Author: Mr Nash

This half term, in Topic, we’re historians. That means we’re leaning about the past. We’re exploring the history of toys and games in living memory.

This week, we’ve been thinking about the words:

old – having existed for many years, from the past

modern – new, up to date, things we see today

We looked at a range of toys spanning living memory and considered whether they were old or modern. We thought about:

• What material is it made from?
• Does the toy need batteries or charging?
• Are their buttons or electronics on it?
• Does it look worn our or scratched?

Help at home by exploring toys with your child. Can they tell whether it’s old or modern, explaining their answer?

 

This week, we’ve been learning about rules and laws and why they are important.

We talked about how rules help to keep us safe, help everyone feel happy and make sure things are fair. The children shared great ideas about what could happen if rules were broken such as people getting hurt, feeling upset or things becoming unsafe.

We looked at rules we know well:

• No running in the classroom

• No name calling

• No talking to strangers

• Wearing a helmet when riding a bike

The children did a fantastic job explaining why these rules exist and how following them helps everyone enjoy school and other places calmly and safely.

Help at home by asking your child about the rules you have at home.

• Why do we have this rule?

• How does it help keep us safe or happy?

This week in science, we’ve been busy learning all about mammals and what makes them special. We sorted lots of different animals into two groups (mammals and not mammals) and explained why we chose each group.

We discovered that mammals are animals that have things in common:

• hair or fur
• warm-blooded
• their mums usually feed their babies with milk
• give birth to live babies

As scientists, we talked about the facts we noticed and used them to help us decide which group each animal belonged in. Some animals were easy to sort but others needed us to think carefully about their features before we made our choice.

Help at home by going on an animal hunt around your home or garden. Find pictures of animals in books or online and ask your child whether they think it’s a mammal or not. Can they explain their reasoning using the features we’ve learned?

This week in maths, Year 1 have been exploring commutative law. We’ve been learning that when we add two numbers together, it doesn’t matter which order we add them in – the total stays the same!

We’ve used lots of representations like cubes, counters and pictures to help us. Sometimes the objects were clearly grouped and other times we had to look carefully and decide how to split them into two parts. We practised writing both expressions, like 3 + 2 and 2 + 3, and talked about what’s the same and what’s different.

The children have been brilliant at explaining their thinking and using full sentences to talk about their maths. They’re getting more confident at spotting groups, splitting amounts in different ways and recording their ideas with addition symbols.

Help at home by spotting maths in everyday life. Try using toys, snacks or socks and ask your child to show you two groups. Can they write (or say) both expressions? For example, “I can see 4 and 1 – that’s 4 + 1 and 1 + 4!”

Happy New Year and welcome back to the Spring Term! We hope you all enjoyed a restful, happy and healthy break and that the children are feeling refreshed and ready for another exciting half term of learning in Year 1.

We’ve lots to look forward to over the coming weeks:

• In maths, we’ll be developing our understanding of addition, using practical resources and number strategies to help us become confident mathematicians.

• In reading and writing, we’ve some exciting new books to enjoy together.

• In topic, we’ll become historians, learning all about the history of toys and games and how they’ve changed over time.

• In science our focus will be on animals, exploring different types and their characteristics.

• In PE, we’ll be practising our throwing skills, developing coordination and control.

• In RE, we’ll be learning about how different religions welcome new life.

• In phonics, we’ll continue learning new GPCs and tricky words to support reading and spelling.

• In Living and Learning, we’ll focus on British values, consent and respect, helping children develop positive relationships and understanding.

Important Notices

• PE days are Tuesday and Friday – please ensure children come to school in the correct PE kit.

• Please continue to return signed reading records and library books on Thursdays.

• With the unpredictable weather, please make sure your child brings a warm coat to school each day.

• Children should bring a clean, labelled water bottle to school daily.

Watch Us While We Work

We would love to welcome you into the classroom on Wednesday 14th January at 09:00 for “Watch Us While We Work.” This is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate your child’s learning and pick up some helpful tips for supporting them at home.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support. We are really looking forward to a busy and enjoyable Spring Term together!

We’ve reached the end of the Autumn term and what an amazing 15 weeks it’s been! We’ve already come such a long way. It’s been a real pleasure getting to know the children and seeing how much progress they’ve made in such a short space of time.

Our phonics journey has been particularly exciting, with the children embracing their learning enthusiastically and growing in confidence each day. We are developing as skilled transcribers and flexible mathematicians, showing increasing independence and resilience in our learning.

This term, we’ve been busy wearing many different hats – geographers, artists, gymnasts, angels and shepherds. We’ve enjoyed reading about Flat Stanley, Hermelin, Bernard, Katie and Dasher – stories that have inspired curiosity and imagination. Alongside our learning, friendships have continued to grow stronger (even if a few jumpers have gone missing along the way!).

Thank you to all parents and carers for your ongoing support at home. It really does make a huge difference and your hard work is greatly appreciated.

We’re very much looking forward to the Spring term and all the excitement and learning that lies ahead.

Help at home by enjoying a well-earned rest (and daily reading, of course).

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate and Happy New Year to everyone. We look forward to welcoming you back soon.

Mr Nash and the Year 1 team

This week, in maths, we’ve been learning about 2D shapes and patterns. Our focus has been on aligning shapes with one another by rotating them to connect their edges.

The children have been developing their spatial reasoning skills by placing and rotating shapes to create images.

We’ve also enjoyed exploring patterns. A pattern is a repeated arrangement of shapes, lines or colours. We’ve been noticing and describing the characteristics of patterns and had a go at making some of our own.

Help at home by making some images or patterns yourself.

In writing, we’ve been learning about nouns and adjectives.

• A noun is a person, place or thing.
  
• An adjective gives information about a noun.

We’ve had lots of fun using nouns and adjectives to describe different parts of a monster, inspired by Not Now Bernard by David McKee. The children thought carefully about what the monster looks like and used adjectives to add information.

The monster has five friendly eyes.

He has sharp, pointy horns on top of his red head.

It has gigantic, purple feet.

The monster has rainbow fur all over its round body.

Help at home by choosing an object at home (like a toy or a piece of fruit) and ask your child to name the noun then think of some adjectives to give information about it.

This half term, in topic, we’re artists. This week, we’ve explored three famous pieces:

• The Vitruvian Man
• The Last Supper
• The Mona Lisa

We compared the works and talked about whether we thought they had been created by Leonardo da Vinci or Paul Klee (our focus artists this half term). The children used our art vocabulary skilfully, thinking carefully about line, shape, pattern, texture, tone, primary colours and secondary colours.

“I don’t think it’s Paul Klee because there are no shapes.”
“I think Leonardo da Vinci made it because the tone is darker.”
“All the people look quite real so I think it’s Leonardo da Vinci.”

We then decided which picture might be the odd one out and explained why. We had some fantastic discussions…

“That one (Vitruvian Man) reminds me of Paul Klee because it has a square and a circle.”
“One of them has writing on.”
“It looks like it was done with a pen or pencil and the others look like paint.”
“The Mona Lisa is the odd one out because she’s the only lady.”

Help at home by exploring some art together. Encourage your child to talk about line, shape, pattern, texture and tone.

In Maths this week, we’ve been exploring different ways to partition the number 10. We practised finding number pairs that make 10 and talked about how to make sure we work systematically so that we don’t miss any combinations.

We used lots of representations to help our thinking, including ten frames, Multilink cubes and rekenreks, and we enjoyed spotting patterns as the numbers changed.

Help at home by challenging your child to find missing parts of 10. “What does __ need to make 10?”