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 1

This half term we will have a History focus as we ask ‘What were holidays like in the past?’. We will start off by referring back to our learning from Spring 2 and recapping what we already know about seaside holidays in present day before sharing ideas of what we think we know about seaside holidays in the past. We will then use some clues and lots of imagination to take ourselves back to a seaside holiday in the past. We will name and locate the most popular locations for these holidays, discover the method of transport people used to go on these holidays and explore some of the key holiday activities they would take part in. Once we have a sound understanding of seaside holidays in the past we will investigate similarities and differences between the past and the present. We will consolidate our learning by looking at key events in history that changed the way people go on holiday. During this unit we will also continually use and develop our Historical Enquiry Skills of comparing, asking and answering questions, sequencing and using historical vocabulary.

English

In English this half term we will be reading various texts including ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff, 'Clem and Crab' and 'The Snail and The Whale' amongst others. We will also explore poetry and information texts. The children will complete both guided and independent writing tasks including persuasive posters, descriptive labels, questions and stories. We will continue to work on letter formation and the core sentence writing skills of using a capital letter, finger spaces, a full stop and our phonics to help us spell. We will also build up our writing stamina as we practise writing longer sentences in extended pieces of writing.

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

Maths

In Maths this half term we will be covering four different Maths units. We will start off with ‘Numbers 50-100 and beyond’ during which we will identify, represent, order and compare two-digit numbers between 50 and 100. We will also practise finding 1 more/1 less and 10 more/10 less than these numbers. Next, we will cover ‘Fractions’ as we identify halves and quarters of shapes and quantities. We will also explore half, quarter and three-quarter turns. After this, we will focus on ‘Time’ where we will begin with a recap of days of the week and months of the year before moving on to telling the time to o clock and half past. We will also practise adding on hours and half hours to given times. Finally, we explore ‘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 and weights.

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 Spring and into Summer.

D&T

In D&T this half term our focus will be on ‘Food’. We will design a meal following given criteria, use a range of utensils and ingredients to make it and then evaluate it against the original criteria.

PSHE

In PSHE this half term our unit will be ‘Relationships. We will begin by considering families, recognising there are lots of different types of families and identifying members of our own families. We will then move on to thinking about friends, appreciating what it means to be a good friend and explain how we can make new friends. Next, we will explore different types of greetings and decide which ones are appropriate in different situations. After this we will think about who we have in our lives to help us and how we can ask for help when we need it. Finally we will focus on our relationships with ourselves as we identify our individual qualities and find ways to praise ourselves.

RE

In RE this half term our focus religion will be Judaism and our theme will be ‘Shabbat - Sabbath. We will explore the answer to the key question ‘Is Shabbat important to Jewish children?'

Music

In Music this half term our unit will be ‘Having fun with improvisation’ and during this unit we will discover that improvising is fun! We will learn that it’s an exciting activity where everyone is creating something new. It can be a melody or a rhythm and it can be done on your own or in groups. Throughout the unit we will work to answer the question ‘What songs can we sing to help us through the day?’

PE

PE this half term will be on Wednesdays and Thursdays and we will be focussing on Tennis and Fitness. 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.'