Year 1 w/b 7th June
Date: 11th Jun 2021 @ 5:39pm
We hope you have all enjoyed the half term break and welcome back to our final term together in Year 1. This half term our focus text is ‘The Night Pirates’ by Peter Harris and a treasure map leading to a treasure chest caused great excitement on Monday. We looked carefully at the objects in the chest to think about who made and owned the treasure and what stories the objects may tell. Next,we read the story and discovered how stealthy the rough, tough pirate girls were as they tricked Captain Patch and the ‘Grown -up’ pirates. We explored new vocabulary likes gaped and goggles before we wrote postcards from Tom’s viewpoint noting what he saw, heard and felt as he was welcomed aboard the Night Pirates ship. Finally, we looked at the inferred meaning in the text. Why was only the moon watching and waiting? Why did the pirates gape and goggle? Why were the Night Pirates quiet as mice and stealthy as shadows?
This week in maths our focus has been halves and quarters. This unit builds on simple sharing completed in earlier units during the year. Children who have mastered this unit have been able to use efficient strategies to find halves and quarters of shapes and groups of objects. The children have worked accurately and confidently to find either 2 or 4 equal parts and they have recognised that the equal parts relate to the whole. We have also worked in reverse: being told what a quarter is and calculating what the whole would be. Finally, we have practised using the correct vocabulary and reasoning when explaining methods of working, particularly when solving word problems
In Science we started our second half term looking at plants, flowers and seeds. Today we linked our learning to our ongoing topic of seasonal change and revisited our class apple tree in the school playground. We first looked back at pictures of the tree during autumn and winter and discussed the changes, then we went outside to look closely at how the tree looks today. We could see many more green leaves; the spring blossom was all gone and in its place were tiny apples. We carefully sketched the tree noting all the details. Finally, we wrote down the changes we observed and discussed them. We can't wait to see the apples grow over the next few weeks.
Our history topic for this half term is the Titanic. We will ask and answer questions linking to this event in history and will find out more information about people from our local area who were on board the Titanic when it sank. In our first session this week we talked about this major event in history and discussed what happened. We then talked about the role of a historian - to ask and answer question about events from the past. We all had lots of questions so recorded them in our topic books with the hope that our learning over the next few weeks should answer our questions. After recording our questions, we considered the best ways to find the answers - we couldn't just ask someone who was there, as there are no longer any living survivors. We discussed the best sources of information, and which would be the most reliable. Mrs Warren had been to the Titanic museum in Belfast so shared what she had found out. There is also a fantastic collection on display at the Maritime Museum in Liverpool. It might make a great family day out if you are interested!
Heartsmart’s theme is ‘No way through isn’t true’ and in lesson one we thought about what helps us when we find something difficult and how wonderful and proud we feel when we overcome difficulties.
Our Collective Worship this term is the ‘Miracles of Jesus’ and this week we looked at John 2 verses 1-11, the wedding in Cana where Jesus used something ordinary to help others. We considered how the ordinary things we do, help others. Yesterday we enjoyed a welcome return to St Oswald's Church for a short service with Sandi. The children enjoyed identifying the different features in a Church and joined in with the children's creed before we had prayers and walked back to school.
In RE our focus for the half term is Judaism and particularly the life of Joseph and his relationship with God. We have looked in a Torah Scroll and compared this to the first four books of the Christian Bible. We considered how Joseph’s brothers felt as their Father gave Joseph a special coat and how they reacted to Joseph’s dreams. We will find out more next week because we have only reached the part where Joseph is sold as a slave to Egyptian traders and the brothers lie to their Father telling him that Joseph is dead.
In Forest school we imagined we were pirates marooned on an island. What would we need to do? What are our basic needs? We agreed this was warmth, shelter, food and drink and over the following few weeks we shall focus on each of these areas, building dens, making fire, cooking dough twists over flames and orienteering treasure seeking activities.
