This week, in Design and Technology, we’ve proudly finished making our puppets. It was fantastic to see everyone’s ideas come to life after carefully following the designs they created.

Throughout the project, we developed lots of practical skills, including:

• using running stitch or overstitch to join fabric together
• choosing and attaching decorations including felt, buttons and googly eyes
• evaluating our finished puppets against our original designs

The children showed great perseverance as they learnt new sewing skills and solved problems along the way. Every puppet was unique and reflected the creativity and imagination of its designer.

Help at home by encouraging your child to develop their fine motor skills through some simple craft activity

In maths, we’ve been learning all about money. We’ve been recognising and sorting 1p, 2p, 5p and 10p coins before using them to help us count in 2s, 5s and 10s. We’ve enjoyed spotting patterns in the coins and using our counting skills to work out different totals.

One of our favourite activities has been playing the Toy Shop Money game. It’s a fun way to practise recognising coins and paying for different items.

Help at home by letting your child help count out small amounts of money when shopping.

As part of our Design and Technology learning this half term, we’ve been exploring food and nutrition by making our own healthy wraps. Before we started, we talked about the importance of choosing a balanced selection of ingredients, including protein and vegetables.

We carefully prepared our fillings, safely cutting cucumber with the claw grip. We then spread cream cheese onto our tortilla wraps, chose our favourite fillings and rolled them up tightly. It was great fun tasting our finished wraps.

Help at home by making a healthy wrap together. Encourage your child to choose a variety of vegetables and a source of protein.

Here’s the recipe we followed at school:

Ingredients

tortilla wraps (one wrap between two children)

something sticky to hold it together (such as hummus or cream cheese)

protein rich fillings (such as grated cheese, tuna or turkey)

other fillings such as peppers (snipped); cucumber (claw); lettuce (snipped)

Method

1. Lay out the tortilla wraps.
2. Prepare the fillings.
3. Spread with the cream cheese or hummus.
4. Select and add the fillings.
5. Start at one side, roll up very tightly.
6. Cut the rolled wrap in half.

In topic this half term, our focus is Design and Technology. We’ve been developing our sewing skills by practising an overstitch on sewing boards. We carefully threaded our needles and stitched through the holes to create neat, even lines.

It wasn’t always easy but we showed fantastic perseverance – one of our Christian values. Even when our thread became tangled or we found the stitching tricky, we didn’t give up. We kept trying, helped each other and were very proud of the progress we made.

Help at home by encouraging your child to practise activities that develop fine motor skills such as threading beads, weaving ribbon through card or lacing shoes.

Review this half term’s vocabulary:

Over the last three weeks in Living and Learning, we’ve been exploring relationships as part of our Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) curriculum.

Families

We began by thinking about families and what makes each one special. We read the wonderful story Lesedi Finds a Family by Helen Turner, which follows a young leopard searching for a family of his own. Along the way, Lesedi discovers that every family is different but all are connected by love and care. We especially loved the message at the end:

“It doesn’t matter if a family is big or small, it’s sharing love and happiness that matters overall!”

The children enjoyed discussing the many different ways families can look and the thoughtful ways we can show love and care to the people who are important to us.

Friendships

In our second lesson, we explored friendships. Through stories and discussion, we thought about what it feels like to be included or left out and discovered that it’s possible to have more than one good friend. We talked about how kindness, sharing and inviting others to join in can help everyone feel welcome.

PANTS

This week, we revisited the NSPCC PANTS rules to remind ourselves how to stay safe. The children showed fantastic maturity throughout the lesson as we used simple scientific vocabulary to name private body parts, talked about trusted adults and practised different ways to say “no” using both our words and our body language. We also discussed why it’s important to speak to a trusted adult if something ever makes us feel worried or unsafe.

Help at home:
• Talk about the different people who make up your family and what makes your family special.
• Ask your child how they can help a friend feel included at school.
• Encourage your child to remind you of the PANTS rules and identify the trusted adults they could speak to if they ever needed help.

This week in Forest School, we had lots of fun exploring and creating outdoors!

The children helped to clear the path, showing teamwork and care for our outdoor space. We also had great fun exploring bubbles, watching how they moved through the air and noticing what happened when they popped. Some children enjoyed making goose grass “tea” and experimenting with natural ingredients, while others got busy in the mud kitchen, creating all sorts of muddy recipes.

Help at home by going on a nature scavenger hunt in the garden or park, looking for different colours, textures or shapes.

This week in PE, we’ve been developing our early tennis skills through lots of fun balloon games.

Using balloons helped us slow the game down so we could focus on important skills, including:

• hand-eye coordination by tracking and tapping the balloon
• footwork as we moved carefully to stay in position
• shot selection by thinking about where and how to hit the balloon
• fundamental movement skills such as balancing, reaching, jumping and changing direction

The children showed great perseverance as they practised keeping the balloon in the air and worked hard to improve their control.

Help at home by trying a simple balloon challenge. See how many taps you can do without letting the balloon touch the floor. You could even use different body parts to build coordination and control.

This week in maths, we’ve been learning about telling the time. We’ve been exploring clock faces and beginning to understand how we can use them to tell the hour and half past times.

We started by learning about the clock face and discovering that the numbers 1 to 12 show the hours. The children practised drawing and labelling their own clock faces and worked hard to remember that time follows a circular pattern, meaning after 12 we return to 1 again. We spent lots of time counting around the clock to become more familiar with this sequence.

As our learning developed, we focused on the hour hand and learnt that the short hand tells us which hour we are at or near. To help us really understand its job, we explored clocks showing only the hour hand before beginning to look at different o’clock times.

Help at home by looking at clocks together at home or when you’re out and about. Practise counting around the clock face, especially the jump from 12 back to 1.

We’ve had a very busy and exciting week of Living and Learning in Year 1 as we explored lots of different ways to stay safe and healthy. We enjoyed meeting visitors, learning new skills and sharing our ideas together.

Staying safe around dogs

We talked about how to behave calmly and safely around dogs and learnt what dogs might be trying to tell us through their body language. We finished by making some fantastic posters to share our learning.

Staying safe in the community

We were very lucky to welcome PCSO Louise to school. She taught us some important ways to stay safe in our community, including how to stay safe in cars and when crossing roads. We listened carefully and shared some brilliant ideas about making safe choices.

Digital footprint

We began learning about our digital footprint and how the things we do online can leave a mark. We talked about making kind and sensible choices online and why it’s important to think before we click or share.

Staying safe near water

We had a visit from the Rivers and Canals Trust and learnt all about staying safe near water. We discovered the meaning of SAFE, which stands for Stay Away From the Edge. We talked about how water can look calm but still be dangerous and why it’s important to stay with trusted adults.

How many hazards can you see in this picture?

Keeping our bodies healthy

Dave from d:side visited us and taught us lots about keeping our bodies healthy. We talked about the importance of washing, brushing our teeth, eating healthy foods and keeping active. We enjoyed thinking about the different ways we can look after our bodies every day.

Sun safety

We learnt how to stay safe in sunny weather. We talked about wearing hats, using sun cream, drinking plenty of water and finding shade to help protect our bodies from the sun.

Staying safe on bikes and scooters

We discussed how to stay safe when riding bikes and scooters. We talked about wearing helmets, staying alert and choosing safe places to ride. We also reminded ourselves why it’s important to be careful near roads and driveways.

Staying safe in the home

We thought carefully about ways to stay safe at home and worked together to create some important safety rules for different areas of the house. We had some thoughtful discussions and shared sensible ideas.

Health and hygiene workshop

We took part in a fun workshop about staying healthy and stopping germs from spreading. We learnt why washing our hands properly is so important and discovered that some illnesses may need antibiotics from a doctor. We even carried out a fun experiment using black pepper and water to help us understand how soap helps wash germs away.

Help at home by asking your child to share one safety tip they learnt this week and explain why it’s important. Practise some of our healthy habits together, such as handwashing, road safety or brushing teeth.

We’ve been really enjoying playing SQM Connections recently – it’s fantastic.

I promised to share the link so you can play at home. Enjoy!