Year 1 weekly news 30.4.21

Happy bank holiday weekend Y1, I hope you are enjoying your extra day off after a busy week in the classroom. From singing about the zoo, becoming animal investigators and measuring everything in sight we have had a great week filled with wonderful learning experiences.

In English this week, we were hooked into our new writing topic by a mystery bag that had been left for us. Inside of our bag, we had lots of clues such as an elephant, fins, scales, a map of Africa and even a drawing of an animal we had never seen before. After putting all of our clues together we realised we were going to learn about a rare animal called the elefish. We were going to learn about this animal through an information text which we soon realised was a type of non-fiction writing which is based on facts. The information text has expanded your vocabulary as you have learnt lots of new words such as harbour, rare, appearance and habitat. You have loved learning all about the elefish and chanting your way through our new text. To help build your skills up for our shared write, you have been practicing writing facts about cheetahs and seagulls. You looked specifically at their appearance and diet and went on lots of fact hunts to learn about these animals. Year 1, I have been so proud of the amazing writing you have produced this week and how enthusiastic you were about writing these facts.

In phonics, you have been working hard on learning and retaining your additional sounds. We have focused on trying to get speedier with our reading now so that we can understand the story on a deeper level. We have also practiced our inference skills so that we can start reading in-between the lines and answering more abstract questions on the book.

In maths this week, you finished measuring length by solving word problems in your power maths book. You have been continuing to build upon your skills by measuring objects and people in the garden during your independent provision time. You understand that you have to look for cm on the tape measure and you know to start at 0 which are great skills to comprehend! On Tuesday we moved onto measuring weight and you learnt the language of heavy, heavier and heaviest and light, lighter and lightest. You used this language to compare the weights of different objects. You then used non-standard units of measurement to weigh out objects on the balancing scale and you realised that if the scale was balanced it would have to be in the middle. You then built on this learning by measuring different objects using blocks and then ordering them from heaviest to lightest. It has been a delight to see you enjoy your topic of measurement so much and using your skills independently.

We continued to explore hot and cold places and this week we focused on Kenya which we found out was a country in Africa that is sat on the equator. You found out the weather was always very warm but they have two seasons: a hot season and a dry season. We found out that the landscape was made up of deserts, mountains and savannah. You focused on the animals that you may find in these places and we even looked at how Kenya is similar and different from Wybunbury.

In computing this week we have been researching facts about animals. We worked in groups to find out what our animal looks like, what it eats and where it lives. We also found interesting facts about our animal. We will be using our research and computing skills to create our own chatting picture.

During RE this week we focused on the last supper. We read a story about the important meal and understood the importance of Easter eggs. I loved reading through all of your fantastic responses. We also looked at pictures of different Easter gardens, where you were able to retell the Easter story. You also found out about the different ways people celebrate Easter. Well done year one!

In science, we started our new topic of 'animals and humans' and we started by focusing on a cold task of thinking about the similarities and differences between different types of animals. It was great to hear your responses and the prior knowledge you already have about animals. We then looked at the classifications of different species and how they are grouped into little families because of what they look like. You were introduced to the terms 'vertebrates and non-vertebrates' and what they mean. You looked at different x rays of animals to see if they had a back bone or not then we moved onto looking at the five vertebrate families: mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians. We were introduced to some of the animals in these groups and you focused on naming these common animals.
You have also been looking at how the weather in spring affects animals and plants in science. We used our knowledge from our spring hunt to help us. You enjoyed looking at all of the different animals during spring. On Monday, we had a little visitor in our garden which was a tiny bunny. The bunny allowed us all to take a good look at him and it was great to see you linking your learning from spring to why we had the bunny in our garden.

For our HeartSmart task this week, we focused on this week's lesson called Chalk Faces. This involved us discussing six scenarios and how we would deal with negative emotions. We drew six faces on the playground to show how the person in each scenario could be feeling. Once we had found a solution, we washed the face away to show the emotion changing. We spoke about good and bad ways of dealing with our own emotions too.

This week in music, we continued learning our new song 'Your Imagination'.
It was tricky singing in two groups. We had to really follow the onscreen lyrics to know when it was our turn to sing. We will keep practicing! To link with our zoo animal topic, we sang along to a catchy song called 'Who's at the zoo?' Next week, the percussion instruments will help us to bring our music alive even further!

In our wellbeing session this week we focused on some breathing techniques and 'letting go'. We then moved onto learning about the emotion 'anger' we spoke about what made us angry. We then talked about anger being a volcano waiting to explode and when you explode you may do something that you regret. To help us not get to this stage, we spoke about what we can do to control our anger. You came up with some great ideas like 'count to 10 and practice breathing techniques' or 'walk away and tell a teacher'.

It's been one very busy week Y1 but I am so proud of how much you are achieving and retaining. You are like little sponges that soak up all of our learning. Thank you for such a good week. It was lovely to speak to some of your families this week to share all of your successes and I know they are just as proud of you as I am.

Enjoy your long weekend and get lots of rest,

Miss Haynes