Year 1

Welcome to Year 1

Mrs Ndisi, Mrs Walker, Mrs Good

Happy new year to you all and welcome back to another busy half term of exciting learning in Year One!

Why can't penguins live near the equator?

 Our theme this half term is based around the question “Why can't penguins live near the equator?”. During this theme, we will be exploring the north pole, south pole and equator. We will locate these places on a globe and discover more about the environmental conditions of each one. We will learn which animals live in these places and how they’re able to survive the extreme weather conditions around them before investigating how climate and weather affects our own lifestyles and the choices we all make every day.

Core Skills

In Core Skills this half term, the whole school will be focussing on ‘Improving own learning and performance. In Year One we will be trying particularly hard to:

1) Choose from a selection of resources to help us complete a task

2) Identify something we have done well and give reasons to justify this

3) Think of simple ways of improving the way we have done something

English

In English this half term we will be exploring the story ‘Lost and Found’ by Oliver Jeffers. We will begin with some word level work, focussing on the meaning of words and discovering adventurous vocabulary choices to develop our writing. We will be considering the characters’ thoughts and feelings, using adjectives to describe them before getting into the role of the characters ourselves. We will discover how similes can be used to describe settings and will be apply our understanding of speech marks to create conversations between the characters in the story. We will also make comparisons between the book and the film adaptation of it before having a go at applying all of our learning to retell the story ourselves. Alongside this, we will explore non-fiction texts and use some of their features to create lost posters and fact files.

Phonics and Spelling

In Phonics and Spelling sessions this half term we will be spending time exploring all of the sounds we have learnt through their sound families. Sound families are different ways of representing the same sound. For example the ‘ai’ family includes ‘ay, ai, a_e, a, eigh and ey’. Children will begin to learn how to spell using the correct representation and will apply this in their independent writing. We will also continue to investigate the number of syllables in words and practise breaking longer words into syllables to read and write them. We will continually revise our Phase 2-5 tricky words and try to spell them correctly in our independent writing.

Maths

In Maths this half term we will be developing our skills across three main areas. We will start off by looking at 'Time' and we will explore different lengths of time such as months and days before concentrating on telling the time to the hour and half past the hour using analogue clocks. We will then move on to 'Calculation Strategies Within 20', using our number bonds and different representations to solve one step maths problems. Finally we will focus on 'Numbers To 50' and will practise reading, writing and representing these numbers whilst understanding their place value.

Science

In Science this half term we will become “Plant Detectives” and investigate different garden and wild plants. We will start off by recapping plant parts and learn about the job each part has before moving on to compare different plants. We will then explore what happens underneath the soil and discover how plant roots have a very important job! We will finish off our learning by finding out all about trees.

P.E. and Forest School

PE this half term will continue to be on Mondays. PE kit required includes plain black shorts or joggers, a plain white tshirt and black pumps. These all need to be named and in a named PE bag please. This kit will stay at school all week.

Forest School will continue to be on Thursdays. Forest School kit required includes wellies, spare socks, joggers, a tshirt or long sleeved top, a hooded jacket or jumper, a hat, scarf and a pair of gloves. These all need to be named and in a named Forest School bag please. This kit only needs to come to school on Thursdays.

Show and Tell

Show and Tell this half term will continue to be on a Friday afternoon and the children will take it in turns each week. I will continue to write which group’s turn it is on the weekly letter every week. Please could I remind everyone that Show and Tell is a speaking and listening exercise and if children choose to bring something in then it needs to be linked to our learning and they should be ready to talk about their item and answer one or two questions about it too. Achievements from outside of school, such as dancing, football, gymnastics awards are always welcome!

Reading

Reading books will continue to be changed on Fridays and children will bring 2 books home at a time. Our expectation is that children read at least 3 times a week with an adult and use the reading questions and activity grid to extend their reading experiences.

Reading records will be checked every Friday and those children who have read 3 times will receive a star sticker on their bookmark (stays at school). As the number of star stickers on their bookmarks builds up to 3, children will receive a round sticker and a reading award to come home with. Once they've obtained 3 round stickers and reading awards, they will be rewarded with a special certificate.

Please do jot down any reading that children are doing into their reading records so that we can reward their efforts. We do also ask that children always have their reading books and reading record in their book bags to make the most of all reading opportunities at school.

Home Learning

Weekly homework will continue to be sent home on Fridays and collected back in for marking on Wednesdays.

Maths – Schofield and Sims book – assigned pages will be on the weekly letter

Reading – At least 3 times a week with an adult along with discussion using question bookmarks and completion of activities from the grid

Spellings – Daily practice using the look, say, cover, write, check method on the practice sheet

This half term we will be revising spellings that we have explored before. The words will be taken from the National Curriculum’s lists of Common Exception Words and High Frequency Words that children are expected to read and spell by the end of Year One.

Thank you for your support

If you have any questions about any of the information above or about your child’s learning and progress then I am always happy to chat at the end of the day. Unfortunately, I cannot discuss matters at the beginning of the day as I cannot leave children unsupervised as they enter the classroom. Messages can be left with the adult on the door and they will then be passed on to me. If this isn’t possible then please do make an appointment with the office and I’d be glad to speak with you another time.