Termly News

Spring Term 2024

We have been very busy in Year 1 in the Spring Term including lots of special events; Safer Internet Day, World Religion Day, World Book Day and Science Week!

Our writing focus has been to write accurate sentences joining 2 ideas with the conjunction ‘and’ or ‘because’. We read the story, ‘The Tiger who came to Tea’, discussed reasons why we thought the tiger was polite and what the tiger did in the story that was rude and then used because in our sentences to justify our answers. We have also learnt to write questions and use a question mark at the end of a sentence. We have read lots of other fantastic stories which we have used as a basis for our writing including: Whatever Next, Aliens Love Underpants and The Big Jungle Mix-up. We have practised using time related words such as next, then and after that to re-tell the story ‘Man on the Moon – A Day in the Life of Bob’

Our daily phonics sessions have continued and we have been working hard to try and use our phonics to help our spelling when we are writing. We have enjoyed reading every week and have practised the skills of decoding, prosody (reading with expression) and comprehension. We have continued to read a lot to get as many certificates as we can on the Dino Reading Challenge and many children have had Tyrannosaurus Rex Certificates which is fantastic! We particularly enjoyed celebrating World Book Day in our comfy pyjamas and had fun sharing books with children in Year 5. Lots of children took part in the home/school project to decorate a potato as a book character!

In Maths we have practised counting forwards and backwards to and from 100 as well as identifying 1 more and 1 less than any 2-digit number. We have worked on number bonds to 10 and within 10 writing addition and subtraction number sentences to show the number bonds. We have counted in multiples of 10 and solved problems with 10’s. We have also learnt about money counting in 2p, 5p and 10p coins and solved simple problems involving money. We have learnt some of the properties of 2D shapes using the language sides, corners and vertices. We have practised telling the time to the ‘o’ clock and half past an hour and have compared weights using the language heavier than and lighter than.

In Science we have learnt so many new facts. Our focus on animals has included grouping animals as mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds, fish or insects as well as learning the scientific vocabulary: carnivore, herbivore and omnivore. We have learnt about our senses and had fun experimenting with our senses to predict the flavour of different jelly, (the best use of our senses was taste of course!).

In Science Week, we loved working with Year 4 to create clay moths and then used natural materials to camouflage them. We also created posters showing the concept of time through the seasons. As part of our science and geography work we have learnt about the different seasons of the year. In January we went for a cold, winter walk in our school grounds and in March we went on a spring walk and noticed many signs of the change in season including blossom and buds on the trees.

In History we have learnt all about the first man to walk on the moon. We were very excited to enjoy class interactive Space Workshops with Mr Chaplin from Westfields Junior School which was certainly lots of fun and full of fascinating facts!

In DT we became engineers to design and make our own moon buggies with a moving axle! First, we had to think carefully about the design and after we finished making it we evaluated what we liked, what worked well and what we would change if we made it again. This was quite tricky but we persevered. For our home learning project we also made space rockets to bring into school.

In Geography we have identified the four countries that make up the UK on a map. We have learnt to name the capital city of each country and have learnt some interesting facts about each country.

In Art, we have explored different types of torn paper to make a collage. We had fun creating animal works of art; what do you think?

During our weekly Computing lessons we have learnt to program a Beebot and have practised collecting and sorting data using the program, J2E Data. We also learnt about practical ways to make sure that we stay safe when using the internet on Internet Safety Day. We discussed who we could talk to if something made us feel unsafe and we made posters to help us remember

In RE we enjoyed World Religion Day. We learnt about Islam and painted mendhi patterns on hand pictures and made a mosque with wooden bricks. Our theme has been welcoming. We looked at a palm cross and learnt about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Then we made palm leaves and acted out the event.

Autumn Term 2023

What a busy Autumn Term we have had in Year 1.  We all settled in to our new classes quickly and have shared lots of fun learning new things.  There were lots of special days and events during the term which we enjoyed including Harvest Festival, Mad Hair Day, Reading Matters Week (when we all read with a Year 4 class!), Time to Shine and of course all of the fun of Christmas including our Christmas performance, A Big Little Nativity.

Our focus in Writing throughout the Autumn term was to write sentences containing a capital letter, full stop, finger space and use our phonics to help us spell words.  As the term progressed we began to join 2 ideas using 'and'.  Each week we used a story as a stimulus for writing.  We started the year by reading the story 'The Gruffalo'.  Did you know that a Gruffalo visited Westfields Infant School?  We watched a clip of it running around the school grounds.  Later in the term we used the book, 'The Jolly Postman' as a hook and subsequently read the stories associated with all the characters he meets.  We wrote sorry letters to Baby Bear, descriptions of the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, a new potion for the witch in Hansel and Gretel and even a diary entry pretending to be the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk.

Throughout the term we have had daily phonics sessions and have learnt many new diagraphs which we have begun to try and use them in our writing.  We have enjoyed reading every week and have practiced the skills of decoding, prosody (reading with expression) and comprehension.  The new library has been fun to visit where we have enjoyed spending time reading and choosing books to take home.

In Maths we have become proficient at counting forwards and backwards to and from 50 as well as identifying 1 more and 1 less than any number within 50.  We have started to learn to count in 2s and 10s.  We have found different ways to partition numbers to 10 and learnt how to record our work in part, part whole models.  We have practiced sharing numbers equally into 2 groups and have learnt about measuring comparing lengths and heights.

In History we have looked at toys through time and made a timeline of toys from old to new.  We talked about how toys have changed over time.  One particularly memorable session was when we brought in our own cuddly toys and created a Year 1 Toy Museum!

In Geography we have learnt all about maps and created our own maps of the Jolly postman's route.

Then we followed a map to find the route to the nearest post box where we posted a letter to Baby Bear.  On the way we looked for human and physical features in our environment.

We have also been learning about the Seasons and went on an Autumn walk around our school grounds.  We kept a weather diary during November and will compare the temperatures later in the year to temperatures in Winter and Summer.

In RE we learnt about the Jewish festival of Sukkot and we built our own sukkah's.