Spring Term 2

Design and Technology - Natural Sculptures

This half term we are learning all about the work of Andy Goldsworthy and how he uses natural materials to create sculptures. We have linked this to our learning in maths about 3D shapes and have explored how we can make sculptures using sand, salt dough, sticks, leaves and construction materials from the classroom.  

Spring Term 1

Old and New Toys 

This half term we have been learning all about old and new toys. We have identified the differences between toys old and new as well as investigating how and why toys have changed over the last 100 years. We used our new knowledge to write our very own non fiction books about toys that we then shared with the children from Reception. In our design technology learning we have made Victorian style peg dolls and found out about the differences between the toys that rich and poor children had in the Victorian era. To finish off our learning in this topic we made our own shoebox theatres to put on a show using our peg dolls and extra puppets and props that we made. 

Working with measures 

To finish off our learning about mass and weight the children in Year 1 have worked together to follow a recipe to make some delicious rocky road bars! We used balance scales and cubes to identify how much of each ingredient we would need to make the bars and then worked together in small teams to combine the ingredients and check we had followed the instructions correctly. This linked to our learning in history where we have been learning all about the key features of instruction writing. Then we left the rocky road in the fridge to set before tasting it at the end of the day - it was very tasty!

Maths - Place Value

During the first half of the spring term we are going to focus on identifying the value of a digit in 2 digit numbers. We have been working hard with a variety of different practical apparatus to build 2 digit numbers. 1W have really impressed Miss White with how confident we are becoming using the sentence stem: 

The whole is ______. The tens part is ________. The ones part is_______.

Science - Everyday Materials 

After our Christmas holidays the children in 1W have already been working really hard on our new science learning all about materials. We have been exploring the difference between an object and the material it is made from, as well as grouping objects together according to the material they are made from. Miss White challenged us to think about why certain objects were made from specific materials to help us gather vocabulary to describe the properties of the different materials we were investigating. 

Everyone Loves a Baby - Key Stage 1 Nativity 

For our Christmas play this year 1W took part in a modern take on the Christmas story called Everyone Loves a Baby. We all worked really hard to learn our lines and the actions to our song all about the wise men. Have a look at some pictures of us in our costumes 🎄

Fractions 

This half term we have been working really hard to identify half and not half of a shape and an amount. We have been using lots of new vocabulary including equal, part, whole and halves. To finish off our learning and to show Miss White how much we could remember we made our very own snowman biscuits. We cut out a whole circle shape and then worked out how to cut half or not half to make a hat for our snowman. Have a look at our finished biscuits. ⛄️ 

Dear Zoo Live 

On Wednesday 13th November Year 1 visited The Albany Theatre in Coventry to see a performance of Dear Zoo Live. Last half term we used the story Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell to support our learning so we were very excited to see it come to life on stage. All of the children had a fantastic experience and behaved beautifully, listening to the story and joining in with the actions alongside Ben and Sally the characters. 

Autumn 2 Visitors 

So far this term we have been very lucky in Year 1 because we have had two different visitors into school. Alexis Deacon, the author of Beegu, visited us to share his stories and demonstrate how to illustrate pages using letters of the alphabet to create alien characters. Then firemen from Bedworth Fire Station visited us to discuss fire safety and what we should do in the event of a fire. The firemen challenged Miss White to dress in the fire safety suit within 30 seconds because that’s how long the firemen have to get dressed when responding to an emergency. The alert went off and Miss White managed to dress in the boots, leggings, tunic and helmet in 17 seconds!!! She said the suit was very heavy. We practised how to stop, drop and roll and how to crawl low. The firemen also challenged us to learn our whole address off by heart should we ever need to call the fire and rescue service. 

Autumn 1

Welcome back after the summer holidays. The children in 1W have settled back into school life brilliantly and have already been working hard in lots of different subjects. Take a look at what we have been learning about this half term. 
 

Maths

As mathematicians we have been developing our skills when counting accurately, using a variety of different practical apparatus to help us. The children have been identifying more and less than a given number, represented numbers in different ways and have even been introduced to the part whole model to support our understanding. We have also identified the vocabulary and symbols used with addition and subtraction and used this to tell stories linked to addition and subtraction number sentences.
 

Reading and Phonics 

This 1/2 term we have been learning the long vowel sounds - a, e, i, o , u and all of the digraphs that make each sound. We are working hard to identify the different digraphs in words within books in our book corner and building real and nonsense words using the different digraphs. 
During our guided reading sessions we have been reading lots of different stories with an animal theme. Using small world animals we have then retold the stories in small groups. We have enjoyed retelling the story of Owl Babies, The Rainbow Fish, The Tiger who came to Tea and Elmer. 

Writing 

Our focus text for the first half of this half term has been Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell. Using actions and songs we have learnt the story off by heart to help with writing our own recount. As writers we have been working really hard to remember finger spaces in our sentences, we created our own song to help us with this. After writing a recount of Dear Zoo we have used a similar story structure to plan and write our very own story called Dear Farm. Before writing our stories we worked in pairs to retell the story we had planned to a partner to help us order simple sentences into a narrative. 

Science 

As scientists we have been learning about the different animal groups. We have been sorting animals and classifying them as well as researching key features of the different animal groups.