Year 1 weekly news 11.2.22

Another fantastic week of learning has quickly gone by in Y1.

This week in English, you have been practicing your handwriting. Focusing on the around letters and down letters. I am so proud of you trying your best to think about the positioning of your letters on each line. You have also been planning your recount of Chester zoo. You thought about what animals we saw and what they were doing. We will be ready to write these up next week!

In maths, you have been continuing to practice your subtraction skills. We have overcome some very difficult learning this week but I was amazed at the resilience you showed. You were shown two different methods of how to subtract in a faster way. The first method was breaking down the ones and the second method was subtracting by getting to 10 first and then taking away from 10. Although you found it difficult, you kept going and going. Super proud of you all!

In phonics, you have continued to learn all of your new sounds and practice your reading. You have also enjoyed many different zoo and animal stories in the classroom. A huge thank you to Eliza for bringing a lovely story about a barn owl into school, we really enjoyed listening to the first two chapters together on Friday.

In our afternoon learning you have been super busy bees

In Science, you became animal detectives as you identified each animal by their body features and characteristics. You had to compare each of the animals and think so they have feathers? Do they have slimy skin? Do they have wings? Do they have fish? As you looked at each animal carefully you put them into their group. We completed this activity as a carousel activity so that you had a turn at looking at all of the different ways you could compare animals. This definitely helped us to see how the animals were different or similar to each other. We also identified and looked at some more uncommon animals which you enjoyed as you got to learn about different animals.

In History we were excited to learn about how Chester Zoo has changed over the years. When it first began, we saw images of George Mottershead building enclosures. We decided that these were quite small and did not look like wild habitats. We then saw how close the visitors could get to the animals and thought about how that is different when we visited last week. We really enjoyed looking at an old map to see what animals used to be at Chester Zoo. Did you know polar bears, gorillas and sea lions, amongst others, were once at Chester Zoo. We then created our own map of the zoo using our experiences from our trip to help us. The maps looked amazing, well done Year 1!

In computing, we finished our fact sheets off as we learnt more information about or different animals. We thought carefully about what our animals are and any interesting facts about them. Did you know that meerkats are omnivores? Did you know that giraffes are herbivores and mostly eat leaves? We are so ready now to use the iPad to record our facts and we are really excited to do this next week.

In Re, you completed your assessment and answered the question ‘How can you make God’s kingdom grow?’ I was super proud of your amazing answers that you came up with about how you have made God’s kingdom grow and how you have watched others as well

In art, you recreated Henri Rousseau’s tiger in the storm painting. You first drew your tiger with a black pen to create that bold outline which we know Henri Rousseau is famous for. You then water coloured your tiger. We then thought about the background in the painting and as it was a storm is was very dark so you used your skills from your previous lesson to add blue and black together to create a dark blue back ground. Next week, we will be adding our leaves and trees to the picture with oil pastels. I can’t wait to see how they turn out Y1!

I just want to say a huge thank you to Mrs Pointon, Mrs Jenkins and Miss Holland for helping out in Y1 this week whilst myself and Mrs VR have been absent.I have really appreciated all of their help in the Y1 classroom so you can continue with your learning. We have all worked very closely to ensure your learning continued and I know how hard you have worked with all of these teachers and how proud they are of you. A huge thank you to Mrs Chesters for keeping me updated and helping out when needed in the Y1 classroom too. However, Miss Haynes is officially back and managed to surprise you all on Friday! I was so happy to be back and your smiles on the door warmed my heart up. I felt very loved by my WD family. We had an amazing day on Friday and it was just so lovely to be back in the classroom. I really had missed you Y1 and I am so glad to be back for our final week of half term.

Have a lovely weekend Y1. Remember that on Monday it is our animal theme day. You can dress up as your favourite animal and bring in animals snacks. We have a very fun filled day ahead of us on Monday and I am very excited.

Rest up and see you on Monday team superstars,

Miss Haynes