Welcome to the final half term in year one!

Children have come back to school and straight into super phonics sessions to prepare them for phonics screening that took place this week. All children tried really hard and their efforts showed.

The children have started a new a English learning journey this week – Poles Apart. In this book the penguins go on an adventure all over the world. We made a story map and re-enacted the story as we told it.

For maths week we have been looking at numbers to 100. We have focused on finding one more and one less than numbers up to 100. Children played lots of games such as greatest to smallest, find the missing number, ordering etc.

We also started learning about The Great Fire of London. The children came up with lots of questions they want to find the answer to, so this is how we kicked off our first session. The children were detectives, looking for the answers to the questions: When, Where and How.

Next week 

Maths – We will continue learning about one more and one less than numbers up to 100.

English – We will be looking at the different counties and coming with adjectives to help describe what they look like.

How can I help my child at home?

For phonics, please ensure that your child is secure in their phase 5 sounds. This will put them in the best position to access learning at the start of Year 2. 

For maths please make sure children  can recognise numbers to 100 and understand the pattern of number such as 38, 39, 40, 41, 42 etc. 

When practising writing at home please encourage your children to write from left to right, on the line, once they have eco e to the end of the line they move on to the next one. All letters should be formed correctly and facing the right way, if your child is still struggling with this then please make handwriting practise a priority.

We joined Year R and had a whole blue phase jubilee party. We enjoyed our fruit and vegetables skewers, had squash and the staff in the kitchen made us some yummy biscuits!

The children have been busy the last week of summer term 1. They have been learning about 3D shapes and sorting them according to their properties.

The children wrote about their day at Arundel castle too! They included verbs and adjectives to describe what happened.

Finally we made fruit and vegetable skewers for DT and then we enjoyed them at our Jubilee party we had with Year R!

We hope you have a lovely half term break! The first week back the children will have phonics screening, so any practise of phonics over the half term will be much appreciated.

Here are some images from the school trip. The children had great fun going on a double decker bus for the first time! When we got to the castle the children had snack and then they explored the castle rooms! They had the opportunity to dress up, walk round the beautiful gardens and experience the dungeon. They had such fun and were so exhausted by the end of the day we had some children catch some zzzzzzzs on the coach back to school!

Here are some images from our liturgy last week.

We had fun finding out about our country focus for the summer term. We emptied a back pack and using the objects inside to try to guess where this person was going. By the end of the session most of the children had guessed that it was Antarctica!

The children have been learning how to count in 5s this week. They have been using their new skill to help them answer worded problems.

Next week:

English – The children will be learning about words in their contracted forms, such as is not – isn’t, we are – we’re.

Maths – We will be counting in 2, 5 and 10 to help us solve problems and using the vocabulary ‘groups of’.

How can I help my child at home?

We are doing a big push on phonics at the moment in school, it would be great if you could encourage your child do some phonics at home too. We have found that the alien (nonsense) words seem to be a bit tricky for the children blend as they want to make them into real words. Attached is some you could  get your child to read at home. 

Alien-Nonsense-Word-Cards

The children have had a busy first week back and many have worked extremely hard.

For English the children have been exploring how to look after dragon eggs! They ended the week by looking at instructions and making a jam sandwhich following the instructions In preparation for Writing instruction on how to train a dragon.

The children came into school to find dragon footprints and used counting in 2s to work out how many footprints had been left!

The children ended the week by counting in 10s because they found out that dragons fly in groups of 10!

Next week 

English – The children will be writing instructions to help care for a dragon!

Maths – We will be counting in 5s to work out dragon problems.

Key date: Liturgy 10am on Tuesday 3rd May

How can I help my child at home?

As we will be counting in 5s next week, you could help your child by arranging their toys (cars, bears, lol dolls, etc) in groups of 5 and counting how many are in two groups of 5 or 3 groups of 5.

We have been looking at instructions, so share a set of instructions with your child and ask how they know which order to do things. Use time connectives such as: First, next, then , finally.

Presentation and letter formation is important in year 1, particularly this final term, so please practise letter formation at home. Ensuring that letters are facing the correct way and sitting on the line.

This week the children have attended the stations of the cross, they were immersed on the story of Jesus travelling to his crucification by Mr Cunningham, Mrs Buckingham, Mr Croizer and Miss Heath. They viewed 4 of the 15 stations: Jesus is sentenced to death, Jesus carries the cross, Jesus meets his Mum and Simon helps Jesus.

The children got to explore beebots this week and had great joy in putting algorithms to make the beebots move.

The children then had to write their own algorithms for the beebot to collect their items on the beebot grid!

The children had a special delivery from Jack and got to plant their own magic beans!

To end the week the children shared their crime reports with Judge Cunningham who came to a final verdict: Jack! Jack should not have barged into the castle and stole the coins.

Trip letters have gone out this week. We are visiting Arundel Castle on 19th May. Please see the trip letter for further details. Continue reading →

On Thursday we had a diversity afternoon where the children learnt about Judaism.

They got to explore some important symbols and artefacts to those of a Jewish religion.

The Children then used what they learnt about Judaism to design a family table.

In English this week the children had the opportunity to ask Jack some questions when he came to visit!

A day later we had a note from the giant! He wash shocked that we thought jack was a good boy and wanted to have his say!

The children made puppets in DT, bringing their designs to life!

Next week:

English – Using all the evidence gathered from the Giant and Jack the children will be writing a crime report for a judge. This will help them decide which character is bad and therefore should face a consequence!

Maths – The children are continuing their journey of weighing and finding the difference in weight of two objects. They will be recording this in their book pictorially.

How can you help at home?

As always keep reading at home. The more confident the children come with the book the more fluent they become. Please also practise writing at home and using their sounds, particularly if your child is now learning phase 5 sounds the more exposure they have to words the more confident they will come with selecting the correct sound.

When practising maths at home ensure your child is confident with using the correct lanaguage, such as heavier/lighter, heaviest/lightest. Ensuring they use the correct language will stop misconceptions forming. 

This week we have started a new English unit – Jack and the Beanstalk!

The children retold the story, using actions and reading our story map to help to retell it accurately.

The children developed their computer skills further this week by using the space bar and the return key on the keyboard to start a new line! The children were really good at helping each other by reminding them what the important buttons were on the key board.

We have moved in to weight for maths. We have reminded ourselves how to use the scales and work out what postition the scales need to be in for something to be lighter or heavier. We have used the sentence stem: _____ is lighter than the _______ OR ________  is heavier than the ______.

Next week:

Topic – Jack and the Beanstalk 

Maths – We will all be looking at comparing objects we are weighing. Most of us will be using multilink to explore units of measurement when weighting objects, such as the car is as heavy as 10 multilink cubes. Some of us will be talking about the difference in the weight of objects.

English –  We will be collecting evidence on Jack and the Giant from Jack and the beanstalk. We I’ll have the opportunity to ask Jack some questions and explore the language used in the book to help us form an opinion.

How can you help your child at home? 
Please keep practising numbers at home. Children need to be confident with numbers up 100  by the end of the school year. Ask your child to find one more and one less any given number.

As we will be using inference skills in English this week, you could practise with some of the books you read at home with your child. See if they can find the message behind the story, what is the author trying to tell you?

We are writing questions, so you could practise talking about what questions are and the children can try writing the down. What internet them? What do they what to find out? REMEMBER to include a question mark at the end of your question!!