Welcome to Year 1

Mrs Sharp, Mrs Halliwell and Mrs Ndisi

AM: Mrs Walker, Miss Chisholm and Mrs Rainey

PM: Miss Chisholm and Mrs Cooksley

Summer 2

This half term we will have a Geography focus as we ask ‘Where do animals live on our globe?’. During this theme we will locate the North Pole, South Pole and Equator on a globe. We will identify the physical and human geography of each of these parts of the world and investigate which animals live in each of them. We will also explore how weather affects lifestyle.

English

In English this half term we will be reading various texts including 'Lost and Found' by Oliver Jeffers, 'Puff the magic dragon' and 'The owl and the pussycat' amongst others. We will complete lots of book talk activities such as making predictions, looking at the vocabulary and retelling and responding to the texts. We will also write instructions to link in with our D&T learning where we will be making a meal for a herbivore. We will continue to master our sentence writing skills of using a capital letter, finger spaces, a full stop and applying phonic knowledge when spelling.

Our daily Little Wandle Phonics sessions and 3 reading sessions a week continue to underpin all of our English learning.

This half term the children will complete the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check where they will use their phonic knowledge to read 40 words, some real and some nonsense words. We are hopeful that this will not cause the children any anxiety as they are used to similar reading assessments as part of the Little Wandle programme.

Maths

In Maths this half term we will be covering four different Maths units. We will start off with ‘Measures: Length and Mass’ where we will use non-standard and standard units to measure length and mass. We will also make comparisons between lengths. Our next unit will be ‘Money’ and we will be identifying the physical properties and different values of coins and notes. We will compare different amounts of money and solve addition and subtraction problems using the context of money. After this we will cover ‘Multiplication and division’ and we will be doubling and halving, multiplying using repeated addition and equal groups and dividing using sharing and grouping. Our final maths unit for the term will be ‘Measures: Capacity and Volume’. We will be comparing the capacity of different containers using non-standard units and standard units. We will finish off the unit by practising application of our measuring skills in a real-life context.

Science

In Science this half term our focus unit will be ‘Plant Detectives’. We will learn about plants, including trees, and become increasingly aware of the wide variety that there is all around us. We will learn the names of the most common wild and garden plants and begin to make comparisons between them. We will also identify the parts of a plant and describe the appearance of different examples. We’ll investigate roots too and discover that there are different structures of roots before focussing on the difference between deciduous and evergreen trees. We will be using our scientific enquiry skills of observing closely, identifying and classifying, comparing and contrasting as well as using the correct scientific language throughout the module.

In addition to the above, we will continue to investigate the seasons and the changes we notice as we move through Summer.

D&T

In D&T this half term our focus will be on ‘Mechanisms: sliders and levers’. We will design a product following given criteria, use a range of materials and equipment to make it and then evaluate it against the original criteria.

PSHE

In PSHE this half term our unit will be 'Changing Me’. We will begin by exploring the lifecycles of animals and humans and identifying changes that happen as we grow. We will then move on to recognising that some things change and others stay the same. After this we will identify changes in ourselves since we were babies. Next we will focus on our bodies as we learn the correct names for our body parts, recognising the parts of the body that makes boys and girls different and understanding that these parts are private body parts. Towards the end of the unit we will think about learning and growing as we celebrate that every time we learn something new we change. Finally we will share some ways to cope with change.

RE

In RE this half term our focus religion will be Judaism and our theme will be ‘Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur’ which are Jewish holy days. Our key question for the half term will be ‘Are Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur important to Jewish children?’

Music

In Music this half term our unit will be ‘Let’s perform together’. We will learn that singing, dancing and playing together is called ‘performing’ and discover that performing together is great fun. We will plan a concert together to celebrate all the songs we’ve learnt this year. Throughout the unit we will work to answer the question ‘How does music teach us about looking after our planet?’

PE

PE this half term will be on Wednesdays and Thursdays and we will be focussing on Athletics and Cricket. On PE days, children should come to school dressed in their PE kit which consists of – plain black bottoms, a plain white polo top or a plain white round neck t-shirt, their green school jumper or cardigan and trainers.

Reading

Reading books need to be brought to school to be changed on Wednesdays please. Children will bring home their Little Wandle book, a phonics reading book and a library sharing book.

Our expectation is that children read at least 3 times a week with an adult. Reading records will be checked every week. Please do jot down any reading at all that children are doing into their reading records so that we can reward their fantastic efforts.

Home learning

Home learning books will be sent home on Fridays to be returned to school on Wednesdays and will have a focus on Maths learning.

Websites to practise key skills at home:

Maths Links:

Use the following links to practise these key Year 1 number skills:

- Counting in 2s, 5s and 10s up to 100

- Recognising odd and even numbers

- Finding 1 more and 1 less than a given number

- Partitioning 2 digit numbers into tens and ones

- Number bonds and facts to 10 and 20

- Finding doubles up to 10 and finding halves from 20

English Links:

Use the following links to practise these key Year 1 reading and writing skills:

- Segmenting and blending all sounds

- Breaking longer words into syllables to read them

- Reading contracted words (I'm, don't, can't etc)

- Reading and spelling tricky words and common exception words

- Forming capital and lowercase letters correctly

- Writing sentences with capital letters, finger spaces and full stops

- Extending sentences using 'and' and other conjunctions (but, so, because, then, with)

- Developing sentences by adding adjectives and using different sentence openers

Other Learning Links:

Use the following links to practise knowledge and skills from other areas of the curriculum:

Activities to practise key skills at home:

                     Representing Numbers                 Maths                        Quick Maths

                                              Phonics              Common Exception Words               SPaG

                     Daily Online Activities         Maths and English Ideas          Practical Ideas

                                   KS1 Maths Games                     Year 1 Number Games

Resources from SEND Supported:

We work with a company called SEND Supported at school and they are releasing newsletters each week offering support and guidance to parents of children who many have additional needs in school. Please find below a link to these newsletters:

There are also lots of other resources and information available on their website. The 'Things to do Issue 2 - Resources' file has some lovely activities for all children regardless of whether they have additional needs or not. There are lots of great visual puzzles and games for children to play so please have a look if you can. There are also resources available now to support with developing children's memory skills in 'Thing to do Issue 3 - Resources.'