Y1 weekly news- 4.3.22.

Welcome back to school Y1 for our next spring half term!

We have had a week full of dressing up as our favourite book characters, exploring losing tales and becoming Chester zoo historians. You have worked so hard this week and have settled back in perfectly.

In English this week, we found out that we were going to learn about losing tales. On Monday you wrote an independent losing tale as your have a go write. This then helpEd me to see what we need to concentrate on so that we can make our writing better! Tuesday was very exciting in English because we immersed ourselves into our new story by our hook. We found bags of ice left on our tables in English. Inside the ice was a small black bag all wrapped up. You had to break open the ice to open the black bag. You realised that using salt will help you to melt the ice faster. It got very messy very quickly! As you broke open the ice, you opened the black bag and then another clear bag that revealed a message. All groups had their own message but we realised they made no sense on their own so we put the messages together to find out the clue. We found out that the clue wanted us to go to the shed where we saw a lost and found box. Inside the box was hats, gloves, teddies, cardigans and a picture of a penguin in our garden. We couldn't believe that a penguin had been inside our garden and we also found a live video of the penguin. It made the cutest sound as it ruffled it's feathers. Throughout the week we have learnt our new story about our lost penguin. We have also focused on using 'and' in sentences to join words together! I was amazed how easy you grasped this skill. Well done team! I can't wait to find out what else happens in the story.

In phonics, you have gone to your new groups with your new teachers to learn your new sounds. You are working so hard on your reading and I am so proud. Keep up the hard work!

In maths, we have been learning our numbers to 50. We were a little bit worried about working with these big numbers but you have shown great resilience. We started to learn how to count to 50 and how to count objects to 50. Then for the rest of the week we have focused on how to represent numbers to 50 using our tens and ones. We even built on this skill to help us add numbers within 50 by starting at 10. Did you know that the superstar Y1s can even count in 10s now?

In our afternoon learning, we have been finishing off some of our curriculum focused topics and starting new ones.

How does your childhood compare to June Mottershead? This was our BIG history question for one of our lessons this week as you thought about how a childhood in the 1940s differ to your childhood now. We were shocked to find out that June didn't have many human friends and that they were all animals. We were all shocked that your chores at home are making your bed and tidying your toys whereas June's were feeding animals and helping a chimpanzee to read.

How have the attractions changed at Chester zoo? This was our final BIG history question which we answered on Thursday. We looked at the attractions from the past which were elephant rides and a boat ride driven by a chimpanzee. We couldn't believe that this actually happened but we watched a video of it which made it more believable. Then we compared it to the attractions now such as being a zoo keeper for the day, adopting an animal and having your dance painted. We realised that the attractions from the past don't happen anymore because it wouldn't be fair on the animals as it could hurt them.

In art, you finished your final paintings off by using oil pastels to draw on the leaves and trees so that your paintings represent the jungle. These look incredible and will be displayed in your study work books at the end of the year.

In science, you finished our animal topic by completing a quiz so that you could show me everything you had learnt about amphibians, reptiles, mammals, birds and fish! I was amazed by how much you had learnt and all of the facts you know. Well done team!

Forgiveness is our focus in RE this term. You were given different scenarios to act out such as messing around in the toilet, hitting someone, leaving someone out, shouting out and not listening to instructions. You also had some positive scenarios such as taking turns, putting your hand up, looking after your friends and making everyone feel included. You had to act the scenario out with your partner and then you decided whether it was a good choice or a bad choice. You then perfectly explained that when you do a bad choice you have to say sorry and ask for forgiveness. We then acted this out to see if the other person in the scenario would forgive. We spoke about different situations on our own lives when we have had to say sorry. Our lesson focused on this bible quote 'And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive your sins.'

For our next HeartSmart job, we had to help Boris the Robot with his new tablet. We gave Boris lots of advice on how to stay safe online. We know that using a tablet, phone or computer, is similar to staying safe in the real world. We spoke about how us and Boris should follow simple rules. These are: ask a parent/carer before watching/playing anything; staying near a parent/carer as we play; don't talk to strangers online; tell a parent/carer if we see anything strange online and to make sure we listen and turn our device off when we are told to. We then drew a picture and wrote one bit of advice we could offer Boris for him to be safe online. Bible Reference: 'Listen to advice and accept correction, and in the end you will be wise.' Proverbs 19:20

On Thursday, we celebrated world book day by dressing up as our favourite character and creating a character spoon. Well done to Wesley who was our winner. We took part in a book scavenger hunt and we really enjoyed flicking through different books.

On Monday, the whole school went into the hall for our first worship all together in two years. It was an amazing moment as the Y1 class entered their first whole school worship and looked frantically for their siblings in different classes. As the hall was filled with singing for the first time two years, we all felt the hairs stand up on the back of our necks and the sense of normality coming back was felt by everyone. We have loved all of our worships in the hall this week.

Homework has been sent out by email.

Have a lovely weekend Y1 and I will see you on Monday.

Miss Haynes