Year 1 News 17.1.25

Happy Friday Team!

In our English lessons, we explored an example text about Hermelin, a clever mouse detective, to inspire our own animal detective stories. We examined the text closely, identifying plurals, words with the "un-" prefix, and phrases that help move the story along. Together, we created a "role on the wall" for Hermelin, noting his outward appearance on the outside and his personality and feelings on the inside. Using our detailed role on the wall, we crafted descriptive pieces to bring Hermelin to life in a character description.

In our math lessons, we explored numbers up to 20, focusing on 11 to 20. Using tens frames, rekenreks, bead strings, and number lines, we found different ways to make these numbers and practiced finding one more and one less. We also broke the numbers down into tens and ones to deepen our understanding. In the afternoons, we explored odd and even numbers, enjoying a Numberblocks episode to help visualise the concepts. We discovered that odd numbers have "odd tops" while even numbers have "flat tops," and noticed that even numbers can be made by adding two odd or two even numbers together.

In our RE lessons, we began our new unit, "What Made Jesus Special?" We shared what being special means to us and talked about the special people in our lives and why they are important. We learned that Jesus had special people in his life too, and we decided that God is special to him. We also reflected on how each of us is special to Jesus.

In our Forest School session, we recapped our knowledge of animals, discussing carnivores, herbivores, nocturnal creatures, and those that hibernate. We met a new animal—a toy owl named "Toot"—and learned about its diet. We discovered that owls cough up pellets containing the bones and fur they can't digest. It was fascinating to examine real owl pellets and see what the owl had eaten. Later, we built bug hotels using grass, mud, and sticks before hunting for insects and observing them with magnifying glasses. To finish, we created sparks using "dragon sneezes" to help light the fire, then toasted marshmallows around the fire pit.

In our Science lesson, we began learning about animals with the big question, "Can I classify a range of animals?" We shared what we already knew before exploring the five animal groups: amphibians, fish, birds, mammals, and reptiles. We were surprised to learn that humans are mammals too! We identified different animals and sorted them into their correct groups. During an animal hunt, we stayed quiet to avoid scaring them away and spotted birds. We also discussed animals we see on our way to school and drew pictures, naming them, stating where we find them, and identifying their groups.

In our History lesson, we recapped our knowledge about the founder of Chester Zoo and explored why zoos are important, as well as why some people are against them. We discussed how Chester Zoo helps prevent animal extinction through conservation efforts and how they ensure animals always have enough food and medical care to keep them healthy.

In our Computing lesson, we explored robots and watched how they are programmed to move. We met the teacher robot and had to give her clear commands to follow our instructions. We also became robots ourselves, following commands to move from one place to another. The best part was finishing the lesson by testing our coding on a Beebot to see if it worked!

In our music lesson, we listened to and discussed a song called Sing Me a Song. Some of us thought the ending was too fast, while others loved it and were excited about the idea of making our own song. We then followed an on-screen beat task, finding the beat and moving slowly to match the song’s tempo. Since the tempo was slow, we had to carefully think about our dance movements.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you all next week!

Miss Willis