Year 1 w/b 25th September 2023
Date: 29th Sep 2023 @ 4:42pm
Our focus in English this week has been on extended writing. Having learned the text map letter from Major Glad, by heart, using actions to help sequence the chronology of events the children were secure about knowing what to write. We imitated writing the letter over 3 days having shared a guided write altogether on the carpet first. We teach the children to say it, write it and check it reinforcing capital letters for start of sentences and names and full stops to finish a sentence. We have been very encouraged by the children’s resilience to write largely independently and at length over a sustained period of time. Now we are moving on to innovating our own text map changing the mischief maker, feelings in the letter (linked to our work on synonyms) and what the soldiers were dropped between or from.
In phonics we have reviewed either ay and ee or ou and oy writing words with these sounds in sentences and adding the suffixes -ing and -ed where appropriate. Monday’s spelling homework therefore will reflect this teaching and gives the children a further opportunity to embed their learning with you at home. Thank you again for your support encouraging your child to practise these at home and to use them in sentences with the common exception words of the week. Spelling homework should be handed in on Friday each week.
Year 1 are enjoying their work in Power maths. This week we begun by comparing different groups of objects, saying which had more and which had fewer. We then moved on to exploring the following symbols:
> means greater than or more than
< means less than or fewer than
= means equal to or the same as
Understanding these symbols has allowed us to compare numbers and to put numbers and objects in order. Next week we will move to comparing numbers and ordering them.
In Collective worship, we started to think about our Brereton Harvest Appeal for 2023 and this year we shall be supporting the great work of Chance Changing Lives in Crewe and the Brereton Food Pantry. Please refer to our Harvest Appeal letter which will be sent later today.
Within RE, our discussions around why some harvests fail in other countries inspired us to consider how we can help people across the world. The children had lots of ideas such as learning about the work of charities that help people with failed harvests such as Christian Aid and Cafod, we thought we could pray for neighbours in need and share what we have with others. In addition , we used our lesson time to draw and paint a range of harvested goods that we are lucky enough to grow in the UK.
Mr Simmon’s forest school last Wednesday focused on the work of Andy Goldsworthy- an artist inspired by nature and colour. The class enjoyed making repeating patterns out of deciduous leaves in circular designs as well as threading leaves onto strings. Thank you for sending in old trousers or waterproof suits. These worked well and we were very impressed with how independently and speedily the children changed into their outdoor clothing so we could still maximise time in forest school.
In science we reminded ourselves of our learning from last week and we spent time sorting leaves into those from deciduous and evergreen trees. We are getting confident now at classifying and identifying many trees from our school grounds. We then explored different ways of sorting leaves into groups such as deciduous and evergreen, and also other ways looking at the size, shape and colour of the leaves.
This week in PSHE, Freedo our friendly alien visited us and he noticed lots of things that were the same in our school- we all had teeth, hair, two eyes, a nose and a mouth. But he also noticed some differences and we helped him identify these - some people had different coloured hair, wore glasses, had different coloured eyes and were different heights. Next, we met Harold the giraffe, Kiki the kangaroo and Derek the penguin and we explored what they had in common and their differences. We were amazed by their special talents and we too shared our talents which ranged from being a great swimmer to doing cartwheels, boxing, ballet and gardening. How wonderful that we are all the same in some ways but very different in other ways! At Brereton we respect and celebrate the ways in which we are all different.
Our PE focus was rolling safely and strongly on the gymnastic mats. We learned how to perform, tuck rolls, tuck rocks and log rolls and was lovely to observe children in pairs supporting and encouraging each other as they learned to master this new skill.
Next week marks the start of our KS1 Harvest Service preparations. We shall be holding a short Harvest Service for Parents and Grandparents of children in EYFS and Years 1 and 2, on Thursday 5th October at 10am, at St Oswald’s Church. The children will be singing some harvest songs and each class will present something to the service. We shall have enough adults in school to walk down to Church but if you would like to walk back to school with us you are most welcome. We expect the service to last no longer than 35 minutes.
With many thanks as always,
Mrs Pulle and Mrs Knott
