Year 1 News 16.5.25

Happy Friday Team!

In our English lessons, we have been working hard on our stories inspired by The Secret of Black Rock. We've spent time carefully planning and writing our "Problem Penguin," making sure the problem in our story is dramatic and engaging. We've also created satisfying "Elephant Endings," where the creature kindly carries our main characters home, bringing the story to a joyful close. Throughout the process, we've done lots of editing to improve our work and make it the best it can be. We're really proud of the stories we've written!

In our Math lessons, we have been learning about equal groups and understanding that the amounts in each group need to be the same. We've been adding equal groups and using our knowledge of counting in 2s, 5s, and 10s to help us work more quickly. Arrays were a bit tricky at first, but we enjoyed using our bodies to show rows and columns--remembering that rows go horizontally and columns go vertically. We practised spotting how many rows and columns were in an array, and how many items were in each one, doing lots of circling to find the answers. We also worked on doubling numbers, going all the way up to double 10, and now we know that doubling means adding the same number together. We finished the week by exploring grouping, where we had to spot which groups objects belonged to and make sure we were putting objects into equal groups.

In our RE lesson, we began by talking about how our families welcome new babies. We shared our experiences of going to Christenings, giving gifts, and showing love to new members of the family. This led us to think about the word promise. We learned that during a Christening, the godparents make a special promise to help the baby follow God. We then discussed what promises mean to us and why they are important. As a class, we worked together to come up with our own promise, and we aim to stick to it during our final weeks of Year 1.

In our Science lesson, we spent time observing our plants and were very excited to see that all of them had started to grow! Some of the plants were really thriving, and we were amazed at how much they had changed. We talked about the different ways our plants had grown--some had tall stems, others had lots of leaves--and we discussed what might have helped them grow so well. It was great to see the results of all our care and effort!

In our HeartSmart lesson, we explored the idea that Fake is a Mistake. We each had the chance to make a mask to represent how we sometimes hide our true thoughts and feelings. We talked about how people can pretend everything is okay, even when they don't feel okay on the inside. HeartSmart teaches us to be aware of our emotions and not to be afraid to share them with people we trust. We thought about who we can talk to when we're feeling sad, worried, angry, or frightened. We looked at the Bible verse John 11:33, where Jesus saw others weeping and was deeply moved--showing us that our feelings matter and that it's okay to express them. We also discussed how our words matter. Being HeartSmart means being true to ourselves and speaking the truth. We looked at John 8:32: "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." To help us understand this, we played a fun game where Miss Willis whispered a message to one person and it was passed around the circle--by the end, the message had completely changed! This showed us how even small 'white lies' can have a big impact. We learned that every little 'fake' is still a mistake and that it's important to always be honest with others and ourselves.

In our PE lessons this week, we had lots of fun playing Crocodiles and Rivers and Domes and Dishes. We had to collect our golden eggs and keep them safe until we turned them into tennis balls. Once we had our tennis balls, we explored different ways to bounce them and even had to bounce a ball onto a cone to flip it over. We also practised throwing the balls in different ways, helping us develop our coordination and control. Later in the week, we had a PE lesson in the hall focused on personal challenges. After a fun Minecraft-themed warm-up, we learned that all of our challenges were linked to building core strength. We talked about which muscles make up our core and why strengthening them is so important for balance and movement. We then worked through a circuit of core exercises including planks, sit-ups, mountain climbers, v-sits, and more. Many of us were surprised at how challenging it was to do the exercises with the correct form to make sure we were using the right muscles--but we gave it our best and showed great determination!

In our Computing lesson, we focused on making changes to our writing and learning how to improve the appearance of our text. We talked about when it is best to change the look of our writing and which tools can help us achieve the most suitable outcome. We practised using the mouse cursor to select text, which made it much easier and quicker to make changes. As part of our activity, we created a lost toy poster and explored different fonts to make our text stand out. We used tools like Bold, Italic, and Underline, and had fun experimenting with font styles and changing the colour of our text to make our posters eye-catching and clear.

In our Art lesson, we explored the beautiful spiral patterns found in shells. We watched videos that zoomed in close on real shells, allowing us to see all the tiny details and textures. Then, we learned a new drawing technique called continuous line drawing. Using handwriting pens, we had to draw the shells without taking our pen off the page! It was quite tricky to remember not to lift the pen, but it helped us focus on the shapes and details as we moved our pens carefully along the paper. We really enjoyed seeing how different everyone's drawings turned out, and it was great to admire each other's creative work.

In our History lesson, we started by sharing what we could remember about Wybunbury in the 1970s. We recalled that the tower had been rebuilt four times before St Chad's Church was finally built. We also remembered that the post office used to be on the other side of the road. Our main question for the lesson was: Have the buildings in Wybunbury changed? To help us investigate, we looked at photos of different buildings in the village and had to sort them into "then" and "now." We made sure to explain how we knew which photo belonged to which time period by looking closely at details like signs, windows, and changes in the surroundings. It was really interesting to see how much--or how little--some places had changed!

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Miss Willis