This week in English, the children have learning how how to change verbs into the past tense by adding ‘was’ before the word and ‘ing’ to the end. For example, cry becomes ……was crying, dance becomes ….was dancing. The class have also been learning how to use alliteration and adjectives to make their description more exciting and interesting!

In Maths, Year 1 have been learning how to count and sort into groups of 2s, 5s and 10s. They have also been learning how to recognise and add equal groups, as part of their current Maths focus on multiplication and division.

In RE, the class have been hearing about the Ascension and exploring how this special feast day has been represented in art and music. They have also been learning about how Catholics celebrate special days like the Ascension of Jesus, and that they are called holydays.

In Geography this week, the children displayed brilliant teamwork when they were set the challenge of classifying rockpool habitats together!

In Phonics today, Year 1 were practicing their split digraph knowledge when word reading; whenever they noticed the letter ‘e’ at the end of the word, they had to sound the ‘e’ alarm. This meant that they had to take extra special care to check to see if the word they were reading was a split digraph or not! These sounds can sometimes be a bit tricky to spot in a word, but the children found this way very helpful!

In PE today, the children had lots of fun as they continued to develop their hitting and receiving skills in tennis.

Spelling Shed this week- Words with the digraphs ‘ai’ and ‘oi’.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Ms Pemberton and the Year 1 team

Year 1 had a lovely end to the week this afternoon, when they joined Year 2 on a walk to the pond on the farmland adjacent to the school. This was part of their current science learning on animals; today they were looking specifically for different birds and amphibians. The children were treated with a chorus of different birdsong, while sitting by the pond. Mrs Hilton had previously downloaded a special app that identifies which particular bird is singing, and so was able to tell the children which variety of bird they were listening to. In the pond itself, the children spotted many newts, frogspawn, pond skaters and snails, and even a frog! When the two classes got back to school, they cooled down with some fresh water and a sing-along with Mrs Heymoz and her guitar in the Peace Garden.

In RE this week, the children sequenced the events in Jesus’ life from his birth to his resurrection, through creating individual story maps.

In Maths, Year 1 finished their unit on measuring length and height, and began a new one on measuring mass and volume. In English, they learnt about converting singular nouns to plurals by adding -s/-es to  word, revised how to join two sentences using ‘and’ and they wrote their own dialogues to go with the film, ‘Whistleless’.

Next week, we begin swimming lessons on Wednesday afternoon. Please make sure that your child has been given parental consent and that they have their swimming kit with them. Please also ensure that your child has a sun hat and water bottle in school every day. Thank you.

Spelling Shed focus this week is: Words with the digraphs ‘ph’ and ‘wh’ and  Adding ‘-s’ or ‘-es’ to make plurals.

Have a wonderful extended bank holiday weekend,

Ms Pemberton and the Year One team

This week started off with a very exciting science workshop led by Michael’s mum. The fun science activities centered around the British Science Week theme, ‘Change and Adapt’. The children had lots of opportunities to explore and manipulate different materials; creating and then testing a range of things such as flying birds, floating boats and camouflaged animals. Thank you to Michael’s mum and her team and also to Ezra and Luke’s mum, for sacrificing their morning, and giving our children such wonderful, hands-on learning opportunities!

The week ended with another class visit, this time from Luke and Ezra’s mum and dad.

Luke and Ezra’s dad is a vet, and over the years he has collected lots of different skulls from lots of different sized animals, which he shared with Year 1. The children thought that they were amazing! We thank them both for sharing these incredible pieces!

In English, the children began a new unit on the much loved book, ‘Owl Babies’. They had lots of fun reenacting the story through role-play. This will help the class to recall the main sequence of the story when they are planning and writing their own versions of the story next week.

In Phonics, the class have begun revising all taught sounds from Phases 3 and 5. Please look out for the email that was sent on Thursday morning regarding the Year 1 Phonics Screening Test, taking place this June. To get the children used to the format, we will be sending home a weekly practice sheet for them to complete at home. This involves simply asking your child to add the sound buttons on each word (real and nonsense) and allowing them to read the words to  you. We do not need you to send the sheets back to school; please keep them at home and use them to look back over as often as you can. Thank you.

In Maths, the children have started their new unit on Place Value to 50. During this unit, they will continue to use a range of pictorial and concrete resources to support them with: problem solving and reasoning, counting by making groups of tens and ones, partitioning into tens and ones, using a number line to 50 and estimating to 50. They will also be returning to the concept of more and less.

In Design and Technology, Year 1 learnt about wheels, axles and chassis, and enjoyed playing with a range of different objects and toys containing all three. Next week, the class will begin to plan and design their own wheeled toy.

Spelling Shed focus this week is: words where the digraph ‘ea’ makes an /e/ sound.

Please see the following attachment regarding whole school maths challenge.

World Maths Day Whole School home learning

Maths Scavenger hunt examples

Wishing you a wonderful weekend,

Ms Pemberton and the Year 1 team

It has been such a joyful and busy week in Year 1!

On Tuesday, the children joined the rest of the school in celebrating Mardi Gras! They started off the day by participating in pancake tossing relay races- it was so much fun! The children then helped each other to make Mardi Gras bead bracelets. This was followed by eating delicious pancakes and creating their own Mardi Gras masks! Finally, the class went into the hall for a special assembly which ended with a Mardi Gras dance around the school playground!

On Wednesday, the children took part in the Ash Wednesday service in school, where they received their ashes; as usual, the children were prayerful and respectful and demonstrated wonderful behaviour.

On Thursday, Year 1 celebrated World Book Day! They day was filled with lots of opportunities for the children to read, hear stories and participate in lots of fun activities focussed on the books by Roald Dahl. The children even took part in a special World Book Day online workshop. Thank you for supporting your child and supplying them with their costumes/ pyjamas- it really did help to make the day really special!

Spelling set this week focus on words where the digraphs ‘oa’ and ‘oe’ make an /oa/ sound.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Ms Pemberton and the Year 1 team