Welcome to Year 1!

I am Mrs Hunter, the Year 1 class teacher. The children are also supported in their learning by Miss Cathcart. The children have settled in wonderfully to year 1 and are becoming superb independent learners! We have enjoyed learning about ‘Why Meerkats can’t live on the North Pole’ as well as ‘Where leaves go in the Autumn’ as our two autumn topics.

Literacy

This term the children have been learning:

       •Stories with familiar settings - the children wrote their own version of ‘Peace At Last’ and ‘The Tiger Who Came To Tea’. We had lots of fun changing the characters and settings.

       • Writing lists, labels and captions– The children wrote their own information leaflets about      Meerkats and Penguins using labels and captions as part of their work.

• Senses poetry – following a walk around the school grounds to collect autumn objects the children used their senses to write their own poems.

During the rest of this term, we will be focusing on Traditional Tales. We will be paying particular attention to Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel. Using actions and role play we will retell the traditional tales as well as create our own versions of these stories!!!

Reading

We encourage you to read at home with your child whenever you can. Every morning, the children will have a 30 minute Guided Reading session. Each Reading group will have a focused session with me and Miss Cathcart once a week. While we are working with a focused group, the other children will work on a variety of activities based on reading, comprehension and writing which will help them the develop their understanding of the text focus for that week. Children will also read one to one with myself or another member of staff. On Friday, the children have 20 minutes of Reading for Pleasure – where the children can read any book they like. The children thoroughly enjoy this! Our author of the month is currently Julia Donaldson. We have asked the children to bring in a Reading Selfie to display in our library area!

Maths

During the first half of Autumn Term, we focused on counting forwards and backwards as well as recognising numbers to 100.  The children have worked hard to order numbers; sequence numbers; find missing numbers and create their own number patterns. The second half of this term, we will focus on addition and subtraction; particularly number bonds to 20. Year 1 have been working very hard to learn their 2, 5 and 10 times tables. We encourage children to practise their times tables at home as this greatly benefits their recall in maths sessions.

Topic

This term we have been learning all about the Beatles. We even made our own instruments and sang along to 'Yellow Submarine'. To look at some of our pictures click here

For the first half of the Autumn Term we focused on a Geography topic looking at ‘Why Meerkats can’t live on the Northpole’. Children used globes, maps and atlases to locate Antarctica, Europe and Africa. They learnt about the different animals from these continents and why they prefer such climates. Children applied their computing skills as they carried out internet research to find out key information about Antarctica and Africa.  We will now move onto our second Geography topic as we learn about ‘Where the leaves go in the Autumn’, with a focus on seasonal change. Children will investigate the different seasons and how the weather changes during each season.

Religious Education

In RE, we are currently learning about Belonging, and how this prepares us for Baptism.

Explore – Pupils will know and understand about belonging to different groups.

Reveal – Pupils will know and understand that Baptism is an invitation to belong to God’s family.

Respond – Celebrating what we have learnt.

Thank you to everyone who has sent photographs into school of your child as a baby. Tis has prompted much discussion into the love we are shown within our families and how our births were celebrated!

Our next topic is Waiting. Pupils will know and understand about  Advent: a time of waiting to celebrate Jesus’ coming at Christmas.

Physical Education

PE is held on a Friday afternoon. The children have been working on Game skills during the first half of the Autumn Term. We have now moved onto Gymnastics. The children’s Gymnastics sessions will be linked to our Spain topic.

Art/ Design Technology

Art and DT will be taught through our topic. The children have already had lots of fun creating bird houses when we were visited by a ‘Bird House’ construction team. The children were extremely excite  and we had a fantastic afternoon creating our own bird houses.

Science

In Science, we are currently learning about Animals and Humans.

Throughout our science sessions, children will be taught to:

• Identify and name a variety of common animals that are birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals

• Identify and name a variety of common animals that are carnivores, herbivores and omnivores.

• Describe and compare the structure of a variety of common animals (birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals, and including pets).

• Identify, name draw and label the basic parts of the human body and say which parts of the body is associated with each sense.

Music

Taught through our topic work, children will listen to and appraise a range of traditional and modern music. Year 1 will then work in small groups to compose instrumental pieces.

Computing

For the first half of the Autumn Term the children will be focusing on basic computer programming. During our Computing sessions, we have focused on E-safety. Just as we want to keep our child safe in the real world, we will want to do the same in the virtual world. It is important that we understand enough about the Internet to keep our children safe from harm but is equally important that we equip our children with the skills they need to keep themselves safe so they can experience the Internet positively and responsibly. We have thoroughly enjoyed exploring our new iPads in school and have produced our own ‘mini bugs’ using Purple Mash. The children have all now been given their own Purple Mash login details so they can continue to enjoy using this site at home.