Welcome to Year 1

** 1 Lion - Mrs Downing **

** 1 Crystal - Miss Southall**

* Supported by Mrs Perry (Miss Tait) and Miss Carton*

Key Information:

Reading 

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 the teacher reading to the children 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 and have the chance to bring home Pudding and Comet, our Reading Puppies!

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. 

Homework

Spelling and maths homework will be assigned on Doodle Learning each week once the children are settled. This gives the children opportunities to earn stars which they can trade in for online rewards and real treats in their class. 

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. We find the metal bottles to be most hard wearing as bottles do often get dropped or knocked over and the plastic ones do break easily. Please do not send the children with the bottles that spray water. Children may bring water or sugar free squash in their bottles and we can refill them throughout the day with water. 

PE

PE for both classes will be on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Due to OPAL children will no longer need a separate PE kit but please ensure long hair is tied back and any earrings are removed on these days. Trainers with velcro or elastic are preferable. 

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. We also love to share things that children have done at home so feel free to send us photos of the children with awards and achievements that we can share with the class. We also love to see pictures of what you have been up to with Pudding and Comet, the Reading Puppies.

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

This Half Term our topic is​

'Where do I Live?'

This is our Geography based topic. We will begin by thinking about our school and our homes, leading out into the local area and then further afield into the 4 countries of the UK. We will learn about addresses, basic compass directions and maps. 

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

Do your own research on our local area and create a fact sheet.

Sketch pictures of places in the local area such as Mary Stevens Park and the nature within it.

Look at a map of Stourbridge and see if you can spot any places you are familiar with.

Talk about the different types of buildings in the area and their uses, such as homes, shops, factories and cafes. 

Create a map of an area locally, showing where different things are.

In English, we will be working hard on our reading, writing and spelling through phonics and will be focusing on word level writing while we consolidate our skills. We will practise our Kinetic Letters handwriting every day, as well as reading and completing phonics sessions every day. We will do this by basing our work on a picture book for the first half term and then completing a grammar unit called Grammarsaurus – Place Value of Punctuation and Grammar after half term. After Christmas we will start learning through the Talk 4 Writing approach.

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In Maths this half term we will be focusing on number recognition and place value and practising simple addition and subtraction number sentences. We will practice fluency, reasoning and problem-solving in the classroom with our maths partners. We will be working with practical equipment in to develop our understanding before moving on to pictorial and abstract representation.

To support your child with this at home you could:

Practise counting forwards and backwards

Practise reading and writing numbers up to 20

Give 1 more and 1 less than a number​ - 'What is 1 more than 10?'

Practise​ number bonds to 10 e.g. '6 and what makes 10?' 

​Double numbers up to double 10

Comparing numbers e.g. ’18 is greater than 12’ or ’16 < 17’

Science

In science this half term we will learn about our bodies and explore our five senses. We will be naming external body parts including genitalia, using the correct scientific vocabulary and exploring which body parts are responsible for which senses.

RE

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

What do Christians believe God is like?

To do this we will explore the story of The Lost Son.