Year 1 news 03.03.23

Our first week back after half term has flown by. It was lovely to hear all about your half term fun with your families. This week we celebrated world book day, learnt how to write recounts and shared our lovely work with our parents.

In English this week, we found a letter that had been written to us in our classroom. Inside the letter was lots of pictures which had words like 'First, next, finally' written on top. We realised that we needed to order the pictures to find out what had happened. Once we had ordered them, we realised that class two had sent us photos from their trip to the zoo. Over the week, we learnt the recount of 'Class two went to the zoo'. This helped us to get excited about our trip to Chester zoo next week! You learnt what a recount was and that this piece of text uses time words to put an order of events into chronological order. We also learnt about the SPaG focus of adding -s onto a noun to show that it is a plural and that there is more than one. Next week, you will build upon this learning by focusing on adding -es and knowing when to add -s or -es.

In phonics, you have settled into your new groups this term with your new teachers. You have worked really hard on learning your new sounds and being able to read them in words. I have loved hearing you all read across the week and see the progress you have made with your fluency and understanding of different vocabulary.

In maths, you have learnt how to count in 5s and 2s this week. You were first introduced to your 2s and had a practical session where you completed lots of activities around counting in 2s. You then built upon this learning by answering questions in your power maths book. You followed the same sequence when you learnt how to count in 5s on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday, you answered a range of questions on counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. You have also played lots of different counting games to try and help you to retain this learning. This is something we will continue to practice on during your starters in maths. You really did become counting superstars this week!

What happened in the Easter story? This was your question that you were answering in RE this week. You loved being taught by Miss Holdsworth and really enjoyed the lesson. You looked carefully at the 4 main events of the Easter story: The last supper, Maundy Thursday, the crucifixion and Easter Sunday. You thought about what had happened to Jesus at each part and wrote some beautiful sentences about it in your RE book.

In my happy mind, you started your new topic on 'relate'. You thought carefully about the people in your life who you relate to and who you think your role models are. You thought about what personal characteristics they show and which ones you have learnt from them. You then wrote about these in your journals.

Poo explosion at Chester Zoo was the focus of our science lesson. You had found out that Chester Zoo had poo everywhere and they didn't know which animals had done each one. They explained to us that we would only be able to find out by dissecting the 'play dough' poo and look at what they've eaten. This then helped us to learn all about carnivores, omnivores and herbivores. You matched the poo perfectly to each animal by identifying what that animal ate. Surprisingly, you loved being poo detectives!

In History, you finished your last lesson by answering the question 'How have the attractions changed at Chester zoo since it first opened?' You were really interested to see what you could do at Chester zoo in the past and what you can do now. You thought carefully about why they have stopped some attractions because they may have been too risky and dangerous to the public. Did you know that people used to have elephant rides at Chester zoo?

In computing with Miss Holdsworth, you started your first lesson by researching an animal. You found out information about where your animal was from, what it had eaten, the appearance and an interesting fact. This will help you to create an audio factfile on an animal on an iPad.

You have also been very sporty this week by completing a sportscape session and a cricket session!

On Thursday, I ended up teaching Spider-Man, Belle, Peter rabbit, Charlie and the chocolate factory, the mad hatter and all sort of story characters. We loved celebrating world book day and coming dressed up as our favourite story characters! You enjoyed creating book marks and singing a Gruffallo song in Makaton in assembly. A huge thank you to all parents for helping your children to dress up. The costumes were simply amazing and I know how much it helped the children to enjoy their day and show their love of reading.

A huge thank you to all parents who came in for book sharing and parents evening this week. It was lovely to celebrate your child's work and progress with you!

Have a lovely weekend,

Miss Haynes