Year 1 Blog
Autumn 2
A busy half term for year 1! Our topic on traditional tales led us to explore the stories ‘’Jack and the Beanstalk’ and ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. Our Science topic allowed us to investigate everyday materials and their properties. In mathematics, we explored 2D and 3D shapes before deepening our place value understanding by exploring tens and ones in two-digit numbers. Finally, a nativity! The children have worked very hard this term and we wanted them to enjoy a number of activities related to winter, Christmas and our nativity performance. Please see the photos below for a little more insight in to our activities, this half term.
Maths
This half term, we recognised and named 2D and 3D shapes. The children were able to make their own pictures and build models using both 2D and 3D shapes. Lots of creations were made linked to our traditional tales topic. The children were also able to sort shapes using different criteria, for example: ‘rolls, does not roll.’ The children enjoyed challenging themselves to create a repeating pattern of 3 or 4 shapes. The children were introduced to ‘base ten’ to represent tens and ones. We used base ten and also Numicon to make and represent two-digit numbers.
English
Tempus Fugit Theatre came to launch our 'Traditional tales' topic this half term. The children enjoyed a performance of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and ‘Jack and the beanstalk.’ We explored both stories using drama and then analysed some of the language used in these texts, such as sentence openers like ‘Once upon a time’. The children were able to produce their own retelling of the stories.
PHSE
This half term we covered ‘good touches’ and ‘bad touches’ and we used the NSPCC ‘pants rule’ campaign to learn about keeping private areas covered.
Art and DT
We used tearing to create these lovely woodland scenes. Can you see Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf? We used our understanding brush placement to create thin and thick lines when making a beautiful winter scene.
Science
We completed our science unit about ‘Everyday materials’. We named everyday materials then explored and sorted materials by their properties, for example: soft, hard. We completed an investigation about waterproof materials by testing different umbrellas for Little Red Riding Hood. Unfortunately, some of our volunteers did get wet! Why was that, children?
Road safety week
We had a visitor come and teach us about how to keep safe when crossing the roads.
Autumn 1
What a busy half term of learning we have experienced in Green and Yellow classes. The children have settled well and are learning the routines and expectations that come with being in Year 1. We have done lots of practical maths as you can see from the photos scrolling below. The children have been introduced to the 'greater than' and 'less than' symbols (< and >) and will be using these regularly throughout the year to compare numbers, calculations and quantities. We have also revisited part-whole models that were introduced in FS2 (Reception) and have written our own number sentences to match. We have tried to think of all the number sentences that link to the three numbers in a part whole model, even those that start with the whole number e.g. 9 = 4+5.
Science
Our topic is 'Marvellous Me' and we have been looking at the human body. The children have made bodies using classroom resources and have labelled them using post-it notes. We even drew round children on large sheets of paper. We have investigated our senses and identified the body parts that link to each sense. We had fun using each sense to try to work out what different objects were. They found it very easy to identify the lemon by smelling and the chocolate by tasting. Year 1 investigated the question, 'Are two eyes better than one?' We had lots of fun trying to catch balls with two eyes and then using just one eye.
Arts Week
What a fun filled week of creativity we had. Year 1 looked at the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. She inspired us with her work using dots and circles. The children had some very thoughtful comments to make about her artwork and why they liked the different pieces we looked at. The children couldn't wait to get started with their own creative ideas and have produced some excellent work.
English
The children have done some fantastic writing this half term, including instruction writing and some poetry about our senses. We wrote an invitation to the tiger to see if he would come for tea. We were thrilled when he did. He came to share the sandwiches that we made. It was a very exciting afternoon.
To view previous year's information and pictures, please click here.