Inspired to be our best.....
September 2021
Stuck for books to read - here are some suggestions
Useful phonics links:
http://ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/
https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/literacy.html
Thursday 21st July 2022
Friday 15th July 2022
We can’t quite believe we are nearly at the end of term after being with all of your lovely children since September. Time really does fly when you are having fun!
This week in English we wrote our own picture books for Reception to look at, we did this in the style of the story ‘The Selfish Crocodile’. We were very impressed with how the children listened so carefully to their instructions and then created some very impressive picture books! We also enjoyed a really fun quiz all about wildlife ahead of our trip to ‘Hill End’ next week – the children worked really well in their teams and showed great teamwork during this activity. The scores were very close with only a couple of points between each team, but the winning team were ‘The Super Team’, followed closely in joint second place by ‘The Best Team’ and ‘The Clever Clogs’!!!
In Maths this week we have been looking at money and recognising and counting different notes and coins. We also looked at calendars and dates and how to use a calendar correctly. We then started to look at time, thinking about half past, quarter past and quarter to the hour.
In PE we had fun learning some hockey skills and the children were very grown up about using the hockey sticks carefully and responsibly.
During RE this week we took some time to reflect on our time in Year 1 and wrote prayers to God, thanking him for what we have enjoyed and achieved this year. The children wrote some very mature and thought-provoking prayers which included being thankful for our improvements in certain areas such as phonics, reading, writing, maths, science and art. The children also shared their thanks for all the staff who have helped them in school and for the lovely classroom and the outside area.
Friday 8th July 2022
This week the children enjoyed taking part in Sports Day. If you were able to come, we are sure you were as impressed and as proud of the children as we were. They did amazingly! Well done everyone for trying your best and showing great sportsmanship!
In English this week, the children have been building up to writing and delivering their very own speeches on how to care for the planet. They worked with their learning partner to do some research on the iPads and take notes. After this they were able to verbally plan out their speech before writing it down and performing it to the rest of the class. We were so proud of how the children spoke clearly and passionately in front of their classmates.
In Maths the children were amazing when ordering numbers to 100 and finding one more and one less than a number up to 100. They are really beginning to understand place value and are using it to help them to work out number problems. Excellent work, maths whizzes! We also started to look at position and whether an object was turned a quarter turn, a half turn, a three-quarter turn or a full turn.
In Art we began talking about shading and how the pressure we use can change the tone and shade of the marks that we make. The children enjoyed using a variety of mediums including pens, pencils, felt tips, charcoal and chalks/pastels to investigate this idea.
In RE this week we looked at the story of ‘The Wedding in Cana’, we were amazed at how Jesus was able to perform the miracle of turning water into wine. The children were able to retell the story carefully which showed they had listened well.
Just a small notice that next week we will not be changing reading books as we will be collecting them all in next Friday to make sure that we have them all for the end of term. If you could please make sure that any reading books that belong to school are in book bags for Friday then that would be really helpful.
Have a lovely sunny weekend,
The Year 1 Team.
Friday 1st July 2022
Year 1 have enjoyed our ‘Sports Week’. We had great fun doing skipping, box fit, athletics and also dancing. The children really enjoyed learning a dance routine from ‘Grease’ the musical. We also have been practising very hard for Sports Day!
In English we have continued our sports theme and we have been learning about the Commonwealth Games. We then went on to research our own favourite sports using the IPADS. The children then produced an informative poster about their chosen sport.
This week in Maths we have been partitioning numbers and comparing numbers using words and symbols.
In RE we thought about what we might be like if we were a disciple and what qualities we would need to make a good disciple. We were really proud of the children for their work and the great ideas they had during our discussions.
In Forest School this week the children had a great time at Cuttlebrook where they got VERY muddy but luckily avoided the rain!!! The children had fun climbing trees, making dens and making bridges out of sticks!!
Finally, in Art we looked at how we could use different textures with sponges to create a repeated pattern. We hope these made their way home to you and we are sure you will agree they look very effective!
Just a little reminder that on Monday for Sports Day, the children should wear a T –Shirt in their correct house colour along with the rest of their normal PE kit. This will be followed by a family picnic at school. We look forward to seeing you on Monday, have a lovely weekend!
The Year 1 Team
Friday 24th June 2022
Friday 17th June 2022
This week we have been reflecting on our wonderful Jubilee celebrations last week. It was lovely to welcome families back into school and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did! We were so proud of the children for their fantastic dance performance to ‘Spice your life’. It has been wonderful to hear that some of the children have been showing their families the routine at home too!
In English we identified features of newspaper reports with our learning partners. We then planned and wrote newspaper reports about our celebrations, these had to include a newspaper name, a headline, a picture and a caption and then a report (written in columns) explaining what happened in school on Friday. We even interviewed each other to get some quotes for our reports. The final newspaper reports were very impressive – well done Year 1!
In Maths we have continued to look at fractions where we have become experts when finding a half and a quarter of different quantities.
Our new Dimensions topic has a conservation theme and is called ‘Light Up The World’. This week the children discussed what they already knew about the sun. We also talked about darkness and sources of light. Many of the children were surprised to learn that the Moon is not actually a source of light.
On Thursday the current Reception class came into Year 1 to become familiar with their new classroom. We were so proud of all of Year 1 for being respectful and responsible and showing Reception class around Year 1 and playing with the children so nicely.
Just a reminder that if your child has learnt their spellings they should hand them in at the beginning of the week into our spellings tray, as this is when we check them with the children. We will then give new ones to the children on a Tuesday which is when we set aside time for this. If your child wants to keep their spellings for longer than a week then that is fine, they can hand them in on the following Monday.
Have a lovely weekend!
Friday 10th June 2022
Year 1 have had a great first week back. We have been very busy preparing for our special Jubilee Celebrations on Friday. We have written invitations to our celebration as well as letters to the Queen, thanking her for all she has done for us. We planned our letters carefully, using the correct format for writing a letter before writing them out neatly all ready for the Queen to read!
Year 1 REALLY enjoyed making shortbread biscuits, in the shape of a crown. The children all worked sensibly and listened carefully to the instructions they were given , well done Year 1!
In addition to this we made some glorious crowns which were fit for a King (or Queen) and we decorated our own bunting ready for Friday.
The children also did some careful portraits of the Queen, we thought carefully about the proportions of her face, shoulders and neck. We then talked about using light pencil to begin with before building up our pictures with darker pencil. We were very proud of the children for trying their best with this as it is a tricky thing to do.
During our Maths this week we have been looking at how to find a half and a quarter of different shapes and quantities. We enjoyed thinking about different foods that we could share between two or four people.
We look forward to showing you all of these things during our celebration on Friday and also performing something that we have been working very hard on!
Have a lovely (and hopefully sunny) weekend and we hope that you have a great day on Friday – we are all very excited to see you!
Friday 27th May 2022
We had a special visitor in school this week, Father David, he came in to school to join us in our Mary Garden. Father talked to us about how special Mary is and we all said a Hail Mary together. Mary was crowned with some flowers that the Year 6 children had made. In RE this week we thought about the different gifts that the Holy Spirit has given us and we wrote a class prayer thanking the Holy Spirit for these gifts.
This week the children made us incredibly proud when writing their own stories, inspired by the book ‘A Right Royal Roach Trip’. They had some brilliant and ingenious ideas, and really tried to add detail to their work. Well done everybody! The children also wrote a final version of their own ‘food’ poems, they then rehearsed and performed them in front of the rest of the class, concentrating on using loud, clear voices and expression to bring their performances alive
In Maths the children continued working hard on making equal groups by grouping and sharing. They enjoyed sharing out different ‘muffins’ onto different numbers of plates to find out how many each person would have.
The children had fun in PE playing human skittles and have continued to develop their target skills with our Ignite Sports coach. We have also been working hard on a special dance routine!
Finally, we had lots of fun playing different games to help us prepare for the phonics screening after half term. We hope that you have found the pack we sent home fun and useful. Some of the children have already told us how they have enjoyed feeding Fred and Froz the correct words.
Have a fabulous half term break, we look forward to seeing you again after the holidays!
Friday 20th May 2022
This week the children have enjoyed listening to our new story in English; 'A Right Royal Roach Trip'. We have been doing work on character and setting descriptions and have planned our own version of the story in pairs ready to write next week. The children were very excited and came up with some ingenious ways to stop the thief from taking the Crown Jewels! The children have also been planning their own poems based on their favourite foods – we used our senses to think about how our chosen food tastes, smells and feels. We also tried to include some rhyming words!
We have been practising reading lots of real and alien words in preparation for our Phonics Screening after half term. The children are trying their absolute best and have really enjoyed doing the ‘roll and read’ game as a class and in pairs.
In Maths we have been making arrays, doubling and making equal groups by grouping and sharing. The children have done really well with this and have completed a variety of practical activities to embed and demonstrate their learning.
As part of our Dimensions topic 'Royal Patrons' we have been finding out about Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth and did some writing on the differences between them. We also spoke about The Victoria Cross and nominated someone we knew who had been brave and courageous to receive one. We are also continued to learn the Ukrainian language and included below is a picture of our beautiful display of sunflower paintings!
In PE we have enjoyed perfecting our aiming skills whilst scoring points (the points increased as our target moved further away).
During RE we have been looking at the story of the 'Day of Pentecost'. We explored the story through music and movement to capture the thoughts and feelings of the disciples. The children sensibly used percussion instruments to represent the wind and fire.
Hava fun and sunny weekend!
Friday 13th May 2022
Friday 6th May 2022
This week in Year 1 we have been learning to count in twos, fives and tens. The children have enjoyed lots of practical activities to help them with this; building number towers in order, painting hands and counting in 5’s and making their own number strip jigsaws. We have also been looking at capacity and volume and thinking about whether containers are full, nearly full, half full, nearly empty or empty.
In English we have been adding the suffixes S and ES to root words in order to make them plural. The children linked this to our focus book and wrote about things they imagined they could see from the top of the London Eye. We also worked on adding EST to words. The children enjoyed writing about what they would buy on a shopping trip in London - the longest scarf, the tallest teddy and the fastest car were some popular choices! We have also been looking at poetry and rehearsing/performing a variety of ‘funny food’ poems to the rest of the class. We have also been working hard on learning to spell the days of the week using a song and an online game to help us.
In RE we have been learning about the Easter candle which we learnt is also known as the Paschal candle. We visited Church to look at the candle and to think about the way the candle is used in church during the Easter season. We were very proud of the children and how carefully they listened whilst we were in Church. We then decorated our own Paschal candles, making sure we used the correct symbols on our candles.
In PE we have worked hard whilst learning some hockey skills with our IGNITE sports coach. We learnt how to hold the hockey stick correctly and how to dribble and stop the ball carefully.
What a busy week, all packed into four days - well done Year 1!
Friday 29th April 2022
This week we have enjoyed reading 'The Royal Baby's Big Red Bus Tour of London', linking in with our new Dimensions topic, 'Royal Patrons'. It inspired us in English and the children had fun writing 'silly' sentences about what the babies saw on their journey, remembering to use exclamation marks.
We thought about the time periods Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth lived in and compared how each would capture an image of themselves. We learnt that when cameras were first invented people had to sit still for 20 seconds in order to not come out blurred. This is why they always look so straight and serious! We tried to sit still for 20 seconds without moving, smiling, swaying or blinking; it was very hard! We also thought about changes and growth in humans and how we change from being a baby to a fully grown adult. The children looked at photos of babies and tried to correctly match them to the correct adults. They found a baby Miss Oakley very funny for some reason! We then thought about what changes the children have been through and they made their own personal timeline.
As part of our English work we have also been looking at poetry, we focused on a poem called ‘Spaghetti Spaghetti’ By Jack Prelutsky. We thought about how the vocabulary used in the poem really brought it to life for the audience and we had fun learning the poem in small groups and then performing this as a class (you can watch our amazing performance below!).
In Maths we have worked really hard this week when comparing objects and numbers within 50 and ordering numbers to 50. We also looked at how to compare the mass of different objects.
Well done Year 1 for a great first week back!
Friday 8th April 2022
Friday 1st April 2022
Friday 25th March 2022
Friday 11th March 2022
Friday 4th March 2022
Friday 18th February 2022
Friday 11th February 2022
Friday 4th February 2022
Friday 28th January 2022
Friday 21st January 2022
Friday 14th January 2022
Year 1 have made a great start to the new term. We enjoyed taking part in Parish Mass virtually to celebrate Epiphany. After Mass the children thought carefully about what gifts we could bring to the baby Jesus. Our ideas included giving our love and our hearts, being helpful, friendly and ready for Jesus. We created sketches to portray our gifts and put these around our Prayer Focus.
In English we have enjoyed learning about farms, with a focus on the book ‘What the Ladybird Heard’. Following on from this we have been collecting and writing information about farms and animals. In RE this week we read the parable of The Good Samaritan. We discussed what is a right or wrong action. We thought about how we knew that what the Good Samaritan did was the right action. After this we used drama to act out the parable, we worked in groups and carefully discussed how the people in the story would have felt at different points throughout the story. During Maths the children have shown amazing knowledge when naming and sorting 2D and 3D shapes and when looking at place value within 20. We also thoroughly enjoyed learning some catching and throwing skills during our first session with our specialist PE teacher from Ignite Sports.