RE

In Year 1, the children have learnt about God's creation. They worked very hard to produce a beautiful class display which shows their understanding of the religious story of Creation from book of Genesis. They know that we have a very important job to do: look after God's world!

Just before Christmas the children learnt about Advent and how we prepare for the very special birth of Jesus at Christmas. We are beginning to recognise the different religious signs and symbols of Advent and Christmas and can talk about why they are special to us. 

We learnt about Islam in January and know that Muhammed is very special to Muslims. We listened to some stories from the Qur'an and thought about the lessons Muslims learn from this very special book. 

We have just learnt about how we can follow Jesus and what we can learn from him in our recent RE topic 'Following Jesus'. We know that Jesus taught the Our Father prayer to his disciples when they asked him how they can become closer to God. We also thought about the joy and sorrow we experience during Holy Week. 

Phonics and Reading 

We have a daily phonics session in small groups with an adult. During this time we consolidate the sounds we have learnt and are now reading books together in our sessions. 

Some of us read our reading books with Mrs Worley every day in addition to our phonics sessions and this helps to develop our fluency and a love of reading. 

We also have exciting books linked to our Humanities topics! We love sitting in our book corners and reading! 

Literacy

We began our year by looking at one of our favourite authors Julia Donaldson and some of her books. We have begun to write in full sentences and are trying very hard to remember our capital letters, fingers spaces and full stops! 

We really enjoyed Halibut Jackson by David Lucas. We used lots of drama and role-play to explore the character of Halibut Jackson.

We also read Beegu by Alexis Deacon. We enjoyed thinking about how Beegu was feeling being lost on our planet and the adventures she got up to. 

Mathematics

We have used a wide variety of manipulatives to develop our mathematical understanding. We have represented numbers using numicon, number beads, counters, counting bears and more. We have compared numbers using Gabby the Gator and partitioned numbers using part-part whole models and various concrete resources. 

We have worked very hard to work on our numbers to 50 and are becoming confident in showing numbers to 50 in different ways to help us understand and recognise their place value. 

We have looked at 3D and 2D shapes and can name them confidently now and their properties.

We have just begun to look at how we can measure length, height and weight. 

Science

At the beginning of Year 1 we enjoyed looking at the four seasons and in particular the Autumn and Winter seasons. We went on an Autumn hunt to gather up as many clues which are associated with Autumn. We also kept a daily weather chart in class to keep track of the daily weather patterns. We can't wait to compare this with our Summer topic 'Spring and Summer' later in the Summer term. 

We learnt about 'Materials' and during lockdown enjoyed doing experiments with Miss Cotton, Miss Rawlings and Miss McPhilipps on Google Classroom. Some of us even carried out extra experiments at home. This included finding out which materials are waterproof and what absorbency means!

Humanities: Geography and History

In Geography we learnt about the 4 countries that make up the United Kingdom. 

We learnt exciting facts about each country and got to know even more about our home country: England!

We also learnt about The Gunpowder Plot in History. We enjoyed learning about Guy Fawkes' plot to blow up the King in the Houses of Parliament! We celebrated our learning with a Fireworks Experience Day where we dressed up in bright colourful clothes like fireworks and made our own Houses of Parliaments. 

Learning about the past Kings and Queens of England was lots of fun. We learnt about the rules of how to become a King or Queen and what a Monarch does- we enjoyed coming up with our own rules if we were to become Kings or Queens! We also enjoyed learning about our current Queen, Queen Elizabeth II especially about her palaces and her love of corgi dogs! We now know who in her family would become King next. 

Currently we are learning about The 7 Continents. We can name all 7 continents in a song we have learnt and can describe some of the continents and the countries in them. We are excited to hold an 'International Day' in the Summer Term where we will learn about some different countries from each continent. 

In History we are learning about The Gun Powder Plot. 

To celebrate it, we had our experience day on the 5th November where children came in dressed as fireworks. We had lots of fun including making the Houses of Parliament!

Computing

Year 1 are becoming very independent in using computers in their learning. They have shown amazing resilience to practice logging into the computers independently and navigating through MS Windows to open up and select software and programs. They are now very confidently using the computer mouse and keyboards as well to complete activities. 

The children now now what algorithms are and with Purple Mash are beginning to create their own algorithms. 

Weekly homework is also set online through Purple Mash to ensure the children are continuing to practice their computing skills at home.