Week beginning 27th January 2020

Hello Year One,


We have been busy this week. We completed the work from our story 'The Last Noo-Noo.' So much learning came from this book, so many different activities and the children loved it. We had a dummy hunt this week and the children were asked to write sentences about where they found the dummies. The children wrote  book reviews and described their favourite parts of the story.
We have been learning the days of the week, the months of the year and the seasons they fall in to. This could be continued at home by asking questions such as 'If today is Friday, what day was it yesterday?'
The children described materials during our science lesson. For history they explored Victorian homes and were interested in the differences between them and our homes today. They weren't to keen when I asked if they would have liked to live in Victorian times!


Next Week


English


We begin a new book next week. It is called 'How to Wash a Woolly Mammoth.' It is essentially a series of instructions, therefore the work that comes from this book will be a series of activities about instructions. Next week we will focus on:

• Reading instructions
• Following instructions
• Giving instructions
• The difference between a command and a request
• Writing instructions

We will also have our daily phonics sessions, spelling and handwriting three days next week and a lesson on dictation and phoneme recognition when reading.


Maths


We will complete our work on the months and seasons on Monday. On Tuesday we start a new learning sequence on using 5 and 10 as benchmarks when adding and subtracting. The children will be writing number sentences, using cherry models, tens frames, base ten equipment and bead strings to establish their knowledge and understanding of using bench marks to aid calculations.


Science


The children will be grouping materials according to their properties.


RE


We will take a closer look at baptism and role play a baptism.


DT/ART


The children will be creating sculptures from modelling clay.


History


Objects in Victorian homes will be identified and explored next week.


ICT


The children are beginning to become more familiar with logging on to ipads, locating a search engine and logging on to 'mathseeds.' They could continue to practice this at home.


PHSE


Creating a treasure chest of ideas for success will be next week's theme for our PHSE lesson


NEWS

• We will be visiting The Snow Centre on 27th February. I did ask for parental support, but we will be taking Teaching Assistants with us. I do apologise to those of you who were hoping to come on the trip.
• The children are doing well with their spellings. Thank you for practicing them at home with your children.

Have a restful weekend.
Ms Davis

Week beginning 20th January 2020

Hello Year One,


This week we have been learning about height, length and mass. The children have learned the vocabulary they need to describe these measurements. For English the children wrote some fantastic stories about losing something precious and finding it growing back on a magic tree!
We have been thinking about our school community and who is important to us. For our history lesson the children learned about the differences and similarities between homes from the past and present.


NEXT WEEK


English


The children will be writing book reviews this week and will describe their favourite part of the story. They will be learning and writing prepositions and will focus on phonics and handwriting.


Maths


Next week we begin to look at the days of the week, months of the year and the seasons they come into. The children will be using tables and timetables to practice the vocabulary of time.


Science


There will be various activities set up to discover different materials. The children will be describing materials and recognising how they look, feel, sound and smell.


History


We will be looking at photos and slides of Victorian homes. The children will be looking for the differences and similarities between home from this era and the present day.


RE


The children will begin to learn about baptism. If your child has something from their baptism that they would like to bring in and share that would be great.


PSHE


Overcoming obstacles. We will read the story 'Going On A Bear Hunt' and discuss what obstacles may stand in our way when we are learning.




NEWS

• The children went to the library this week and chose aa book to take home and read. Library sessions will be on Thursdays. To be able to take another book home the children must bring back the one they had the previous week.
• The children do love bringing things to school that they want to share with their peers. Although we enjoy these sessions, I would ask that this is limited to achievements and educational material. Children have been bringing their toys to school and they get upset when other children want to play with, they get lost or broken.
• On Thursday 27th February we will be taking the children to The Snow Centre for a sledging experience! I need another 2 volunteers to come on this trip. Please see me if you are interested.
• The spelling tests went well. thank you for working with your children at home. It makes a huge difference!

Have a great weekend.


Ms Davis

Week beginning 13th January 2020

Hi Year One,


We have had a fabulous week. Our design project was great fun and the children demonstrated just how creative they are. They collected natural things from the woods and used their designs to produce some exceptional sculptures.


We have been planning  stories this week and the children will be writing their own version of 'The Last Noo-Noo' next week! We have been learning the digraphs ir and ou. The children have been reading paragraphs and highlighting words that have those sounds.
In maths we have been finding parts of wholes and learning addition and subtraction.


Next Week


Maths


The children will be learning the vocabulary needed to describe length, mass and speed. They will enjoy racing cars and explaining the positions at the end of each race. We will continue to learn number bonds to ten, twenty and thirty.


English


We will be writing stories next week. The children will be learning how to add adjectives to describe things in their stories and punctuation will be extended to include speech marks, question marks and exclamation marks. The sounds we will be learning in our phonics sessions are ue and aw. These will be given in the spellings next week.
On Monday the children will have their spelling tests and these will be followed by a pre-test of the words they will be learning for the following week.


History


Our history lesson will be about recognising features of different homes.


Science


The children will be describing materials. They will be given a selection of items and describe what they look and feel like.


RE


The focus next week will be on communities and in particular our school community.


PSHE


We will be thinking about learning something new and how this can make us feel. The children will hear a story and share their own feelings.




News

•  Please encourage your children to use 'maths seeds.' It does help to consolidate the learning at school. Maybe a couple of times a week for half an hour, or three times a week for 20 minutes.
• There will be a 'MUFTI' day next Friday. The children can wear their own clothes. They will need to bring £1 donation for The Australian Bushfire Fund.

Have a great weekend.


 Ms Davis

week beginning 7th January 2020

Hello Year One,
It has been a productive first week. The children are enjoying our new text 'The Last Noo-Noo,' by Jill Murphy. We have had role play, freeze frames and used the story to create questions and look at character traits. We will be continuing with this next week.
The children are understanding 'less than' and 'more than.' They can state the difference between two numbers. We have been counting in tens to 300!
I introduced our history and science topics this week. The focus is on materials, buildings, housing and structure. The children are very interested and are keen to begin their home projects. I have had quite a few questions regarding this, which I will go through in the news section of this blog.


Next Week


English


Handwriting lessons will be carried out three times and phonics sessions will continue on a daily basis. The children also have dictation once a week. We will continue with written work that is prompted by our text. The children will order sentences from the story, write about their favourite part and sequence the events.


Maths


We will be creating a weather chart which will be used to continue with the vocabulary of 'more than,' 'less than' and 'difference.'
The children will be solving problems to ten and twenty using the whole and the parts model. This will include addition and subtraction.
We will be counting in fives and revising odd and even numbers.


Science


The next stage of 'materials' will be to describe their properties.


History


The children will be looking at similarities and differences between homes. They will label the features of different homes.


ART/DT


We will be going on a walk to the local woods to collect the natural items the children have decided to use for their sculptures. When we return to school the children will work in small groups to create their big builds.


PSHE


Discuss different people's goals and children to share their own. Discuss goals that have been achieved and what it took to do so.


RE


Why is it important to have a close community?


NEWS

• The children are extremely excited about creating homes. They are looking forward to creating their structures with family and friends. It is fine for others to help, that is all part of the fun and will create wonderful memories for the children. Encourage your child to design the home and make as much of it as they can independently. If you need any further information please do not hesitate to ask.

• On Thursday 16th January at 9.30am we are taking the children to the local woods for a walk. They will be collecting natural items to use for their sculptures. They will be working in groups of four to create  natural sculptures.  If you're able come on the walk that would be great. Please let Mrs Reusch or myself know if you can.We should be back at school by 11am.

• If your child was attending Reading Club in the mornings he/she may still do so, however, some children will no longer be attending. Mrs Nixon changes the children attending Reading Club according to need and availability. If you have any queries regarding this please see me.

• There are some children who used to have milk, but who no longer receive it If you want your child to have milk please see Jo at the office. 

• Next Monday 13th January Year One will begin weekly spellings that will need to be learned at home in conjunction to the work we do at school. The spellings are differentiated and the movement between groups will be fluid. On Monday they will have a pre-test of the spellings they will be learning that week. Those spellings will be sent home that day and the children will have a week to learn them. The following Monday they will be tested on those spellings and have a pre-test of the spellings they will learn for that week and again those spellings will be sent home that day. This will continue on a weekly basis.

• Next Thursday the children will visit the school library. They will choose a book to take home for a week and return the following Thursday. This will continue on a weekly basis. Your child must return a book to be able to take a new book home.

Have a super weekend.
Ms Davis

Happy New Year

Hello Year One,


I hope you all had a good Christmas and will have a wonderful 2020!
Thank you so much for all the gorgeous gifts you so thoughtfully gave me for Christmas. I really do appreciate that.
We have lots to look forward to this term, especially as the weather gets better and we can do more outside. Below are the plans for the coming half term.


English


We will be working on contemporary fiction. The focus text is 'The Last Noo-Noo' by Jill Murphy. It is a brilliant story and last year the children loved this project. We will be focusing on key skills for reading and writing. The children will be using their phonetic knowledge to decode the words in the text. There will be the opportunity for plenty of role-play. The children will be using speech bubbles, using the correct punctuation for questions, creating labels and re-telling the story to their partners.
The second text focuses on instructions. It is called 'How To Wash A Woolly Mammoth' by Michelle Robinson. The children will be identifying the main theme of the story, sequencing a series of instructions. They will use the cloze procedure, as a comprehension activity, dictation to aid continuity of sentence structure and they will order sentences correctly. This work will come from the two texts mentioned.
The children will learn phonics and spellings on a daily basis and practise handwriting three times a week.


Maths


We will begin by learning to find fewer and more than. We will focus on the language of difference. The children will create weather charts and use the learned vocabulary to explain the changes in the weather. We will be solving problems to ten and twenty using the part/whole model which will enhance understanding of addition and subtraction. The children will be counting back from thirty, twenty and ten and subtracting one-digit numbers from two-digit numbers.
We will have 'maths fluency' sessions which will focus on counting in twos, fives and tens, finding the difference between two numbers and odd and even numbers.


History


Our topic is 'homes.' The children will be identifying and investigating a variety of homes today and in the past. We will look at the materials used to build homes and the features of different places to live. Homes in the future will be explored as we think about the differences and similarities of styles through the decades.
This will lead into exploring the interior of homes and the designs that are currently popular in conjunction with the fashions from the past. The children will be able to design their own home.
The project leads into Victorian homes and the children will consider how technology and electricity have prompted change to home interiors and exteriors.


Home Project


As we are exploring homes and home design ideas, the home project this term is to create a home of your choice. This can be anything from a single room to a complete house. It could be a tree-house, a dream house, a home from the past or you can let your imagination run wild and create a futuristic home. The room or home can be made from any materials of your choice. The children can use the designs created at school, or can change it up completely and work on something different.
The children have the whole of the Spring Term to complete this, so that there is plenty of time to collect materials and come up with ideas. If you would like any further information regarding this project please come and chat to me.


Science


Our topic for this half-term is Materials and their Properties. We will begin by making a class list of items in the room and categorising the materials they are made up of. We will look at how water affects materials. The children will describe materials and extend their vocabulary in this area. We will be grouping materials according to their properties. The children will research the reasons for using different materials for different purposes. They will think about building materials as we go for a local walk and see what different buildings are made of.


Art and DT


What is sculpture? The children will see slide shows and recordings of different sculptures around the world. They will consider the materials that are used for them, which links with our history and science topics. We will investigate the range of materials that can be used to create sculptures. They will research the work of Andy Goldsworthy and take a woodland walk collecting natural materials for  sculpting back at school. They will design their sculpture and use their design when deciding what materials they will need to collect.
The children will also create sculptures from plasticine, so that they have a variety of experiences.


ICT


The children will use their ICT sessions to learn how to use search engines, log in quickly and correctly, retrieve their work from files created and use 'Word' to increase typing skills.
A couple of the sessions will be used for Maths Seeds, which I hope will encourage them to use the programme at home.


PSHE


Our focus will be on dreams, ambitions and goals. We will discuss personal struggles and how goals can be achieved through continuing to try, not giving up and focusing on the final  achievement. We will make a class goal and discuss how we can achieve it. We will reflect on cooperation. For one of the sessions will look at academic achievements and how people have been successful. We will read 'Going On A Bear Hunt' and think about all the obstacles the family faced.
Finally we will talk about stepping stones and the steps we need to take to achieve our goals.


Religious Education


This term we will be thinking about 'belonging.' This will include family and community. the children will focus on the school community and who is important to us and why. We will ask ourselves why it is important to have a close and caring community and what this means.
The children will be learning about baptism. We will visit the church and the children will be able to see the font. We will hear about why some people are baptised and what that means.
Toward the end of the coming half term we will be looking at the symbols of prayer and worship.


NEWS

• When the children return to school they will need to bring their PE kits. Please can the children bring a small PE bag with their kit inside. They do not need any other bag apart from reading folders and lunch boxes. Our cloakroom area is quite small and space is limited. Many items get knocked off the pegs as there is not enough room for more than one PE bag on each peg.

I am really looking forward to see you all tomorrow.
Ms Davis