Phonics Screening Check
What is the Year 1 phonics screening check?
The phonics screening check is taken individually by all children in Year 1 in June. It is designed to give teachers and parents information on how your child is progressing in phonics. It will help to identify whether your child needs additional support at this stage so that they do not fall behind in this vital early reading skill.
The check will form part of the assessment, made by your child’s teacher, of how your child is progressing with the important skills of reading and writing. Your child will sit with a teacher he/she knows well and be asked to read 40 words aloud. Some of these words will be familiar to your
child and some will be ‘nonsense words’. All the words will be words that can be read by ‘sounding out’.
Before the end of this term, you will be informed by the school about how your child has performed in the screening check and how
he/she is progressing with phonics.
Help at home by supporting your child to read on a daily basis.
Let your child see you enjoy reading yourself. They are influenced by you and what you do!
Make time for your child to read their school book to you
With all books, encourage your child to ‘sound out’ unfamiliar words and then blend from left to right rather than looking at pictures to guess.
Use the videos below to support your child further.
https://www.youtube.com/@Love2Learn/videos
If you have any questions please ask Mrs Freeman or a member of the Year 1 team.
We are all happy to help.
Farmyard Hullabaloo
This week our focus book has been Farmyard Hullabaloo by Giles Andreae and David Wojtowycz.
We have enjoyed learning about what a farm is and the different jobs farmer’s do. We also have also talked about the different names for farm animals and their young.
“We need farmers to give us food like potatoes and carrots.”
“Farmers collect the eggs from their chickens, milk their cows.”
Our word of the week this was herd the children have really enjoyed using this during their learning.
“I can see a herd of cows.”
“There are lots of sheep in the photo, that means there are a herd of sheep!”
Poetry Picnic
This week we our poem was The Fox
The fox is smart,
And sly as can be,
And a great big bushy tail has he.
He can run very fast,
And his fur is red,
And he lives in the woods in his tree trunk bed.
The classroom Challenges this have been
- to make a home or shelter for a farm animal.
- to complete a rhyming string, for example, cat, hat, bat.
- to use the doubling machine and double numbers to 5.
- to use the colour wheel and find the colours in nature.
- to cut out the farm animals and place them in the right shelters on the farm.
We had a great time at forest school, the children really enjoyed being ‘the teachers’ showing Mrs Kendrew all the fun things they can do.
Next week our Focus book is My Body Book and we will be naming the different parts of our body and talking about keeping healthy.
RE: Welcoming New Life
In RE lessons, the children have been learning about how different religions welcome newborn babies. Firstly, we studied the Christian methods and discussed baptisms and christenings. Following this, we looked at the Muslim celebration Aqiqah and found out that it is tradition to shave a newborn babies head.
Reading with prosody
Throughout the day, the children have many opportunities to read and be read to. As part of our daily sessions, we focus on using prosody. The children are quite accustomed to this skill now and can confidently add expression, where appropriate, to really bring their reading to life. The class have listened to lots of prosody being modeled by the adults so why not try this at home?
This week’s poem was yet another chance to showcase this important reading skill.
Help at home by listening to the poem being read by Mrs Freeman. Ask your child if they can hear some prosody being used and can they read the poem to you using their own expressive voices?
Prosody is the rhythmic and intonational aspect of speech that manifests as expressive reading. It comprises timing, phrasing and intonation, and helps to convey meaning and add ‘life’ to reading.
Living and Learning: I know that being physically active is physically and mentally healthy.
In our living and learning session this week, years 5 and 6 were learning about the five ways to wellbeing, with a deeper dive into the ‘being active‘ section:
Regular exercise can lift your mood and increase your energy levels. It doesn’t have to be strenuous or sporty to be effective. Pick something you enjoy so you’re more likely to stick with it.
For example:
- going for a walk during your day
- following a workout video
- doing some ‘easy exercise’, like stretching, in the morning
and before you go to bed - walking to school once or twice a week (if you live close enough)
Help at home:
What does your child already do to stay active on a daily basis? Is there anything you can add/change to these routines to stay healthy? Perhaps set some achievable goals with your child to be active – this could be daily or just a few times a week!
Living and Learning
I know that being physically active is mentally and physically healthy.
This week in Living and Learning we have been thinking about being physically active and how that is important for our mental and physical health.
Writing
In Year 3 and 4, we have been building up to writing a narrative about the picture book, Flood:
https://justimagine.co.uk/childrens-books-review/flood/
We have been working hard to include speech in our writing. It is difficult to do and there are lots of key things to remember. We have focussed on the spoken word, adverbial clauses and adding extra detail.
Here’s some snippets from the children…
“We need to make a plan,” announced mum.
– Leo S
Mum considered, as she sat down, “We should put sandbags around our house.”
– Valerie
“What are we going to do? This is so serious!” cried Donna with her head in her hands.
– Elara
“We will come back as soon as the storm is over,” cried mum as she fastened her seatbelt.
– Alba
Dan reassured his family, “We could come back when the storm is done.”
– Beau
Preston asked whilst trying not to look, “Can you be less dramatic?”
– Christian
Alex sighed as he held a box, “I don’t want to leave.”
– Kiara
Frankie shouted, banging his hands on the table, “I don’t want to leave!”
– Lily
Human and Physical Geography at Forest School
Human and Physical Geography
In geography this week we have been learning about the difference between human and physical. The children have been identifying both physical and human features within our landscape.
Human Geography
Human features include buildings, roads, street lamps, canals, train tracks etc. Parts of the environment that have created by humans.
Physical Geography
Physical features include hillsides, mountains, coastlines, rivers etc. Parts of the environment that have occurred naturally.
Geography and Forest School
This week the children collected different items from the woods which they then used to create their own environments. This included digging rivers, planting trees and building hills!
The children then identified physical and human features of their own creations.
Some of the children also got stuck in with litter picking and clearing the area to keep it safe.
Forest School
The children have thoroughly enjoyed the return of forest school! We’ve spent time exploring the woodland habitat, identifying plants and observing seasonal changes.
This has linked well to our current science unit – we’ve been learning about sustainability and the ways in which we can care for local wildlife.
sustainable – causing no harm to the environment
In our recent forest school session, the children made miniature ‘landscapes’, considering the features of the local area and how they could be represented.
Help at home by discussing sustainability with your child. Why is it important to care for local wildlife? What can we do to help?
Science – Plants
Enquiry questions:
How do plants transport water?
Does the number of seeds within one plant pot affect the growth of the plants?
Working scientifically:
I can set up a simple practical enquiry.
Ask relevant questions and use different scientific enquiry types to answer them.
This afternoon, we carried out various science experiments that encourage us to observe over time whilst ensuring our tests are fair.
We placed a white flower into a pot of red water. We made predictions based on our prior knowledge and understanding. Tomorrow morning, we will be able to view the results and see if our predictions were correct.
The fun didn’t stop there. We then began an experiment to see what would happen if we planted one sunflower seed in a pot compared to two, four and eight. Again, we made predictions; we will take measurements over the coming weeks.
Finally, we planted our own sunflowers. We really enjoyed getting our hands dirty and it was so lovely to see the excitement in children.
Let’s hope for lots of sun and the children will be able to bring some tall sunflowers home.
Help at home – try planting some seeds of your own at home. Can you grow something you can eat? What does a plant need to grow? What is the function of the roots/stem/soil? What happens in the leaves?
Send pictures in and we can display in the classroom.
