Welcome to Year 1

Class Teacher – Miss Whitehouse

READING TASK

Each week on a Friday, your child is assigned a reading task. Please click on the Log In link below or scan the QR code to access your child's task. Your child has their own individual log in which they have brought home. Please ask the class teacher if you need another copy. 

SUMMER 1

Key text: Amelia Earhart, Little People, Big Dreams

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside!

What a magical day! We have had the best time visiting Weston-Super-Mare to complete our Geography unit about seasides. From playing on the beach, digging and building, eating ice lollies, paddling and splashing in the sea, to eating fish and chips surrounded by naughty seagulls! 

I can honestly say this is always my favourite day of the year with Year 1, and the children were absolutely fantastic. We have made some brilliant memories, and most importantly, had so much fun together!

What a wonderful way to celebrate our last term in Year 1. 

Well done my amazing little team! You were the best! 

Miss Whitehouse x

Maths

To practice making quarters, we have made our whole number using Cheerios and shared them out between 4 plates. We can say what a quarter of a quantity is and, we know that two quarters make a half. 

Science

Our caterpillars have emerged from their chrysalis and turned into a beautiful butterfly. Today, we have released them into our school gardens. 

Coronation Celebrations

We had a fantastic day celebrating the coronation of the King!

Fractions

In Maths, we have been learning about halves and quarters. We played in our own classroom pizza shop to practice using our real-life problem solving skills.

Potato Prints

We developed our printing skills further by carving patterns into potatoes to make our potato print designs. 

Clay printing

We have experimented with clay. We pressed our clay into seashells. Then we painted our clay. Next we pressed our clay onto our paper and created beautiful sea shell prints. 

Leaf rubbings

We have been out on the field for a leaf hunt. We found the leaves with the most texture. Then, we created leaf rubbings to make colourful pictures. 

Science

Today, some teeny tiny special visitors have entered our classroom! We have our very own caterpillars! 

We have made our first observation and they are very small indeed. We will be observing them over the coming weeks to examine the changes. We are all very interested and very excited! 

Maths

In Maths, we have been learning how to multiply numbers by making equal groups. Today, we moved our learning on to making arrays. We used rows to make each array out of cheerios! We know we have to count how many cheerios go into each row and count how many rows we have made before we find our total. 

Art

To begin our printing topic we are working on using our bodies to make prints. We chose lots of bright colours and made handprints on our paper to create a printed background. 

History

For our Stunning Start, we entered our classroom to find a plane crash!! We examined all of the pieces and the information left behind. We are excited to learn about Amelia Earhart and the mysteries that surround her disappearance! 

DT

We made our own model houses to recreate Pudding Lane in 1666.

We are all very proud of our finished model houses.

Songs around the campfire

Stunning Start!

To introduce our Fire Poem, we decided to make our very own classroom campfire. We sat around the fire to eat our yummy toast and marshmallows. We sang some lovely campfire songs and made some actions to help us to remember our new poem. 

Maths

We are learning to partition numbers to 50 using tens and ones. 

History

Meet Samuel Pepys! 

We received some wonderful artefacts from Dudley Library which we were able to explore and even wear! We got to experience more of what life was like over 350 years ago! 

PE

We are lucky to have a new cricket coach! He is teaching us the importance of balance and keeping our heads up to play cricket. Here you can see us balancing a cone whilst we try to bend down and pick up a ball. We had lots of laughs and fun! 

English

We read and followed our own set of instructions to make our own salt dough! 

Science

We are learning all about the 4 seasons. We have been on a Spring walk to make our own observations of the first signs of Spring. 

Music

Today, we have learnt the song, "London's Burning". We learnt the words, played the song using instruments AND sang in a round. Lots of laughs and fun were had making this musical piece this afternoon. Well done Year One!

Instruction Writing

Today, we practiced some key features of instructions. 

We had a fun time when Miss Whitehouse took away the bossy verbs from our instructions and we had to try and make a jam sandwich. 

It turns out, bossy verbs are very important! We had lots of laughs and worked really hard to put our bossy verbs back in their right places! 

The Great Fire of London

We have enjoyed beginning our new topic about the Great Fire of London. We know that the fire started at a bakery on Pudding Lane. So, as an extra special treat today, we got to try a variety of different goods from a bakery. We enjoyed lots of delicious baked goodies! Ask your child what we know about this topic so far. We have done some amazing learning! 

STUNNING START

Spring 2

Key text: Toby and the Great Fire of London

What a fun day we have had! 

When we got to school, our classroom was set up as the bakery from Pudding Lane in 1666. We have been learning about our new topic "The Great Fire of London".

We decided the best way to start our topic was to create our own real life bakery. 

We followed a recipe and learnt how to make bread. 

The best part was eating our warm buttery bread from the oven. Yummy! 

Posting a letter

We have worked hard writing our letters to reply to a scientist from Antarctica. Today, we had lots of fun going for a walk in the sunshine to post our letter into the postbox.

Maths

We are learning to use cubes and number lines to work out the inverse to mathematical problems.

Science Experiment

We tested a variety of materials to see if they were waterproof. We discussed their suitability to make a raincoat for our penguin.

Valentines Disco

READING

We are using our new Oxford Owl log ins to complete this week's reading challenge. Remember, these should be accessed at home every day to practice our reading skills. If you complete your reading challenge, there are hundreds of books in the elibrary to choose from! 

Some of our finished masterpieces!

Look at our progress!

We have now drawn our final penguin designs and used a thin brush with watercolour paints to carefully paint our picture. We used a thick brush for "splatter" marks to add snow to our background. 

ART

Today, Year 1 have started their Art project to make a picture of the Antarctica. We made a "wash" for our background using watercolour. Next, we sketched a picture of a penguin into our sketchbooks that we will add to the forefront of our picture next week. 

Art

This week we have focussed on our watercolour artists, Paul Klee and Emma Burleigh. We made notes in our sketchbooks and had a go at making some artwork using inspiration from famous artists. 

Ordering Numbers

Miss Mahler taught us how to make and order our numbers. We practiced from smallest to greatest and greatest to smallest. 

READING

We practice our reading skills every day. It is the most important part of our learning in Year 1. Please practice our reading book with us every day.

Art

We are learning all about watercolour this term. 

Here, we are exploring all of the different ways you can use watercolour to create different effects onto parchment paper. 

We know how to create a "wash". We explored mixing colours and making splatter marks. We know how to make interesting marks by removing some paint. 

Maths

Here you can see us practicing our place value skills. To understand our numbers to 20 we are learning to place them on number lines that start from any given number. 

Geography

The children used "hot-seating" to find information from a scientist that had visited the South Pole. The children thought of very detailed questions and found out lots of new information. 

Maths

In Maths, we are learning about tens and ones. This helps us to understand the how much a number is worth. We have been focusing on the value of numbers from 11-20. 

Geography

In Geography, we are learning about hot and cold places. We know all about the equator and how this can affect a climate.

To start our topic, we are getting to know the 7 continents of the world and where they are located. Please enjoy our song which is helping us to recall all 7 continents. 

Miss Whitehouse and Mrs Woodall are very proud of us. We are asking so many questions to learn more about our topic. Please ask us what we know so far! 

Maths

To kick start our Maths this year, we are learning all about place value of numbers from 11-20. 

Today we explored whether a number was "ten or not ten" We love making numbers using our classroom resources. 

Stunning Start

How strange?! What's this?!

A parcel has arrived in Year 1. But what, or who, is inside?

Ask your children what surprise was waiting for us on our return from the Christmas holidays!

Trip to BCLM

To kick start our Autumn 2 History topic, toys of the past, we took a trip to the Black Country Living Museum.  As you can see we had a fantastic time, especially watching the old fashioned cane being used on the teachers!

This half term we are learning:

ICT

This half term we are learning how to log on and off.  We are working with learning partners to help each other, and we are feeling a great sense of achievement when we get on to the home screen by ourselves!

Maths - Addition and Subtraction

To start our new topic off we have learned that a whole can be broken down into parts.  To practice this we used double sided counters that were thrown into the air and we counted up how many were blue and how many were red.  We soon realised that the amount in the parts could change but the whole stayed the same.  We loved this practical activity - ask us all about it!

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

During our first few days in Year 1 we spent time learning about the book 'We're going on a Bear Hunt'.  We started off by following some bear paws into the forest that led us to our key text.  We then hunted for other clues that a bear has been in our school....

Maths

During the first couple of weeks in Maths we have been focusing on place value.  We have had lots of practical activities to help us learn - ask us about what we know!