The Year 1 class value is to Celebrate

Friday 17th January 2025

Another great week of learning and progress in Year 1!

Maths – We have continued to focus on teen numbers this week. The children have used a range of equipment such as numicon, counters and tens and ones to build teen numbers, identify how many tens and how many ones. They have been able to apply the practical learning to written work and record numbers in writing.

English – To support our learning of The Lion Inside we have watched the opening sequence of The Lion King. This was a brilliant way to immerse us into thinking about African animals and settings. We have written sentences using ‘and,’ remembering capital letters and full stops. We have continued to practise correct letter formation regularly.

History – Another exciting History lesson this week. We took part in a sensory story told dramatically by Mrs Winrow and Mrs Kenyon! We learned about the sequence of events over the days of the Great Fire of London and how this affected the buildings and people of London in 1666, over 350 years ago. Being squirted with water was the highlight! We looked at a range of evidence sources and identified which were the best ones to help us understand the events.

Science –. We have continued our unit of learning, Materials. This week we learned about the properties and characteristics of materials. We learned lots of new vocabulary including transparent and opaque.

RE – This week have started our new Islam unit of work on how beliefs about creation affect the way people treat the world. We thought about nature and what we like to see outside including animals, plants, the countryside and the seaside. We then thought about how humans are spoiling nature by pollution, there was lots of curiosity and oracy skills were excellent.

PSHE – This week we learned about the importance of talking about our feelings to trusted people if we are feeling nervous, anxious or worried. We identified how our bodies may feel during times when we are worried and wrote down who can help us.

Enrichment – We have all enjoyed a second well-being Enrichment session. The children chose from a range of activities including, Makaton, mindful colouring, Lego and sport. Everyone came back to class happy after their session.

Mrs Winrow and Mrs Kenyon

Friday 10th January 2025

A snowy week back at school but lots of new and exciting learning in Year 1!

Maths – We have continued our Maths learning this term by counting to and beyond 20. We have learned how to read and write teen numbers in numerals and words. The children are continuing to solve problems with numbers to 20. Today we had fun making 10 using 3 dice.

English – We have looked at the front cover of our new book The Lion Inside. We have predicted what will happen and talked about the features of a lion and a mouse.

History – We had an exciting History lesson yesterday! We were detectives and started to learn about the Great Fire of London by looking at pictures, maps and diary entries. Just like historians, the children asked lots of questions and looked at evidence to make deductions. We are looking forward to next week when we will learn about the sequence of events during the fire.

Science –. We have started our new unit of learning, Materials. We have learned the names of different materials like wood, metal, plastic, fabric and glass and looked carefully at different objects made of these materials. We learned that plastic can be hard and soft and that forks can be made of many different materials.

Music – This week we started the new song, I am in the Groove, and focused on the genre of Blues. The children loved learning the song!

PSHE – This week we learned about the importance of healthy sleep routines. We talked about how we get ready for bed and why children need 11 hours sleep at night time. In pairs the children sequenced Harold the Giraffe’s bedtime routine.

Enrichment – We have all enjoyed our first well-being Enrichment afternoon today. The children chose from a range of activities including, Makaton, mindful colouring, Lego and sport. Everyone came back to class happy and refreshed after their session.

Mrs Winrow and Mrs Kenyon

Friday 22nd November

Thank you very much for your kind chocolate donations for the Christmas Fair.

Phonics – We are extremely proud of the progress the children are making in reading. Our daily phonics sessions are supporting the children to read accurately and fluently. Thank you too for your continued support in reading.

English - We have had more fun this week continuing to read Nibbles: The Book Monster. We noticed more pictures had been nibbled in our classroom and sorted them into singular and plural. We are learning when to add s or es to make plurals.

Maths - We have continued with the Addition and Subtraction unit of work and this week learned about number families and the different number sentences that can be made.

Art – We have continued with our printing unit this week by printing with our feet! We are layering our printing work and it looks fabulous so far. Next week we will be drawing flowers over our prints using fine liners.

Geography – This week we have enjoyed looking closely at the changes in the weather, especially because the snow and ice has arrived! We have taken some lovely photographs to display in the classroom.

Science – We have leaned 3 new scientific words this week, hibernate, migrate and adapt. We had fun learning about the animals that adapt to winter weather conditions.

Music – We are continuing to learn Christmas songs in preparation for our Christmas concert. You may begin to hear some practise at home!

PSHE – In this week’s lesson we have focused on what is fair and unfair. We listened to different scenarios and talked about whether they are fair and unfair.

Mrs Winrow and Mrs Kenyon

Friday 15th November 2024

We respectfully marked Remembrance Day in a special assembly led by Year 6 on Monday. Year 1 sat beautifully and listened to how important this occasion is.

Phonics - The children have settled into their new groupings very well this week. Sessions are focusing on sound recognition, word reading and writing at your child’s challenge level. Thank you for your support in completing the weekly homework sheets, which reinforce what has been taught in school. Good progress is being made in reading as the children continue to read their Rhino readers. It is a pleasure listening to the children read in school.

English - We have had more fun this week continuing to read Nibbles: The Book Monster. We noticed more books that have been nibbled in school and written their titles. We then read that Nibbles had nibbled through the Goldilocks and the Three Bears story. The characters were not happy, we have written sentences about how they felt.

Maths - We have continued with the Addition and Subtraction unit of work. The children are becoming very confident in recalling number bonds to 10 and using the correct vocabulary; plus and equals to. We are beginning to take away by working out the missing part in a number sentence.

Art – Printing is our new unit of work for this half term. We started by looking at wrapping paper and gift bags and how images are printed on them. This week we have started to print our own pictures by painting our hands and making multiple copies through print on a large scale. This was messy but very fun! We are looking forward to drawing images over our prints next week.

Geography – This week we looked closely at how the trees change over the seasons and then we drew our own seasonal trees, thinking carefully about the leaves, buds and flowers. We used the vocabulary winter, spring, summer, autumn.

Music – We are beginning to learn Christmas songs in preparation for our Christmas concert. You may begin to hear some practise at home!

PSHE – We read the story ‘But why can’t I?’ a book about rules and how they can keep us safe.

Polite reminder: We encourage healthy fruit/veg based snacks in line with school policy.

Have a lovely weekend everyone and thank you for your continued support.

Mrs Winrow and Mrs Kenyon

Friday 11th October 2024

Phonics sessions are continuing to be taught every morning. Each group is being taught to read and write sounds in words and sentences along with tricky words (words which can not be sounded out eg. ‘they’). The progress this half term has been good and we thank you for continuing to read at home with your child.

The children have produced some amazing English work this week! We have all created a new character for our own stories of Lost and Found. We chose animal characters such as polar bears, arctic foxes and seals. We drew pictures of our characters and wrote ideas in preparation for story writing next week.

In Maths we have started our Addition and Subtraction unit of work. We have identified parts and wholes of numbers and used a part whole model to understand how different numbers can be made eg. 5 is the whole, 3 is a part and 2 is a part. The children have demonstrated good understanding.

Our visitor from Lowton Hedgehog Rescue came into school on Thursday. She told us some amazing facts about hedgehogs like they have 7,000 spines! An African hedgehog has a white tummy and females can have up to 10 babies! The children’s behaviour was excellent and they listened beautifully, there were some great questions asked too.

Our History topic ‘Transport’ is coming to an end. This week we recapped on all of the modes of transport from the past that we have learned about, then we learned about vehicles of the future such as levitating trains, space jets and driverless cars!

We have learned about feelings in PSHE. We know how different facial expressions can mean people are feeling different. We talked about what we can do if we feel sad, lonely or worried and identified people who we can talk to if we need help to feel better.

This week’s Picture News question was ‘How important are human interactions?”

Reading - Polite request: Please remember to practise the sounds and words at the beginning of the reading books before reading the story.

Only 1 more week till half term! Have a great weekend.

Mrs Winrow

Friday 4th October 2024

We are continuing to see good progress in our Phonics sessions, learning to read and write new sounds and words. This week we have also focussed on the letter formation of ‘a’. We have practised saying “round the apple, up the stalk and down the leaf” as we have practised writing the letter correctly.

This week in English we have taken on the roles of the penguin and the boy from our story Lost and Found. Mrs Winrow and Mrs Kenyon made a great penguin and boy!! We thought about what they would say to each other at different points in the story and then wrote our sentences in speech bubbles. We have been remembering capital letters, full stops and finger spaces.

In Maths we have been counting back and finding 1 less. We are continuing to concentrate on correct number formation too.

We have continued our History topic about Transport by learning about the history of trains. It was interesting to find out about how different the first ever train was to the trains we travel on today!

We also learned about how important Black History month is and the important figure we will be learning about next week, Martin Luther King!

In RE we learned about how each family is different. We looked at photos of different families and talked about how although families are different they all have one thing in common, LOVE!

In Art we have continued our theme of spirals and drew some amazing shells.

This week’s Picture News question was ‘Is it important to know about the author of a book?”

Thank you for your continued support, have a lovely weekend everyone!

Mrs Winrow

Friday 27th September 2024

It has been another great week of learning in Year 1.

We have continued our daily Phonics sessions and have seen a remarkable improvement in concentration skills during these sessions. It has been a pleasure to listen to the children read their reading books, their confidence is growing every day, keep up the wonderful reading Year 1 we are very proud of you.

This week in English we have been thinking about what we would pack in a suitcase to take to the South Pole. We then wrote lists of items using our phonic skills, great work Year 1! We looked at images of the sea and haven’t written sentences to describe it, as if we were travelling to the South Pole.

In Maths we have been using number lines to find one more and one less. We have enjoyed playing a dice game to find numbers on a number line. We have continued to solve probems involving the language greater than and less than.

We have continued our History topic about Transport by learning about the history of flight! We ordered modes of flying on a timeline, beginning with a hot air balloon in the 1700’s. We had great fun making paper aeroplanes and seeing whose plane travelled the furthest! Maybe this is something you could try at home.  

In Science we learned about the role of a vet and how they look after a range of animals in different ways. We loved playing vets and taking on the role of a vet, nurse or pet owner, the language was amazing.

This week’s Picture News question was ‘Will Classrooms of the future be teacherless??’ This sparked some very interesting conversations about technology and if this can every replace a human teacher. You could continue this debate at home!

Thank you for your continued support, have a lovely weekend everyone!

Mrs Winrow

Friday 20th September 2024

This week we have enjoyed the sunny weather and taken much of our learning outside.

We have introduced short guided meditation sessions. These has been a lovely way for the children and staff to take some quiet time during our busy day. We use the New Horizon Guided Meditation for Children if you would like to try at home.

We have continued our daily Phonics sessions where the children are continuing to consolidate and learn new sounds and tricky words. We have practised and applied knowledge to reading and writing. Please complete the homework sheets linked to your child’s learning this week.

This week in English we received a letter from the Lost and Found Office asking for our help to write labels for lost animals!! We extended this by writing descriptions of animals, orally practising our sentences first.

In Maths we have been comparing numbers and objects and used the language ‘less than’, ‘more than’ and ‘equal to’. We have taken our Maths learning outside where we have used different objects to compare.

We have continued our History topic about Transport by learning about how cars have changed over time. The children noticed that the first car invented didn’t have windows, doors or a roof! We talked about how cars have changed over the years and ordered them oldest to newest.

We have introduced Picture News, a weekly topical talking point for children in school. This week the question was ‘How can Photos Shape the World?’ We looked at photos of wildlife and discuss how they can help us understand things we wouldn’t know about.

We have started to add our spiral artwork to our very own sketchbooks. Our work looks amazing and proves everyone is an artist! The children have taken such pride in their work and enjoyed collating it. Next session we will talk about what we like and how we can improve our work.

We have enjoyed many stories including the Big Bright Feelings books which focus on children’s emotions, the children love these stories and they always provoke interesting conversations.

Polite reminder: please ensure your child is wearing school shoes on non PE days.

Please write in planners when reading has taken place at home.

Please send homework back to school.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Mrs Winrow

Friday 13th September 2024

This week we have continued to settle into the routines of Year 1. The children are becoming more independent with managing their personal belongings such as bags, coats and snacks. Well done Year 1!

We have continued our daily Phonics sessions where the children are learning new sounds and tricky words. We have practised and applied knowledge to reading and writing. Please complete the homework sheets linked to your child’s learning this week.

This week in English we have been writing captions and sentences to match pictures linked to the story Lost and Found. The children have shown confidence and resilience when writing. They have used their phonic knowledge to write sounds and words and have remembered tricky words such as I and the. We are looking forward to continuing with the story next week.

In Maths we have been counting forwards and backwards and learning to read numbers as words. The children have been practising writing numbers correctly and putting them in order. A favourite lesson was making towers in increasing height and using them to count forwards and backwards.

We have started our History topic, Transport. This was such an enjoyable lesson where the children learned about how people travelled in the past. We learned what a sedan chair is and how aeroplanes have changed over the years. We used a timeline to order the vehicles chronologically. We are looking forward to the next lesson when we will learn how cars have changed over the years.

We have continued our Spiral Art and added colours to our work this week, our sketch books are going to look fantastic!

In Science we have learned about the inventor Ole Kirk Christian who invented Lego. We have learned what material Lego is made from and why and how it’s properties help to be such a fun toy to play with!

Reminder:

Next week individual and sibling photographs will be taken on Tuesday 17th in the morning.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Mrs Winrow

Friday 6th September

Welcome back to school everybody I hope you all had a lovely summer break. We have had a great first week in Year 1, it has been lovely getting to know the children and we are so proud of how they have settled into the new routines.

We have continued our daily Phonics sessions where the children have revisited previously taught sounds and tricky words. We have practised and applied knowledge to reading and writing.

This week in English we have been looking at the front cover of our new book Lost and Found and making predictions about what we think will happen. We have introduced and talked about the key vocabulary penguin, iceberg, suitcase, binoculars, torch and poster. We have thought about how these items may link to the story. We are looking forward to getting started with reading the story next week!

In Maths we have been sorting equipment into sets and have explored the different ways objects can be sorted eg. by colour, size or shape. The children have used a range of equipment and have made some excellent representations using counters and cubes.

Art has been great fun this week! We have learned about the artist Molly Haslund and how she creates circles and spirals in public spaces to encourage physical movement. I was blown away with how well the children could draw their own spirals on different scales, using different equipment. You may have seen their work on the playground on Thursday, this was such a fun lesson enjoyed by all of the children and teachers!

Here are a few things you may need to know about life in Y1…

· PE – Mondays and Tuesdays, please send your child to school in full PE kit.

· Spellings will be sent out next Friday. Children will get new spellings each week to be tested. Please can you practise these with the children.

· Thank you for your co-operation in sending healthy snacks to school. The children are enjoying showing me what they have brought each day!

· It has been lovely meeting you at drop off and pick up this week. If you ever have any questions, please do grab me at the end of the day or message me via dojo.

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Winrow