Year 1 weekly news 17.6.22

Well what a beautiful and sunny week we had in Y1. I can't believe how fast the weeks are going. You really are working like superstars and making me proud everyday.

In English this week, we started our new learning on instructions. To hook us into our learning we had a letter off Mrs Grinling explaining that she was going to make a recipe book for other lighthouse keepers on how to get rid of pesky seagulls. She wanted us to try out one of her recipes on 'How to make a revolting sandwich'. On your table you had lots of revolting ingredients such as wet mud, hot sauce, stinky cheese and even crunchy leaves. You carefully followed and read the instructions to make the sandwich and you were in shock with how yucky it looked. Throughout the rest of the week, we have been learning our text map for our instructions and adding actions to help us remember. You learnt about the features of instructions and we specifically looked at imperative verbs which we found out were bossy verbs. You acted out different imperative verbs, put them into sentences and even completed a short burst write on instructions on how to draw an alien. You have had lots of fun learning about instructions and next week you will be creating your very own.

Well year one, you have made me one very proud teacher in phonics. The whole school are proud of how well you have done in your phonics screening check. You were confident, resilient and amazing. I just want to say a huge thank you to all parents for all of the hard work you have put in at home to helping your child to read. We are still continuing with our phonics sessions and we are now developing our fluency so that we can become speedy readers.

In maths this week, we finished our fractions topic and moved to learning about directions and positioning. You learnt the language of 'full turn, half turn and quarter turn'. We practiced these turns by working in groups on the playground where you had 4 pictures around you drawn in chalk. Your team friends had to instruct you on what turn you should do to face a certain picture. This definitely helped us to develop our understanding of turns. The next day you put this into practice by answering your power maths questions. In our maths starter, you have been working really hard to answer fluency questions on adding and subtracting.

In DT this week, we started our new topic of cooking. We are linking this into our English work on the lighthouse keepers lunch. You were hooked into this learning by a postcard off Mr Grinling who explained he wanted to make a smoothie for Mrs Grinling to say thank you for all of the lunches she makes him. We decided that smoothies were mostly made from fruit and vegetables. You explored a range of different foods to find out if they were a fruit or vegetable. You surprisingly found out that all fruits have seeds in. You carefully looked for seeds and grouped the fruits and vegetables separately from each other. You were very shocked to find out that tomatoes and avocado are fruits!

In Geography, we continued our learning on the United Kingdom. We built upon our learning by focusing on just Scotland. We had a Scottish afternoon on Friday where we listened to Scottish music, looked through pictures of Scotland and we even dressed up in tartan that were kindly gifted to us from Miss Haynes' Scottish cousins. We explored the capital city and the highlands. We were mesmerised by Ben Nevis, Loch Ness and the highland coos. You wrote a short fact file all about Scotland and I think many of you now want to visit. Those that have visited Scotland shared their stories of the places they went to and the things they did whilst they were there. We loved listening to children’s experiences!

In history, you wrote a beautiful postcard in the perspective of a Victorian child who had just visited the seaside. We loved our postcards so much we wanted to write them up for our study work books. You thought about all of the learning you had done on the Victorian seaside. In your postcards, you talked about getting there by a steam train, getting changed in bathing machines and even going on separate beaches from your dad and brothers. You have really enjoyed all your history learning on seasides and Grace Darling.

In RE, we started our new learning on Judaism. You were introduced to the faith and learnt about what their faith believe in and we compared this to Christianity. We looked at the Jewish place of worship and watched a video about what a synagogue looks like. You learnt about the religious symbol of the Star of David and their religious festival of Shabbat. You created a fantastic information zigzag booklet on Judaism. Next week we build upon this learning by focusing on why Joseph is so important in the Judaism faith.

For music this week, we listened to a song entitled, ‘The Bear Went Over The Mountain.’ This was a pop song that explored the journey of an adventurous bear. First of all, we warmed our bodies and vocals up, clapped rhythms and moved our feet to the pulse of the song. We walked along to the beat of the song whilst the bear went through a river, a meadow and over a tall mountain. Dancing and clapping along helped us engage with the song, and follow the bear on his journey.

On Friday, we had our Friday treat of going on the adventure playground with year two to celebrate what a fantastic week you have had. We also do this to help year one transition to year two by getting to know Mr Dale. You are so ready for year two with how hard you work in class.

I haven't sent any other homework than reading and writing bingo homework for the last two weeks because I know how hard the children have worked on their phonics at home. I wanted to make sure that the children get a well deserved rest and break at the weekends. We will start maths homework again next week.

Year one, you make proud every single day. You are kind, thoughtful and a beautiful class to have. I know we are cherishing our last few weeks together and making sure we have lots of fun.

Have a fantastic weekend superstars.

I will see you on Monday,

Miss Haynes