Year 1 w/b 13th September
Date: 16th Sep 2021 @ 7:57am
Year One is in full swing! This week all the children seem to have settled into the routines of their new class and we are thoroughly enjoying getting to know each of them. We have had a busy week full of exciting learning, especially linking to our key text ‘Major Glad, Major Dizzy’. We found a letter from Major Glad hidden in the classroom which led us to write down the questions we would like to ask about life under the floorboards. We then received a second recount style letter that we have learnt in the ‘talk for writing’ text map style. We can’t wait to share with you a video of us performing our text map.
This week in Maths we have introduced our Power Maths workbooks and have begun following our Year One maths curriculum after getting to know children’s maths learning last week. We used concrete resources and pictorial representations to support the work we complete in our books. This week our learning has included using a tens frame, writing numbers as digits and words, and counting backwards from a given number.
Guided reading has continued this week and again, thank you to all those parents that have commented / signed planners and listened to your child each day this week. Books will be changed on a Monday and Thursday every week. In guided reading sessions we read the same text over a three-day cycle as follows: Day one is to familiarise children with the text, the phonics sounds and the green/red words they will come across in the text. Day two is used to gain confidence and fluency reading a text the are becoming more familiar with. Day three involved reading the book and answering questions about the text to share understating. This is also a good model to use when reading your child’s home reading book.
In phonics we continue to recap sounds from Reception with the challenge of applying these sounds to words written in full sentences using and applying Year One writing expectations. We would like to thank you for your support with the children’s spelling homework from last week. Keep up the great work Year One!
In Collective worship, we have focused on journeying through the Bible and have started at the very beginning with Genesis and the creation of the world. We considered how we feel about the world we live in and how we have the responsibility to care and look after it. Our second lesson in RE on ‘Good News’ started with a sharing of good news stories from the bible. It was great that so many children could recall stories from the New Testament including the birth of Jesus, feeding of the 5,000 the calming of the storm. The children’s pictures of good news in their own lives were lovely to see and hear about- lots of love for their families, friends, being forgiven and even pictures of them walking with God.
In Heart Smart this week we explored where power comes from in the world and how it can be used e.g. to change things, to make things work and it gives energy, life and movement. Next, we thought about the power that we have to make a difference and how we can use this power to make someone feel good or bad. Year One had lots of great ideas including sharing, loving, forgiving, and listening where they used their power in a positive way. We also really enjoyed listening to the Power in me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CAL3OC-Qfk
In Science, we completed our sketches of our class apple tree before we learnt to identify the names of trees in our school grounds by looking carefully at their leaves/fruit. Amongst the trees we named were lime, elder, oak and sycamore. We have made a collection of the leaves from these trees. In Tuesday’s forest school, Mr Simmons continued to focus on the seasons to link in with our work in science.
Forest school this week was a lot of fun and involved all things spider related. We started off with a spider hunt (including string spiders hidden by Mr Simmons) and talking about the environment in which a spider lives and what they look like and eat. This inspired us to make our own spiders out of clay, sticks and stones. Our session also involved time to explore the environment led through the interests of the children so also included making potions, den building and general exploration of the Forest School area.
In History we continue to look at the history of toys. This week this included comparing Mrs Lindersen’s toy doll from when she was a child, her mums toy doll from when she was little, and the toy doll her daughter currently plays with. We were then able to order the dolls from oldest to newest and identify the dolls that were played with and loved in the past compared to the doll which is still played with in the present. Our History learning continually links back to the toys found within our text ‘Major Glad, Major Dizzy.’
In PE we completed our baseline fitness texts with the team from MultiFlex where we tried our best to complete a range of physical activities to the best of our abilities including sprinting, longer distance running, foam javelin throwing and jumping. Later in the term we will revisit these activities to see if our fitness and strength has improved. We also continued to work on the animal dance that we began to create last week to the music ‘I’m the King of the Swingers.’ We had lots of fun moving like animals!
This half term in music our focus is the piano and each week we will be listening to a different musical performance that incorporates the piano. Last week we listened to Lang Lang perform Chopin’s Minute Waltz. This week the musical style was quite different, and we listened to the piano in Alele’s Someone Like You.
As you can see it has been another busy week in Year One. We would like to thank you for your continued support and home you all have a lovely weekend.
Mrs Pulle and Mrs Lindersen
