Time is moving quickly in Year 1.

2nd February 2024Damien Johnston

Reading and writing 

Year 1 children are showing great progress in their writing already this year. They are learning how to use full stops and capital letters correctly and are beginning to use adjectives to describe. They have learnt the story of Handa’s Surprise and enjoyed tasting a variety of tropical fruits to hook them into the text. We are now moving on to writing information texts about animals and are looking forward to seeing that the children produce! The children continue to enjoy and engage with whole class reading sessions where they have been reading a book called Between Tick and Tock and are now moving on to The Snail and The Whale. Encourage your child at home to talk to you about the books they have read. In both reading and writing lessons the children have been being explicitly taught new vocabulary words to extend their imagination. Try asking your child what an antelope is or even a herbivore? As of last term, the children continue to learn new skills including how to use adjectives, nouns and verbs. Ask your child to tell you what these are and keep reminding them of these word classes at home. Thank you for your continued support with Give me Ten and supporting your child’s reading at home.

Maths 

In Year 1 children have been working really hard and learning about Place value, they have enjoyed using concrete resources to support their learning.  It is great to see children being confident in using counters and 10 frames as well as bead strings to support their understanding of numbers from 11 to 20, they have also been learning to write the word to the number. Children have been introduced to base 10 to help them understand the concept of how many tens and ones are in a two digit number. 

Moreover, children in Year 1 have learnt about the number line to 20 and how to use and estimate on  a number line. It was great to see children challenge themselves and use a ruler to draw a number line, something the children really enjoyed. 

We are now learning about Addition and Subtraction within 20. Children have been enjoying adding two numbers together. They have been using a variety of resources to help them build connections and work out the number sentences. Children have learnt that with addition you can swap the numbers around and still get the same answer. 

Moreover, children have learnt about ordering numbers to 20, identifying what is the greatest number and what is the smallest number and then putting them in order from smallest to greatest or greatest to smallest. We will now be moving onto subtraction and learning about counting back and finding the difference between numbers. 

Science 

In Science, children in Year 1 have been very excited to learn about amazing animals. They have learnt that there are many different types of animals that can be described in different ways. 

The children learnt about grouping animals into categories, these include mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles. The children learnt that all these groups have a backbone and that mammals have fur or hair and they give birth to live babies. Birds have feathers, wings and a beak and they lay eggs. Also, fish have scales, fins and gills and they lay eggs. 

Moreover, children learnt about what mammals have in common. Children learnt that mammals are warm-blooded, they have a backbone, they have fur or hair, they feed their babies with their milk also that humans are mammals. 

Other curriculum area which has inspired and motivated the children

In Year 1 we were lucky enough to have two visits this term. One from the Police to learn about interest safety. Additionally, we had a visit from an Author, Camilla Chester who shared her story about Empathy. They had the opportunity to listen to her read a story. When back in the classrooms children shared how much they enjoyed her visit and promoted their love of reading. Both visits were very valuable to the children.

Alder class also had their class assembly where they showed excellent performance skills and shared lots of their learning. This ranged from singing songs to poetry and artwork. The children loved showcasing their work and preparing for their performance. 

The children have enjoyed singing assemblies weekly and also class music lessons delivered by The Luton Music Service. These are invaluable sessions for the children to learn appropriate music skills. 

Over the next few weeks the sequence of learning will focus on:

  • Transport from the past and how they have evolved over the years.
  • The children will be learning the story ‘The Snail and the Whale’ in reading and an Amazing Antelope text in English.
  • In math, we will be focusing more on subtraction before moving on to geometry.
  • We are also looking forward to our zoo trip later this term. 

 

 

Year 1 making the most of every learning opportunity!

29th November 2023Damien Johnston

 

Reading and writing 

Year 1 children have enjoyed immersing themselves into a variety of texts so far this year. They have learnt The Three Billy Goats Gruff, a poem called Pirate Pete and are now learning Little Red and the very hungry lion. The children have also enjoyed their whole class reading sessions where they have read The Jolly Postman, The Gingerbread man and are now enjoying learning more and more about animals in winter in the book Winter Sleeps: A Hibernation story. The children have been learning new skills including how to use adjectives, nouns and verbs. Ask your child to tell you what these are and keep reminding them of these word classes at home. 

Maths 

In Year 1 children have learnt about Place Value such as, sorting, counting and ordering objects and numbers. The children learnt to recognise numbers as words, compare numbers by finding out 1 more and 1 less as well as identifying less than, greater than and equal to. This term children in Year 1 learnt about Addition and Subtraction. They enjoyed learning about the part-whole model and adding numbers togethers. The children challenged themselves and learnt about fact families and subtraction by taking away and crossing out to find out how many is left. They have become confident with using the number line and have learnt to subtract numbers by creating jumps. The children are learning to become independent learners by using concrete resources such as counters and 10 frames, multilinks and number lines. 

Science 

This term in Science, children in Year 1 have been learning about Materials. The children have explored and investigated a range of different materials. These have included: Metal, wood, plastic and fabric. They have learnt about different properties of these materials and investigated how these properties can help decide what an object should be made of.  Also, they have  learnt new vocabulary such as, waterproof,  transparent and absorbent. The children have shown a keen interest and desire to learn about this topic. 

Other curriculum area which has inspired and motivated the children

The children in Birch class were very lucky last half term to have a local trip in keeping with the ‘Our Local Area’ topic. They did a local area walk where they watched the planes take off and land at Luton Airport as well as have a little play in Wigmore park. Unfortunately, we had to cancel the local area trips of Ash and Alder class due to the weather and the unexpected fire at Luton Airport. Both of these trips will be rebooked when the weather is dry. On top of this all year one children had the fantastic opportunity of visiting Pizza Express restaurant in the town centre. There they each learnt how to roll dough, stretch it out and complete the pizza with delicious toppings. We are sure you have heard from the children all about how they made themselves a margherita pizza in their fantastic hats and aprons. 

The children have enjoyed singing assemblies weekly and also class music lessons delivered by The Luton Music Service. These are invaluable sessions for the children to learn appropriate music skills. 

Over the next few weeks the sequence of learning will focus on:

  • Toys from the past and how they have evolved over the years.
  • The children will be learning the story ‘How to Catch a star.’
  • In math, we will be focusing more on subtraction before moving on to geometry.
  • We are also preparing for our Christmas concert and learning a range of festive songs.

 

   

Year 1 – Summer 1

12th May 2023Katrina Pirks

English 

In English we have started to learn a new poem called ‘Pirate Pete’ . To introduce the topic we created our own pirates, using paper plates. The children’s found this engaging, whilst they were dressed up in pirate hats. We have also learnt the actions to our new poem by creating a text map. By learning these actions it will help the children when they write their own versions of ‘Pirate Pete’.

 

Maths 

In year 1 we have also started learning about Fractions. The children have learnt about  halves and quarters. They have done this through lots of practical experiences, such as, cutting shapes and using playdough. The children have enjoyed learning in this topic.

 

Science

In our science lessons children have been learning about animals. They have learnt about different groups of animals and what they eat. They have learnt lots of tricky key words such as carnivores, herbivores and omnivores. They really enjoyed learning these words and use them in other lessons to show their understanding.

 

Reading

In our reading lessons we have been focusing on traditional tales. The children enjoyed re-enacting the story of the Three Little Pigs. They also compared two traditional tales exploring the stories and discussing the character’s feelings, setting, problem and moral of the story. Also, they enjoyed re-enacting the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Children were given props to immerse themselves into their character from the story. They used different parts of the story to freeze frame and they used a microphone to share the thoughts of the character.

Spring Term

27th January 2023Farhana Siddique

Maths
Children in Year One are focusing on Addition and Subtractions within 20. They have been adding using number line, tens frames and part-part whole model. Children have continued to make progress throughout their learning by recognising numbers and forming them correctly.

English
This term children have been learning the story ‘Handa’s Surprise’. Children were able to sequence the story and retell what has happened verbally and with actions. They have started to innovate their stories where they have changed the items found in Handa’s basket to their favourite things. Next week children will writing their own version of Handa’s surprise.

Topic 
Children in Year one are exploring the wonderful world of Geography! Children were excited to practice their orienteering skills by making their own compass to navigate their way around the school. Everyone learnt about North, South, East and West (compass points). Children will continue to learn more about Geography focusing on the UK (human and physical) features and begin to explore the different continents and oceans.

Outdoor learning 
Children had to run towards the different compass points found on the playground.

Reading
Children have been learning about a fiction book called ‘Between Tick and Tock’. Children had to familarise themselves with the story. They learnt new vocabulary used in the text and they had the opportunity to use their observation skills to articulate their idea. The current book the children are learning is a non-fiction story called Great Britain.

Autumn Term 2

28th November 2022Farhana Siddique

English
In English children are learning the story ‘Little Red and the Very Hungry Lion’.
They have worked extremely hard in writing their sentences after sequencing the story. Children are working towards becoming independent by using their phonics.

Maths
Children in Year 1 have worked extremely hard in Maths and have shown great pride in their work. They have come to an end of their Addition and Subtraction unit and now we are learning about shapes.

Science
The scientist in Year 1 have come to the end in exploring their Five senses. Children had the opportunity to make their own Jam sandwich. They are now focusing on the parts of a human body.

 

 

 

 

 

 

PSHE– Anti-bullying week
This Year’s theme for anti-bullying week was “Reach out.”
Children in Year 1 have created a variety of crafts to show that ‘We are brave and strong’.
In Birch class, children made shields to tell the bully to stop and show that we are always protected when we stand together.
In Alder class, children made medals about kindness. This taught the children to always be kind to everyone.
In Ash class children made crowns to show that they are brave and can stand up against anyone and use kind words in response to the bully.

 

Flying Start Into Year One

14th October 2022Farhana Siddique

English
In English children have been captivated by the story ‘The Enormous Turnip’. Children across Year One learnt this story using actions and were able to retell the story using the story map. children also had the opportunity to create their own version of this story. They have really enjoyed reading this amazing story!

Now we are working on instructional language and start to follow a set of instructions on ‘How to catch a fairy’.

 

 

 

 

Maths
Children in Year 1 were focusing on Place Value within 10 and now have progressed to addition to subtraction within 10. Children are expanding their knowledge of Maths through using different mathematical resources and learning different strategies.

Science
The scientist in Year 1 have been busy learning about the 5 senses. So far they learnt about the aspect of touching and hearing. they had the chance to do outdoor learning to widen their thinking. The vocabulary gained from theses lessons have been exceptional.

Continuous Provision
To create a smooth transition into Year 1, we have continuous provision emplaced to secure their learning through the concept of play and exploration. During continuous provision we focused on different subjects and topic that have learnt.

Summer 2

17th June 2022Hilary Peacock

The second half of the term is well underway and we have been working on the story The Storm Whale by Benji Davies.  It is a story about a lonely little boy, a whale washed up on the beach and a friendship that will change both their lives for ever.  We have learnt the story and are now working on changing the story slightly, for example one child found a pig that had escaped a farm because someone had left the door of his pig sty open.  Once we have finished working on this story we are going to be finding out more about real whales.

In Maths we finished our topic on halves and quarters where we spent several lessons finding halves and then we worked on finding quarters.  The children enjoyed the practical sessions especially the one which involved pizza! They were slightly disappointed it wasn’t real!  We have just started a new topic on position and direction, we will be looking at describing turns and positions.

In other subjects we have been talking about the Queen’s Jubilee and we have be looking at the features of palaces and castles.  In science we have been looking at the different properties of materials.

 

Year 1 Summer Blog 2

18th May 2022Hilary Peacock

The weather is warming up and our brains are on fire!  We started this week by looking at the story of Little Red Riding Hood.  Monday morning we headed to the nature area to find envelopes with puzzle pieces in.  When we found them all we worked together in teams to put the puzzle together.  We then had to think about what story we would be focusing on for the next couple of weeks.

 

 

Over the next couple of weeks we will be identifying the main characters, the setting and repetitive language.   We will finish the unit by recounting the story.

 

In Maths we have started our summer work book and we are looking at counting in 10s, 5s and 2s.  We have been making equal groups, adding equal groups and making simple arrays.  We will then move on to division and making equal groups and sharing equally.  Each of these units ends in solving word problems.

 

In other subjects we have been talking about herbivores, carnivores and omnivores and been able to recognize which animals come under these groups.

Finally, we are continuing to work hard in preparation for the Phonics Screening Check that is happening after half term.  You should have received a letter that explains what the check is and what you can do to help at home.  Please see the following website for resources to prepare the children for this:

The password for the page is wigmorephonics

Flying start into Summer for Year 1

28th April 2022Ben White

What a great start to the summer term it has been for the children in Year 1. Everyone has been working their socks off.

In English we have begun our new topic of No-Bot Robot.  Children will be learning the story and creating their own version over next few weeks.  Ask your child to perform the story for you – they should be able to tell you it with the actions!

In Maths we are learning about capacity. The children will be exploring how to measure liquid and using containers and water to compare volumes.

Our new topic All About Animals has also kicked of this week and children have been learning about different types of animals.  This has included learning some new words such as invertebrate, mammal and amphibian as wells as talking about more familiar words such as bird, fish and reptile. Please talk about these animals with the children and look out for different types of animals in books and stories.

Our computing links nicely with our Topic lessons as we are talking about sorting.  In the coming weeks we will be using computer software to sort information into groups.  Children are able to log onto PurpleMash at home, please speak to your child’s class teacher if you require a log in reminder.

Finally, we are working hard in preparation for the Phonics Screening Check in a few weeks.  You should have received a letter that explains what the check is and what you can do to help at home.  Please see the following website for resources to prepare the children for this:

The password for the page is wigmorephonics

Protected: Phonics Resources for Parents

We are offering a workshop to share some of the resources to help  prepare.  This will be taking place on Tuesday.  Please check your emails for further details or contact the office for another letter.