Miss Tyers has joined us as a SCITT teaching student. She will be teaching us some of our lessons on the run up to Easter, please help us to make her feel welcome.

We've hit the ground running this week, ready to explore our new topic called 'Into the Woods'. We're learning about fairy stories and traditional tales in English and linking this to a growing and plants topic in Science. In English we've been learning the features of traditional stories, listening to a selection and noticing that they start with 'once upon a time', 'long, long ago' or 'in a faraway land'. We also know that they end happily and we have had the opportunity to story map Little Red Riding Hood as well as act out some of the stories we know with stick puppets. Next week we will be looking at the characters of fairy tales and the contrast of good and bad characters.

In Maths we've been looking at place value again, this time to 50. We've done lots of counting, forwards and backwards starting at different numbers. Some of us still find this tricky so we have used 50 grids to help us. We've begun to look at the tens and ones in numbers, practising building them using bundles of straws, base 10, tens and ones grids, ten frames and numicon. We are getting much better at recognising and writing numbers as well as partitioning them. Next week we will be counting in 10's and looking at one more and one less of numbers up to 50. 

In Science we have begun our plants topic by planting a magic bean. We put the instructions into the correct order and then discussed what plants need in order to grow. We decided that they require soil, water and sunshine. We also talked about what might happen to some seeds if we do not give them these things so we have also planted seeds with no water, no soil and one which will live in the cupboard with no sunshine. We will be completing a bean diary each week noticing the changes to our beans and measuring them to see if we can climb up them yet to the giant's castle! We had the chance to do some art with Miss Tyers too, using different materials to create a beanstalk picture. We stamped leaves with sponges and made clouds with cotton wool.

Dates for your diary:

World Book Day - Thursday 1st March

Parents Evening - Wednesday 7th March

W.C 05.02.18

W.C 29.01.18

We've continued to look at 'Lost and Found' by Oliver Jeffers this week. We have been creating story maps to tell the story using symbols, actions, pictures and words. We've also revisited adjectives using them to describe our main characters, the little boy and the penguin, as well as using the conjunction 'and' in our descriptive sentences. We innovated our story map, changing the animal and the place where it lives to then write the story out in full independently. Miss Cragg and Alex were very impressed with the beautiful handwriting, capital letters, finger spaces and full stops on display. 

Can you read our story map?

In Maths this week the focus has remained on numbers to 20, this time putting them into order from greatest to smallest and smallest to greatest. We've also reminded ourselves of how to partition numbers into the whole and the parts, this time with the amount of tens and ones in a number. We began addition by counting on using a variety of strategies such as starting from the biggest number, using cubes and objects, number lines, bar models, pictures and our fingers to work the answer out. As well as all of this we also found number bonds to 20, what a week! Our knowledge of partitioning to find the answers to missing number word problems is very impressive indeed!

In Science we turned our attention to finding out what animals eat. We can classify animals into groups and we can identify their features, this week we were thinking about their diets. We know that carnivores are meat eaters such as polar bears and penguins. Herbivores are plant/fruit eaters such as giraffes and elephants and omnivores eat both meat and plants, humans are omnivores as are hedgehogs and black bears.

We managed to squeeze some ICT in this week too, taking our turn with the BeeBots. We can program them to go forwards and turn, and we can navigate our way around a maze. We understand that they are digital toys, we know how to look after them and use the program language that they understand.

We had a very special treat this week with a performance of 'Sidney's Shed' by the Rhubarb Theatre Company. The play tells the story of a little girl who escapes from bullies to hide in a shed, but this is no ordinary shed, its a special time travelling machine and Sidney is no ordinary gardener! It was a wonderful performance combining drama and history which covered everything from the Vikings to the Romans to the Great Fire of London and lots in between. How lucky were we!

Dates for your diary:

We break up for half term on Friday 9th February and return to school on Monday 19th February 2018.

W.C 22.01.18

A switch of focus this week as we've moved from non-fiction to fiction work. We're looking at a book by Oliver Jeffers called 'Lost and Found'. It's about a penguin who appears at the door of a little boy, their journey to Antarctica together and the friendship they develop along the way. This week we've been learning the story by sequencing it using time conjunctions, writing a postcard from Antarctica and writing instructions on how to get there using some very bossy imperative verbs. Next week we'll be learning about adjectives, writing character descriptions then creating a story map and making changes to the story so we can write our own, changed versions of it. 

In Science we've continued to look at classifying animals into groups, this week comparing a dog and an alligator. We wrote about what they look like, the features they have as well as what they can both do that is the same and different. In Geography we have investigated the countries of the United Kingdom, looking in atlases and labelling a map with England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. 

In Maths this week we have been recapping our knowledge of place value, this time to 20. We have been learning about tens and ones (or sticks and bricks when we're drawing numbers!), finding one more and one less to 20 was very tricky indeed, we've also been recapping less than and greater than with the symbols < and >. Next week we'll finish off place value and then start addition and subtraction to 20. 

Dates for your diary:

We break up for half term on Friday 9th February and return to school on Monday 19th February 2018.

W.C 15.01.18

Another week, gone in the blink of an eye!

In English we've moved on from polar bears in the Arctic to the opposite end of the world and learning about Emperor Penguins in Antarctica. We have learned how to use 'and' in a sentence, the difference between fact and opinion, written information sentences about Emperor Penguins and have sorted information into sections with subheadings. We even practiced trying to be penguins! We had a huddle to keep warm and tried to pass an egg beanbag to each other just using our feet.

Next week we'll be moving on to fiction writing based around the story 'Lost and Found'.

In Science we sorted animals based on their groups and their features. We can sort animals into birds, mammals, reptiles, fish and amphibians as well as comparing them based on whether they can fly or swim, or have feathers or fur. We've also squeezed in some history too, learning about Sir Ernest Shakleton, another polar explorer who returned a national hero after his four expeditions to Antarctica.

In Maths we have returned to place value, this time looking at numbers up to 20. We have been working on our number bonds and number word recognition this week as well as different ways we can build 20. 

We've also had an e-safety talk with Joe who manages all of our computers in school. He talked to us about being safe online, not sharing our personal details and what to do if we see something that troubles us on the internet. We also watched a cartoon about Hector the dolphin who mentioned how to make up a nickname rather than giving our real names and the dangers of telling the internet all about ourselves. 

Well done Year 1 for a great week!

W.C 08.01.18

What a week!

In English we've been learning about polar bears, writing some great fact files, labelling and writing captions. We've also learned how to put 'and' in a sentence correctly and have written some amazing work explaining where polar bears live, what they eat and how they survive. Did you know polar bears aren't white? Their fur is transparent and they have black skin!

In Maths we've continued our shape investigations, looking into 3D and 2D shapes. We know the different between flat and solid shapes and can identify shapes using their faces, vertices and edges. We've been on a shape hunt around the classroom and have labelled and sorted shapes into groups. 

We've managed some Science this week, conducting an investigation into blubber. We firstly held ice cubes in our hands, one hand had a glove on it. This was the 'fur'. The fur got wet though as the ice cube melted so we wondered how our hands would feel if we had blubber on them. Each child wore a plastic glove which was covered in lard, we then put our fingers in ice water to see which felt warmer. Everyone agreed that the fingers with blubber felt much warmer than the fingers without!

We finished the week off with a History lesson, learning about Captain Robert Falcon Scott who was an explorer who travelled to Antarctica with the hope of becoming the first person to the South Pole. We learned about his ill-fated travels and how different things were 100 years ago. We can tell you lots of facts about his adventures on Antarctica. 

A busy week we're sure you'll agree, and one which has brought a few changes. The grown-ups are already beginning to think about transitions to Year 2 so in the mornings now we're doing some different early morning work rather than Lego and colouring. We're also not having our break time in the afternoons, so as to have more time for a topic lesson and daily guided reading. Its been a long week but this will pay off in the long run! Thank you Year 1 for a fantastic week, you really are a pleasure.

W.C 03.01.18

Welcome back! We hope you had an exciting and enjoyable Christmas break, all of the grown-ups in the classroom have noticed that everyone has come back to school ready and raring to go. This week we've explored our new topic, about the poles and polar explorers. We're very excited to look into all the links to geography comparing these freezing cold places to the UK, looking into the history of the polar explorers Shackleton and Scott as well as some art based on the Northern Lights.

In English this week we've been thinking about what we want to learn about in our new topic and completed a KWL grid - what we know already, what we'd like to find out and then at the end we'll complete what we've learnt. We're excited to get going and look at polar bears next week.

We've managed some geography this week, taking our first look at atlases and looking at a world map to locate England as well as the countries of the Arctic circle and Antarctica. In Science we looked at the different clothing we would wear in winter and in summer, and sorted them into the correct seasons.

In Maths we've begun looking at shape, firstly undertaking a shape pre-test then recognising 3D shapes and their features. Next week we'll find 3D shapes around the classroom and the school, moving on to 2D shapes towards the end of the week. We'll look at vertices, corners, sides and faces before moving back on to addition and subtraction after that.

Everyone has settled back into daily routines well, lets keep pushing Year One! No homework this week, enjoy your first weekend being back at school.