Year 1 weekly news

Well, Y1 what a lovely week filled with lots of great Christmas spirit. We have had our cheeky elf play all sorts of tricks in the night and how excited we have been in the morning to find him in the hot air balloon or rowing a boat in the sink. We have also been dressing up and filming our virtual nativity, what fun we had! We can't wait for our families to see this. As well as spreading the Christmas cheer and the true meaning of Christmas, we have been busy learning in all of our subject areas.

In English, we found out that the naughty bus had captured the dragon when he was first born. We knew this as we investigated the egg once more and found bus tracks all over the egg. We knew it would only mean one thing, that our naughty bus had got Draco! As you all said, the next thing we had to do was to write instructions on how to catch the naughty bus. This helped you to build on your previous learning of how to catch the dragon. We started to plan our shared write and you all came up with fantastic ideas. To enhance your learning even more, we set off to write our first ever instructions in Y1. We had children throwing sausages, covering the pit with a long road and even scattering eggs and beans on the pit so that we could try and catch the naughty bus. You finished your shared write on Friday and to see you write with such confidence and accuracy was amazing. You have really grasped the skills on how to write instructions.

In Phonics, we have been working on our set three sounds and trying to retain them. You are confidently spotting the special friends in words before you read them. I can't wait to assess all of your reading this week to see how much progress we have made this half term. I just know you will do me proud!

In maths, you have been working on 2D and 3D shapes. You have shown progress during this topic as you started off with knowing the name of a couple of shapes and now you know the name of all of the shapes we have been learning about. You have made me so proud. To build on your learning, you even looked at similarities and differences between the shapes. You were using the mathematical language of flat, solid, curved, straight and face to help your explanation. This will help you next week when you learn about the faces that 3D shapes make when printed.

In our afternoon learning, we have built on all of our areas in our learning.
In Geography, you finished our topic by looking more specifically at the human and physical resources in our school area. We found out that the grass and fields nearby were physical but fort Lewis, the school building and the forest school shed were all human features. You are fantastic at explaining why they are either physical or human features.

In history, you learned about the history of aeroplanes. Specifically, we looked at two very significant people in history: the Wright brothers and Amy Johnson. You found that the Wright brothers were American inventors who invented the first aeroplane and you found out that Amy Johnson was an English pilot who broke the record of being the first female pilot to ride to Australia solo. You then worked independently at your tables to compare the wright brothers and Amy Johnson. Although they were from different countries you found out that they both made a successful change in history which leads them to be significant people. All of this learning will then help us to finish our final lesson next week where we will bring our history learning more locally. We are also working on a history page in our study work books and can't wait to finish it next week.

In RE, you finished our topic off with an assessment piece where we had to look at each part of the Christmas story. You wrote about what you had learned about Jesus from each part in the Christmas story. These were so lovely to read back and you all showed me that the Christmas story teaches us a lot.

In D&T, you built on your learning of vehicles by looking closely at wheels and axles. Through a carousel activity you got to explore making different wheels and axles out of different materials. You had to test whether it was strong, the wheels could move, the wheels moved fast and if you would use it on the making and designing of your own naughty bus. You really enjoyed this lesson especially whizzing your wheels down the ramp. Next lesson you will use this learning to design your own naughty bus. On our theme day, we will start to create our naughty bus too.

From nativity rehearsals to tree decorating it sure has been one hectic week. The progress and confidence that you show is absolutely wonderful when I reflect back on each week. I am so lucky to be your class teacher! Now rest up ready for our last two weeks of school before our well-deserved week off.

Enjoy your weekend and see you Monday,

Miss Haynes