Year 1 News 4.7.25

Happy Friday Team!

In our English lessons, we have been working on writing a recount of our walk around the village. We began by planning our first paragraph, thinking carefully about how we got ready for the walk, who our partners were, and what the weather was like. After planning, we spent time writing up our paragraph, focusing on including all the important details. We are now looking forward to editing our writing on Monday to make it the very best it can be.

In our maths lessons, we have been learning all about money. We looked closely at coins and discussed how their value is shown on the coin, and how the size of the coin doesn't affect how much it is worth. We also explored different notes and talked about the difference between pounds and pence. We spent time counting coins by using their value, practising counting in 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s. To finish the unit, we completed an end-of-unit check to show how much we had remembered about money.

In our RE lesson, we looked more closely at the Christian belief of creation. We began by recalling the events of the creation story and discussed some of the more peculiar and fascinating things that Christians believe God created. We listened to the song 'Weird and Wonderful' by Fischy Music and spent time thinking about the lyrics. We then illustrated some of the interesting creatures and creations mentioned in the song. We found the lyrics so intriguing -- did you know jellyfish are mainly made of water?

In our PE lessons, we began with a fun warm-up where we pretended to be cars and listened carefully to the traffic lights. We even had special blue and purple lights -- blue meant we had to sprint and think carefully about our running technique, while purple meant walking backwards! We talked about how to move around safely without bumping into each other, focusing on dodging, pushing off from our back foot, and bending our knees. We had great fun being pirates, stealing treasure, and dodging past sailors! In our net and wall games lesson, we have been practising our forehand shot. We worked on controlling the ball using our hands like a racket and learned how to stand in a T position to bounce the ball and hit a forehand across our body.

In our Geography lesson, we recapped the seven continents: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe, Australia, and Antarctica. We then focused on Antarctica, which is a frozen continent found at the bottom of the Earth, around the South Pole. It is very different from other places on Earth – it has the coldest and windiest climate in the world! We also learned about the penguins that live in Antarctica, mostly near the coast, where it's slightly warmer. We discovered how Antarctica changes through the year. In winter, the continent is tilted away from the Sun, making it colder and darker, and the sea ice grows, making the continent look bigger. In summer, the Sun shines for most of the day – sometimes all day – and this midnight sun causes temperatures to rise a little, which melts some of the sea ice and makes the continent smaller again.

In our Heartsmart lesson, we continued thinking about the important message that "No Way Through Isn't True." We explored how, even when things feel difficult or impossible, God is always with us and can help us find a way forward. We looked at the verse from Ephesians 3:20, which reminds us that: "With God's power working in us, God can do much, much more than anything we can ask or imagine." This helped us to reflect on our own hopes and dreams. We spent some quiet time looking through magazines and chose pictures that represent our dreams for the future. These images helped us to think about what's in our hearts and remember that nothing is too big for God.

In our Computing lesson, we started by recapping what we had learned previously about coding and animations. We were excited to find out that we'll be creating our very own animations! To get started, we each designed our own backgrounds and created three rocket sprites, giving each one its own unique look. Next, we thought carefully about where each rocket would start the race, and we created our own algorithms to decide how they would move and which rocket would win. We also discovered a new coding block that helps speed up the code, which made our animations run more smoothly. We're all really excited and can't wait to put our plans into action on the iPads next week!

In our science lessons, we talked about how our plants had changed since we had taken them home. Everyone was excited to share what had happened and how their plants had grown or changed. We also had an end-of-unit check where we discussed everything we could remember from the topic. We talked about the different parts of plants, the differences between evergreen and deciduous trees, and how fruit plants are different from vegetable plants. We even looked closely at bulbs and seeds to understand how plants start their life cycle. It was a fun and interesting way to see how much we had learned!

In our D&T lesson, we all looked at our final pieces and spent some time evaluating our own puppets. We thought carefully about whether they looked like what we had planned and talked about what could be improved and how we might do it differently next time. We also shared what we liked most about our puppets and celebrated each other's designs. After that, we spent time coming up with ideas for puppet shows using our creations, and now we can't wait to perform them and show our adults all the hard work we've put in!

In our music lesson, we sang beautifully to the Ten Green Bottles song. We especially enjoyed the recycling raccoon who collected the bottles as they fell off the wall! We rose to the challenge this week by first playing notes C and D, then moving on to D, E, and even learning our new notes F and G. Everyone persevered and worked very hard to stay in time and play along with the altered rhythms. Well done for your fantastic effort and musical progress!

We had a great time during our transition morning when we went up into Year 2 to meet our new teacher. It was exciting to spend some time in our new classroom and begin to get a feel for what next year will be like. We played fun games and took part in activities that helped us get to know each other better. It was a lovely morning that made us feel excited and more confident about moving up to Year 2!

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Miss Willis