Welcome to Year 1

** 1 Lion - Mrs Downing **

** 1 Crystal - Miss Southall**

* Supported by Mrs Sheppard, Mrs Harris and Miss Rubery *

Key Information:

Reading 

We love books in Year 1! 

Reading will take place in various formats, every day in school. Your child will read to adults in groups and one-to-one where appropriate. Every day begins with 10 minutes of reading for pleasure. Reading frequently at home is essential. The children will be rewarded by moving up the Reading Ladder each day their diaries have been signed, so please ensure they bring their reading diaries and reading book to school each day. Children are rewarded with dojo points and anyone at the top of the ladder on a Friday will receive a special reading star sticker!

Home reading books will be changed every Friday. School books should be read at least 3 times per week to help with fluency. Of course, other books from home can be read for pleasure. Sets of Rising Stars Online books will be allocated regularly. Once read, please complete the online quiz. 

Water bottles

It is important that children bring a water bottle into school every day. These bottles will be sent home each night to be washed and refilled. Please ensure bottles are the 'sport's cap' variety and do not have large open tops as these easily spill. Bottles should contain water only.

Grab-a-Bags

If your child requires a 'Grab-a-Bag' for lunch, please fill in the slip at home if possible. Blank slips can be obtained from any member of staff or in the ‘Grab Bag’ baskets in the classroom.

PE

PE for both classes will be on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Children should come to school wearing their PE kit on these days. Trainers with velcro are preferable. Pumps are optional and if chosen, should be kept in school in a pump bag. Please ensure long hair is tied back and any earrings are removed on these days.

Class Dojo

Your children can now earn dojo points for positive behaviour, learning and displaying our school values. We will also keep you updated with our learning and achievements through our class stories so please ensure your notifications are active. We love to hear your feedback so please respond with likes and comments. 

Please note: private Dojo messages will be responded to within 48hours so please contact the school office for any urgent messages. 

This Term our topic is

​

'What is the best way to travel?'

This is our History topic. We will begin by identifying the types of transport we know about and their purposes. Then we will take a journey through history, learning about when different types of transport were invented and the story behind them. We will end the topic by deciding which type of transport we think is best!

Homework ideas to further your learning: Bring them in to earn extra dojo points!

Do your own research on transport throughout history & create a fact sheet.

Sketch and label pictures of vehicles.

Make a model of your favourite type of transport.

Talk to relatives about older types of transport they remember.

In English, we will be working hard on our reading, writing and spelling through phonics and will be focusing on writing in sentences, using finger spaces, capital letters and full stops. We will begin using 'and' to join our ideas together.

Our Talk for Writing unit will be based on the story of “BEEGU”. The children were very excited when this friendly alien crash landed on our field! We will learn how to write descriptive sentences about Beegu and where we think she has come from. We will be learning the story, making adaptations and eventually write  our own alien story. 

This term we will visit the Think Tank in Birmingham which will extend and consolidate what we have been learning about transport in History, materials in Science and space in English. What a fantastic way to end this exciting term!

​

This half term, we will continue to use practical equipment in maths to develop our understanding before moving on to pictorial and abstract representation.

  In Maths this half term we will continue focusing on place value to 50 and practising writing and solving addition and subtraction number sentences. We will also work on length and height; mass and volume. We will practice fluency, reasoning and problem-solving in the classroom and in the outdoor Hive.

To support your child with this at home you could:

Practise counting forwards and backwards in 2's, 5's and 10's
Practise reading and writing numbers up to 50
Look at numbers in the environment eg on houses
Give 1 more and 1 less than a number​ - 'What is 1 more than 45?'
Get the children to finish sentences '36 is greater than __ 48 is less than __'
Measure objects using non standard measures eg Lego bricks
Measure containers using cupfuls
Involve the children in baking, using scales and measuring jugs.

Science

In science this half term we will begin by learning more about the seasons and how our environment changes throughout the year. We think about how this affects us and what we do and wear; and how the changes affects plants and trees in nature.

We will then be completing some senses experiments, competing our work on humans.

    RE

In RE this half term, we will be asking the question:

                                            Why does Easter matter to Christians?

We will explore the meaning of Lent, the Easter story and its importance in Christianity.

We think about symbols at Easter; why we give Easter eggs and eat Hot Cross Buns.