Year 1 w/b 22nd November
Date: 26th Nov 2021 @ 5:01pm
Week 4 in English has given us the opportunity to look at different genres of writing and the characteristics of this writing. Next, we looked at the structure and format of letters, identifying common features. After this we thought about questions, we would like to ask Beegu now she has returned with her parents to her home. We used these questions in letters that we wrote to Beegu thinking carefully about punctuation, capital letters for names, places and new sentences and remembering to say it, write it and check it.
In phonics we have focused on i-e (nice smile) and igh (fly high) and thank you for your continued support encouraging your children to practise spellings and sentences at home containing these taught sounds.
In Power Maths we continued to work on subtraction using concrete and pictorial representations. We used the part whole model to find missing parts and used this information to write 8 calculations, for example with 9 as the whole and 5 and 4 as the parts we recorded:
5+4=9 9-5=4
4+5=9 9-4=5
9= 5+4 4= 9-5
9=4+5 5=9-4
Next, we counted back on number lines to show /make subtractions. Perhaps you children could practise these at home. Can they make 7 in different ways by taking away. Let them circle 7 on their number line and circle a number great than 7 then count back e.g., 9-2=7, 10-3=7.
In forest school we foraged for nature and made friends for Beegu. It was wonderful to see the children working with such enthusiasm and excitement as they used ‘nature’s glue (clay) to join the different parts of their design together. We had great friends with wings, capes, curly tails, 5 eyes, grabbers, and long ears- all unique and all loved. In Design and technology, we have moved to the next stage of our unit of work from the designing to making. We created templates of our friend for Beegu on paper, cut them out and pinned them on to our fabric of choice ready to be cut out. Next week we will assemble, join, and add details to our comforters. We can’t wait to show you what we have designed and made.
In HeartSmart this week we have been thinking about how to let love into our hearts through this half term’s theme: Don’t Forget to Let Love in. We started by thinking about times when other people use kind words or actions to show us, they love us, we need to remember to ‘Let Love in’ and allow it to strengthen our hearts. Another way we thought about how to ‘Let Love in’ is to ensure the thoughts we have and the words we use about ourselves are kind and loving. We then completed the following sentence: The best thing about me is…. We had some lovely sentences and kind words to say about ourselves and extra kind words were shared by others to further strengthen the hearts of friends.
In Collective worship we were amazed by the Israelites escape from Egypt in the parting of the red sea and then explored the Ten commandments in Revd Sandi’s worship. In Year 1 we felt that many of these commandments were still very important today and as one child added ‘if we love God, love learning and love one another we should be following these rules.’
Our RE focus on Christin Community concluded this week with a focus on why Mary Jones was so determined to own her own Holy Bible and then a recap of our learning over the last 4 weeks. We were impressed by the children’s recall of Bible stories from the Old and New Testament and what they teach Christians today.
This week we also had a visit from Andrew Moffatt who spoke to us about ‘No Outsiders’. His message was one we truly value at Brereton, celebrate everyone and make everyone feel included and welcomed. We explored what we all had in common as well as what made us different, and we enjoyed celebrating both.
Nativity, nativity, nativity filled the rest of our time this week. We now know nearly all our songs with actions and have started to learn where we sit and stand in the hall and on the stage. Thank you to all those children who have clearly been practising singing at home and we shall look forward to having costumes in school by next Thursday. Any problems with costumes, do not hesitate to ask.
We look forward to seeing everyone later at the Christmas Fair. We shall be in the Year 1 classroom at Elfridges busily helping children wrap their Christmas gifts.
Have a lovely weekend. At Church it shall be Advent Sunday and the first lighting of the candle on the Advent wreath.
The Year 1 team.
