Year 1 News 13.6.25

Happy Friday Team!

This week in our English lessons, we stepped into Erin's shoes and wrote in our diaries as if we were her. We spent time thinking deeply about reasons not to destroy Black Rock, it was hard because there were so many emotions involved! To help us plan our writing, we created word banks full of powerful words and persuasive ideas. These helped us when writing our second and third paragraphs, where we used our plans to build strong arguments. We also used questions and exclamations to make our writing more dramatic, how could anyone even think of destroying Black Rock?! It was exciting to write with such feeling and to imagine what Erin must have been going through.

This week in our math lessons, we have been learning all about position and direction. We explored moving forwards and backwards, left and right, as well as understanding what it means to be above or below something. We also looked at ordinal numbers and were quick to spot which was the first, second, third, and so on. We learnt how to write them correctly as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. By the end of the week, we felt much more confident and finished with our end of unit check to show what we had learned!

In our RE lesson this week, we started a new topic called 'What are your favourite things in creation?' We talked about how Christians believe that God created the world and everything in it. To help us think about creation, we watched a clip from The Snowman and discussed how proud and excited the boy was about his snowman, just like how someone might feel about something they've made. After that, we had time to create something beautiful ourselves using different resources. It was lovely to see everyone's unique creations! We finished by talking about how we can take better care of our world and why that's so important.

In our Geography lesson, we began a new topic called "What is it like in the North and South Poles?" We read the story Poles Apart and learnt about the differences between the North and South Pole. We found out that penguins live in the South Pole and polar bears live in the North Pole. We also watched a song that introduced us to the seven continents and discovered that Antarctica, one of the continents, is located in the South Pole. The North Pole is made up of sea and is called the Arctic. We learnt new words like Southern Hemisphere and Northern Hemisphere. We found out that the Southern Hemisphere is colder than the Northern Hemisphere because it is mostly land, while the Northern Hemisphere has more water. We also learnt about the equator, which splits the Earth in half, the top half is the Northern Hemisphere and the bottom half is the Southern Hemisphere.

In our Science lesson, we spent some time observing our plants and noticed they have changed a lot, some even look like they have buds growing on them. This week, we focused on learning about fruits and vegetables. We learnt that vegetable plants have more than one part we can eat,the flowers, leaves, and bulbs. We also discovered that fruit grows on plants as a way for them to reproduce and make more plants. We looked at different types of plants and sorted them into groups of fruits and vegetables.

In our Heartsmart lesson, we talked about the phrase "No way through isn't true" and how it means we should keep trying, even when things feel difficult. We were given a challenge where we had to get around the adventure playground without touching the floor. If we did touch the floor, we had to start again! We all had a go and worked together to share ideas about the best ways to complete the challenge the second time around. In our wellbeing session, we talked about what we would like our new teacher to know about us to help them get ready for next year.

In our PE lessons this week, we used tennis balls and practised striking them with our hands like rackets. We had some fun rallies with our partners to improve our control and coordination. We also practised volleyball skills, learning how to hold our arms and hands in the correct position to volley the ball to a partner. We played a game of keepie-uppie to help develop our control. Alongside this, we continued working on our jumping skills by learning to hop, skip, and jump. We also looked at our reactions by playing a game called Kangaroos and Hares, where we had to chase each other. Later, we followed a course to reach the top of Black Rock, completing different jumping challenges along the way.

In our Music lesson, we listened to The Bear Went Over the Mountain and really enjoyed singing it. We thought the song was very upbeat and fun. After singing the second chorus, we played our glockenspiels during the instrumental section. We used the notes C, D, E, and F, and altogether we played 16 notes. Well done, Year 1--you did a fantastic job!

In our DT lesson, we found out that we are going to be making puppets! The theme is fairy tales, so we spent some time exploring different fairy tale stories. We each chose a character and designed our own puppet based on that character. After designing, we cut out our puppet shapes using our chosen colour of felt. We are really excited and can't wait to decorate and join our puppets together!

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Miss Willis