Year 1
Friday 10th January 2025
Year 1 have started the New Year off with a bang! This week has been full learning and the children have loved being back with their friends.
Please note our PE days will change from next week and children should come to school wearing PE kit on Mondays and Fridays moving forward. Thank you.
Friday 20th December 2024
In Year 1 this week we have been enjoying all things Christmas! We had a great time performing our Christmas performance to our grown ups and the rest of the school!
We finished our writing this week. We wrote to someone special, look out for these in our book bags today! In RE, we finished our unit that was all about the nativity and understanding the meaning of a journey.
Next term we will be working on remembering our finger spaces in English and in Maths we will be working on our numbers to 20.
Friday 13th December 2024
Christmas has truly arrived in Year 1! We have been busily rehearsing our Nativity in costumes, we can’t wait to perform to everybody next week. We had a special visit from Father Christmas in his grotto and were delighted to receive a special gift each and we shared our Christmas lunch together.
In English we have been creating a Christmassy themed gift for somebody special in our lives. We will bring this home next week. Our PSHE learning has linked to this as we have considered special people in our lives and ways in which we can show the feeling ‘grateful’. In Maths we have been deepening our understanding of numbers to 20, exploring teen numbers as ‘ten and a bit’ and working to represent these in ‘tens and ones’. In Science we have investigated materials to see if they are waterproof or not. In PE we have practiced rolling skills.
Next week we will be extremely busy with our performances, singing our hearts out! We will complete our RE unit, focusing on the importance of the Christmas story for Christians. And of course, we will have some Christmassy treats as well!
Friday 6th December 2024
Friday 8th November 2024
We are so pleased to be back together; the children have returned from half term well-rested and ready to learn! We have continued to practise English and Maths skills through focused group work and the children are showing real improvements in their independence.
In English we have introduced our new text ‘Naughty Bus’ and have been using roleplay to re-enact the adventures taken in the story. We have been focusing on using prepositional language in our writing.
In Maths we have continued our addition and subtraction unit and have been focusing on learning number bonds to 10, as well as adding using a number line to count on. It would be great if you could practise some number bonds at home, there’s a lot of catchy songs on YouTube!
We have started a new Science unit, exploring different objects made from everyday materials. In History we are nearing the end of our current unit, looking at childhood in the past, and we have created lists of similarities and differences between life ‘then’ and ‘now’. Our Music learning has added the word ‘tempo’ to the previously learned ‘pulse’ and ‘rhythm’.
Next week we will recap adjectives in English, as well as introducing the conjunction ‘and’ to join sentences together. In Maths we will learn how to use the subtraction symbol to take away an amount. In Art we will learn how to draw from observation and in PSHE we will consider ways to solve problems if friends are being unkind. We will also begin our Computing unit where we will explore algorithms as a series of steps or instructions, linked to our everyday lives.
Friday 25th October 2024
We have had a slightly more relaxed week in Year 1, however the learning never ends! We have been working hard to build resilience, independence and teamwork skills through our morning ‘group task’ setup. You might hear the children speaking about being a part of a group, with a shape name given. Working in a small group encourages the children to independently complete a learning activity whilst also allowing the adults to offer further support to children working on the intended learning outcomes. So far this has been a great success and we will be continuing this teaching style after half term.
In English we have reached the end of our unit, focused on the text ‘Welcome to Alien School’ and have applied our learning by writing sentences using personal pronouns (I, he, she, we) and verbs with the suffix –ing. We are very proud of the children as they develop as writers.
In Maths we have continued to work on addition and subtraction and have introduced some difficult concepts, including the formal + and = symbols. We use the language ‘the same as’ alongside the language ‘equals’ which supports us with number sentences such as 3 = 2 + ?
We have completed our first DT project, a moving story page using sliders and levers. The children have been able to explore, design and construct using hole punches, scissors and glue. We hope you enjoyed seeing these brought home!
We have also had an RE focus this week, introducing the term ‘creator’ and linking this to the religion of Christianity. We love to explore different beliefs and it is very important to us that the children understand that everybody is entitled to their own beliefs. We have focused on the concept of ‘thanking’ through Harvest and have explored how Christians celebrate Harvest; by visiting Church, singing songs and giving to others.
After half term we will begin our new English unit, using the text ‘The Naughty Bus’. We will practise organising ideas into a sequence, as well as introducing the conjunction ‘and’ to join sentences together. In Maths we will continue to develop our understanding of addition and subtraction within 10, particularly by exploring number bonds.
Friday 18th October 2024
We have had an extremely busy week in school! We are so proud of the way the children have demonstrated our school values throughout the week. In English we have continued our learning, focusing on the text ‘Welcome to Alien School’ and we’ve been learning about personal pronouns, adjectives and the suffix –ing as we build up to our final writing piece. In Maths we have been learning about the symbol + and = and working on using these in a number sentence. Our geography learning has led to us exploring our likes and dislikes of the playground and our history learning helped us to compare our childhood to children of the past, looking closely at clothing, toys and games. We have also started our RE unit for this half term, considering what it means to ‘believe’. In art, we have been working on using mark-making skills to create a drawing from observation.
Next week we will continue to learn about religion and introduce the word ‘create’ to explore the wonders of the world! We will be publishing our final writing pieces, as well as continuing to explore addition number facts. In PE we will be completing our unit on throwing, catching and rolling as well as skipping skills.
Friday 11th October 2024
Another busy week in Year 1 has seen us start two new units of learning in our English and Maths. The children have loved our start to English, helped with our PTA fun-draiser for Space Week where we have dressed up as Aliens and Astronauts. We introduced the book ‘Welcome to Alien School’ and will be exploring this further over the next three weeks to develop their use of adjectives and use of personal pronouns such as ‘I’ in their writing. In Maths we have begun addition and subtraction and have been looking at part-whole models and pictorial representations of the whole to support their learning. As geographers this week we went on a mini expedition of the playground to complete a map using symbols and learnt how symbols and keys can help us to locate things more easily when on our travels. In Design Technology this week the children have continued with constructing their moving storybooks. We hope to finish these in our next lesson in two week’s time.
Next week will see us continue with addition and subtraction in Maths as well as continue with our History. We are hoping to explore memories further and invite someone to talk with us about their own memories of their past.
Friday 4th October 2024
We have been really busy in Year 1 and can’t believe we are already 5 weeks in to our Autumn term. This week the children have been working really hard during our English lessons, rehearsing sentences before writing. We’ve also been developing our resilience and independence, learning to use our classroom environment to support us such as learning walls and word mats. Meanwhile, in Maths the children have been using practical activities to demonstrate their understanding of one more and one less and we have used number lines to support us. We also learnt new vocabulary such as greater than, less than and equal to. Elsewhere, we have continued with learning about the seasons in science, observing changes over time and we are excited to create our own weather reports next week. History has seen us talking about memories and remembering past birthdays and how we celebrate these. To make sure we are as active as possible, our two PE lessons this week have seen us develop our ball skills further, using beanbags to support our balance whilst our second lesson of the week developed our jumping.
Next week we will be exploring a new text in English which will lead to us writing a short description using personal pronouns as well as beginning addition and subtraction in Maths.
Friday 27th September 2024
We started the week as scientists and discovered how many daylight hours there are in each of the four seasons and then created our own pictograms. We enjoyed drawing an aerial map of the classroom as part of our Geography lesson. We have also been really busy designing our moving storybooks for Design Technology and are looking forward to constructing them in our next lesson. We've continued to learn about pulse and rhythm in Music this week and have been brilliant at identifying the difference between the two. It has been a very busy week in Year 1!
Friday 20th September 2024
In Year 1 this week we have been busy creating a joint art picture using lines to make waves in the style of Zaria Forman; learning new ball skills in our PE lessons; and retelling The Perfect Fit using puppets to support us.