Year 1 w/b 17th January
Date: 20th Jan 2022 @ 4:56pm
This week we have been so impressed with the children’s hard work and focus on their learning. We really have been seeing a great deal of effort and enthusiasm, the dojo points children are collecting reflect this. After beginning our innovated stories last week, we have been writing sections of our stories over the course of this week with some fantastic results. We have been working on using our text maps to support our writing, applying the writing features we know to include in story writing and focussing on the spelling of key words we just need to know how to spell such as ‘they’ and ‘was’. After finishing our stories and rereading them to check they made sense we began publishing our work using our best handwriting. Everyone seemed so proud of their work which was great to see.
In Maths we are looking at numbers within 20 this has included partitioning numbers into tens and ones and counting one more and one less. For example, the number 18 is made of one ten and eight ones or 10 + 8 = 18. We can represent this on tens frames to show this practically. Counting on one more and one less was easy to represent with concrete objects such as counters and objects, pictorial representations such as drawing one more or crossing out one less or making jumps on a number line. Our abstract understanding of it came from our knowledge of counting on from or back from any given number.
In phonics we have focussed on ow (blow the snow) and oi (spoil the boy) and thank you again for your continued support encouraging your children to practise spellings and sentences at home containing these sounds.
In Collective worship this week Mrs Mclean and Revd Sandi have been helping us think about Gideon and the qualities he had that helped him lead God’s people in a time when many people were forgetting God and worshipping idols instead. We considered our own qualities and how we use them and identified qualities in our peers that we admire. In RE we started our new focus on the Kingdom of God. Starting with exploring what a kingdom actually is, we compared ideas of where the Kingdom of God is found. The class had thoughtful and considered ideas suggesting it must it be earth because that’s where we are or Bethlehem because that was where Jesus was born or heaven because that is where God lives. Later in the lesson we discussed the role and responsibilities of a King or Queen and found out Queen Elizabeth was also head of the Church of England. One of the class added’ well our Queen is never alone as she has God by her side as she makes decisions’. Finally, we thought about how we would rule if we were a Monarch. Our kingdoms would be full of kindness, joy, laughter, and compassion.
Our science learning built on our sensory walk last week. Our big question was ‘Which part of the body is good for feeling and which is not?’ whilst blindfolded the class took turns to feel different materials with different body parts. They tried feeling with their noses, elbows, chin, and fingertips. It was surprising how sensitive some of these parts were, so we made some interesting discoveries.
This week in Forest School, we looked at the different textures and materials that we have in our Forest School environment. We looked at pinecones and how they’ve got a bumpy texture, bamboo sticks and how they’re smooth and at leaves and how they can be prickly and smooth. We then had the opportunity to explore the forest school at our own pace to take in all that we had thought about.
This week we introduced our new Geography unit: Farming in Brereton and we learnt about the three main types of farming (arable, livestock and dairy). It was great to involve children in the learning by sharing their firsthand farming experiences.
In PE we continue to work on our invasion game skills. This week we worked on our throwing and catching skills, using these in game situations where finding spaces and making ourselves available for passes were skills that were needed.
In HeartSmart we read the well-known Julia Donaldson story, The Smartest Giant in Town. We could recall all the acts of kindness caried out by the giant then set to work thinking about times when our friends have gone out of their way to show kindness towards others. We are now on the hunt for examples to report back with next week.
As we mentioned last week, this has been our last week having Mr Whitworth with us in Year One. We wish him all the best for his future in teaching career and we are sure you will agree that the personalised gifts he has made for the children are just lovely. Thank you again Mr Whitworth, we will miss you!
Have a lovely weekend,
The Year One Team
