Year 1 w/b 27th February 2023
Date: 3rd Mar 2023 @ 3:56pm
It has been wonderful to welcome back Year 1 to the second half of the spring term and we trust you have all enjoyed a lovely half term.
Our week started with a puzzle- footprints leading to forest school! Why were the footprints there? Who had left them and what did they mean? After further investigation the children decided the footprints may have been those of a panther, lion or tiger – the large cat family. Reading more about large cats and looking at their footprints on the internet confirmed our suspicions that we had a tiger in our school grounds. Some of the children suggested that it was possibly one of the new tiger cubs from Chester Zoo. We speedily wrote them an email but thankfully they replied to let us know they are safe at the zoo, they did however say they had looked at the cameras and one had sneaked out in the night so maybe it had paid us a visit! This discovery encouraged us to read more about tigers and think about books we knew with tigers in them including the ‘Tiger that came to tea’ and ‘There’s a tiger in our garden’. Next, we focused on the characters in the book, Nora and the tiger. We collated adjectives to describe their appearance and generated synonyms for some of these. We used these adjectives to write character descriptions extending our sentences with and, because, with and even so. Finally we wrote a conversation imagining what the tiger and Nora may say to each other.
In phonics we have focused on ck (tick, tock clock!) and kn (Knock knock, who’s there?) so spelling homework next week with reflect this focus.
In Maths this week, we have continued our learning of counting in 10’s to 50. The children have been practicing counting forwards and backwards in 10’s and counting object by making groups of 10.
World book day was wonderful fun. The children looked amazing in all their costumes and enjoyed the opportunity to draw and write about why they had chosen to dress up in their chosen book, film, or theatre character. Thank you for all the effort you had put in to make sure the children were ready to celebrate World Book Day. The children thoroughly enjoyed reading with our friends from year 5, helping to create the Brereton story which we enjoyed
listening to with a biscuit just before home time and taking part in a live lesson with a famous author, including joining in with a drawing lesson.
In our ‘No Outsiders’ lesson we had lots of fun looking at photographs of our grandparents. We talked about what we thought about getting older. Some of us thought that getting older would be a good thing and others thought the opposite. We discussed why we had these opinions. We also enjoyed the story, My Grandpa, and discussed why Grandpa was so happy. We thought about our own grandparents and we listed lots of things that they are good at. Lots of year 1 thought that their grandparents were loving, fun and kind and some of them chose to write a special note to their grandparents or someone special in their lives.
Collective worship focused on the school value of ‘Wisdom’ and we listened to Jesus’ story from the Bible about the wise and foolish builder. Sometimes we listen to God’s words , understand them and try to follow his teaching so we can build on a solid foundation. Other times we forget about God and turn away from him and our foundations are weak. This led us to considering choices and consequences and gave us an opportunity to champion Fairtrade during Fairtrade Fortnight. Our Ethos Council explained that buying Fairtrade marked goods helped the farmers be paid a fair price so they could support their families and local communities . Back in the classroom we followed the journey of chocolate from cocoa pod to bar and recognised just how much work growing, tending and harvesting the beans from cocoa pods involved. We pledged to take a step for Fairtrade by supporting the Fairtrade Tuck shop in school today and next Friday and by buying at least one item of Fairtrade produce this week and next. Thank you for your photos of Fairtrade maltesers, bananas and tea which we have added to our Fairtrade display. Please continue to send these in as we promote Faith in action.
In Art, we discovered the three primary colours (red, blue and yellow). We looked at what primary colours can be mixed together to make secondary colours. We used water and different food colouring to investigate what would happen when we mixed yellow and red, blue and yellow and red and blue together. We had lots of fun mixing paint to make our primary and secondary colour wheels. We are looking forward to creating our own jungle themed background using lots of colours we have discovered to help us do this.
In History, we have begun our new topic of 'Homes from the Past'. The children loved talking about their own homes and we thought about different types of houses such as detached, semi-detached, bungalows, flats and mobile homes. The children then drew a picture of their own home and collected data about the types of home their friends live in.
We hope you all enjoy a lovely weekend and we shall look forward to seeing you all next week.
Mrs Pulle, Mrs Knott, Miss Malcolm and the Year 1 team
