Year 1 newsletter

This week we have been story planners, Kenyan explorers and makers of our own kingdom.
In English we wrote our own toolkit to a traditional tale story, you all decided that we are always introduced to a main character, setting, problem, resolution and a happy ending. This really helped us when we progressed to creating our own fairy tale story. You have all done so well in creating your own plans this week. Thinking carefully about your animal characters and where these animals will live and eat. We have had 'redlocks and the three pandas', 'rainbowlocks and the three anacondas' and 'bluelocks and the three cheetahs'. Your imagination and creativeness has really shone through this week and I can't wait for you all to use these plans to help you write your own traditional tale. Whilst planning our own story you have also been describing different settings and your own characters. Our writing focus for this term is full stops, capital letters and writing on the line and I can already see how much improvement you are making in this area. Well done team!
In maths we finished our topic on place value of numbers within 20. We went outside where we played lots of different maths games. One of our favourites was getting different numbers and working as a team to order the numbers from largest to smallest. I heard lots of your maths language being used when you were talking to your peers e.g. 'I am 12 so I am one more than you so I need to be here.' This game then really helped us to come into the classroom and solve lots of different problems related to ordering numbers. We then moved onto our new topic of adding numbers within 20. You were using lots of your skills that you learnt last term to help add these greater numbers. You have been using tens frames, beads, part-part whole models and number lines to help you add these numbers whilst counting on.
A lot of our afternoons have been focused on Geography so that we can be further immersed into our topic. We started our Geography off by a quiz on countries and capital cities in the United Kingdom. We are getting really good at remembering these now. We then looked at the whole world. We located the South Pole, North Pole and the equator on the globe. Some of you even challenged yourselves to learn the seven continents of the world. Can you tell your families what the seven continents are and which is the continent that we live in? You then used atlases to draw the South Pole, North Pole and the equator on your own maps in your book. Friday afternoon we used our knowledge of the equator to look at a country that sits on the equator. We decided to learn about Kenya! We looked at the weather conditions of this country, the landscapes and the animals that you may see. You then made your own fact file of this hot country which will then be used to compare against a cold country.
In RE this week we looked at how God's kingdom is compared to a mustard seed, we understood that it grows with love and good actions. This is just like a plant as a plant grows with love, care and attention. You then finished creating your own kingdoms based on these good actions. You decided to use the fruits of spirits to help you decide which good actions which will help your kingdom to grow positively. We had caring kingdoms, kind kingdoms and kingdoms filled with joy!
In art this week, we finished our anaconda snake. You all wanted to paint it like the anaconda in our class story book. I think it looks amazing and it is now on our zoo display with our other animals. You also worked really hard with Mrs Van-Russelt to finish off your study work front covers. You all used black paint to create your favourite Africa animal. These look wonderful!
Your homework 'caterpillar 1' has been set on school jam. Well done to everyone who has been doing their bingo homework as well, I am now displaying these in the classroom.
Our theme day is next Friday 31st January. An email was sent out on Wednesday to explain details of the day.
We have had a very quiet week in year 1 due to many of the children having a chicken pox party! We have missed everyone so much and we are hoping that all of the children who have had chicken pox are feeling better soon. We can't wait for you all to be back in!
Hope you all have an amazing weekend and a well-deserved rest.
See you on Monday,
Miss Haynes