Year 1
Welcome to Year 1
Welcome to the Year 1 class page. This page will provide opportunities for us to share some of the amazing learning that takes place within our class.
Important days to remember:
PE: Monday and Wednesday
Please bring your reading book and home/school link diary each day as this is an important and efficient way to communicate with your class teacher.
Reading
As a school, we are committed to helping every child to fulfil their full potential. Developing the skill and enjoyment of reading is essential in enabling our children to become successful learners. It is crucial that you aim to read with your child at least 4 times per week. This will help their learning across the curriculum and promotes their self-esteem.
Your support at home is, of course, crucial to the successful development of your child’s reading. Your child will have a ‘Home School Link Book’ for you to record in every time you read with your child. This will help their learning across the curriculum and promotes their self-esteem. There are lots of ways in which you can help your child at home; we have listed a few ideas below:
Listen to your child read
Read a story to your child
Share a book together – take it in turns to read pages
· Before you begin a book – look at the cover – ask your child to predict what the book will be about
· Stop at a point in the story – ask your child to predict what will happen next. Why do they think that?
· Make your own predictions and explain your reasons. Remember children learn by imitating others.
· Look through a book first, only looking at the illustrations – try and work out what is going to happen
· At the end of the book – discuss ‘who is your favourite character?’ and ‘did you enjoy this book? Why?’
· Make up a quiz about the book. Or even better ask your child to ask you questions!
· Pretend you are a character. Get the children to ask you questions and answer in role. Swap over to allow them to have a go at ‘being’ the character.
· Can you find the word [put your own word here] anywhere in the book?
· Make up stories together relating to what happened before or after the story took place.
· Practice reading the 100 and next 200 High Frequency words from the reading diary.
Autumn 1
During the first half term of Year 1 have had lots of opportunities to explore different learning environments. Some of the areas we have within the classroom are; a reading corner, role-play area, construction area, water and sand, creative area, writing and numeracy table. Each week the activities set up will link with our current topic.
This term we have been exploring a variety of traditional tales and met our favourite characters from the stories whilst completing the challenges set by them. So far in Year 1 we have fed the greedy wolf from ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ a variety of nouns and we have used adjectives to create a detailed wanted poster after the wolf went missing.
In Math’s, we have used our knowledge of number to help the Little Pig from the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’ to build his house of bricks. We have read the ‘True Story of the Three Little Pigs’ and composed questions to ask the wolf about his version of events.
We have made gingerbread men, only to find they had escaped overnight from the classroom! But they did return after we helped the Gingerbread Man to complete the number bonds. In science, we have discovered the importance of our 5 senses.
Our very first 'Writer of the Week'
Autumn 2
This half term began with the Gunpowder Plot as the children discovered Britain’s historic events that led to the celebration of Bonfire Night. The children encountered drama to help with their understanding of the Plot which led them onto the writing of this historic story.
The term continued with the story 'Owl Babies'.
During this topic we became scientists and identified a variety of common animals that are carnivores, herbivores and omnivores. This topic allowed for the children to use simple fieldwork and observational skills to study the geography of our school and related this to the habitats of our wildlife.
The term ended with the topic 'The Time Machine' where the children went back in time and discovered the Christian message that illuminates from the nativity story.
During this topic the children engaged in writing a news report of the historical events leading up to the birth of baby Jesus.
It is during this half term that the children performed the Christmas Nativity which allowed the opportunity for music to be taught in a way that the children used their voices expressively and creatively.
Spring 1
Lost and Found
We set sail to the Southern Hemisphere to find out about penguins! We received a strange package in school. After much investigation we discovered that the parcel contained the penguin from the book ‘Lost and Found’.
We created a story mountain with actions to retell the story. We then wrote a letter to a detective to ask for help as we had received a strange egg-shaped object. We later discovered that it was a penguin egg.
In science we observed the seasonal changes, experimented with objects that float and sink and identified and named many everyday materials. In math’s over the spring term we used practical resources and pictorial representation to represent and describe number bonds to 20 including addition and subtraction.
Spring 2
The Giant’s Garden
This half term the children have continued in their journey of becoming ‘super scientists’ as they have gained the knowledge and skills necessary to grow their own plants. The children excelled in taking care of their plants putting all their new found knowledge into practice. Their investigations continued further as they learnt all about deciduous and evergreen trees.
To support our school ethos, the children wrote a persuasive letter to Mrs Cooke to ask if we could begin composting at school. These letters did the trick and Mrs Cooke gave permission to proceed! Therefore, we have created our own compost heap to begin the composting process here at Forsbrook.
Summer 1
Paws, Claws and Whiskers
The summer term began with a visit from a pet owner and their furry friend. Prior to this visit, the children were challenged to write questions to ask the pet owner in order to discover more about their animal and how to look after them.
From this, the children were inspired to conduct their own research into the animals that they would meet on our exciting school trip to the Peak Wildlife Park. This research was collaborated into amazing fact files which focused on habitat, appearance and diet. The school trip ignited some wonderful writing as the children wrote a recount of their day using all the pre taught skills in English.
The children then engaged in the fictional text, The Tiger that came to Tea. This wonderful tale was used to explore the features of a diary which led onto the children writing their own dairy entry from the perspective of the character Sophie. Following this, the story was then used creatively as the children wrote their own version of the story, except their story had a TWIST.
In our topic lessons, we explored maps and at lases and identified the countries and capitals of the United Kingdom and its surrounding seas.
In Math's during this term, we have explored many new concepts including multiplication, division, factions, money and time. We used our fantastic doubling skills and counting in twos, fives and tens to help us to explore these new concepts.
Our topic, Paws, Claws and Whiskers, enabled the children to investigate and learn about different animal groups including mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. We learned and compared each group’ s key characteristics. Many of the animal groups we were then able to see on our trip to Peak Wildlife Park.
Summer 2
The Lighthouse Keepers lunch
Over this half term we have been exploring the story of the Lighthouse Keepers Lunch. The children have been retelling the story through drama techniques, such as ‘freeze fames’ and ‘conscious alley’ which helped them when they redrafted the ending of this fictional tale. The children were tasked with writing an ending that focused upon ways of tricking the seagulls and stopping them stealing Mr Grinling’s delicious lunch.
From this tale we engaged in thought provoking discussions about the importance of lighthouses and debated what would happen if there were not any. The children quickly recognised the moral duty of the lighthouse keeper, this being to keep the light shining brightly for the safety of those at sea. This led us onto learning about the historical hero Grace Darling where the children were truly inspired by her actions as they created a fact file about her.
