Welcome to Year 1
Adults in Year One : Mrs Sunderland
Ms Jones
Mrs Bulbulia
Ms Nicoll (PPA cover Tuesday PM)
Year One Class Councillors
Democracy: Our class councillors are part of our whole school council and attend regular meetings throughout the year to help decide on areas of development and ideas brought up by the children.
The children were asked to consider why they would make a good class representative and then presented their ideas to their peers.
A vote then took place in class and the children with the most votes have become our class councillors for the year.
I'm sure they will do an amazing job!
It's Christmas!!!!
Christmas has begun in Year 1!
Today we opened the first windows of our class advent calendar & took it in turns to choose and hang a decoration on our tree, whilst listening to festive songs!
Today we all independently wrote our letters to Santa.
As well as working incredibly hard learning all of our songs for our KS1 Xmas performance, we have also been learning some Christmas songs in class -
The children had a fantastic time today completing their 'Reindeer Run' to raise money for Wakefield Hospice!
We have had a super day today for Christmas Jumper Day - we even did our Maths lesson with our antlers on!
It's been a busy week in Year One with lots of fun Christmas activities going on!
On Monday we had our Christmas party and whilst we were in the Hall enjoying ourselves, a special visitor sneaked into our classroom to leave gifts!
We had cake & juice, and lots of fun playing games with our friends.
Tuesday morning involved a lovely walk to West Ardsley Methodist Church, where the children met the Minister and learned all about the Christingle tradition.
On Wednesday the children enjoyed pulling crackers, wearing paper hats and tucking into Christmas dinner!
Then in the afternoon, we all watched a pantomime & had popcorn!
Our second topic in Year One this year is 'Toys,Toys,Toys!'
In English this week we read the story 'Lost in the Toy Museum' by David Lucas.
We talked about who the main character of the story was and it's setting.
We then discussed the story structure.
What happened in the introduction? What was the problem in the middle? How was the problem solved in the end?
We drew story maps to remind ourselves of the important events and the order that they happened in.
Here are a few...
We then used these story maps to help us independently write the story.
As we had these to help remind us of events, we could really concentrate on our sentence formation.
Here are some super examples...
In Music this half-term the children are learning about 'sound patterns', as an introduction to understanding rhythm later in the year.
Our lessons are based around the fairytale 'The Three Little Pigs' and in our first lesson the children had lots of fun experimenting with character voices.
This week we used instruments to create sound effects for the different events of the story.
We also learned about responding to the 'conductor's' hand jestures to start, stop and alter the music from louder to quieter etc.
In Computing this week, we used our IT skills learned last week to create some digital artwork.
We began by clicking & dragging shapes and placing them in a repeating pattern. (This tied nicely with what we have been looking at in Maths this week! )
Then we chose a 'fill' colour for our background and different 'fills' for our shapes.
This activity really helped the children to develop their mouse skills, as they were positioning the shapes & also dragging them to the correct size.
Not bad for week 2!!
We had a super History lesson today!
We used our research homework, where we had asked parents and grandparents all about their favourite toys when they were young, to help us learn about how toys have changed in the immediate past.
The children loved sharing their information with each other and comparing toys.
We then also used some non-fiction books and information cards to learn a little more about toys from the past.
The children then wrote a few sentences to describe the things they had found interesting from their 'research'.
This week has been 'Interfaith Week', so in RE we took the opportunity to learn a little about a religion we wouldn't normally look at in Year One - Buddhism.
We watched a video where children explained the fundamentals of Buddhism, and we were intrigued by the concept of meditation.
With this in mind, we had a session of 'calmness', where we had quiet time, with calming music in the background.
We completed mandalas, which are Buddhist patterns, drawn and completed to help achieve a calm mind.
After the session we then talked about how we felt, and everyone agreed that they felt much better!
The children even asked if they could complete mandalas the following day, in their 'time to explore' time!
We have now begun our Computing lessons in Year 1.
In our introductory lesson we talked about what a computer actually is and worked with a partner to look at some household items to see if they contained a computer.
Then we independently logged onto the laptops and opened 'Paint'.
We then learned how to 'click and drag' shapes onto our paper using the mouse.
As we were so good controlling the mouse to do this, we then moved on to learn how to use the 'fill' icon (bucket).
As you can see from the smiley faces, the children loved this!
Every week the children have reading lessons, where they are learning reading comprehension skills, such as retrieval, visualisation and inference.
This term we have looked at The Teddy Robber and are now reading a selection of poems from AA Milne's book ' Now we are Six'.
The children are learning how to spot 'clue words' in comprehension questions and how to skim texts to locate answers.
We work in pairs to develop these new skills.
This morning the children had an assembly to raise awareness of 'Anti-bullying Week'.
In class we then did our first ever 'drama' session, where the children had to opportunity to listen to and then act out the wonderful story below.
This gave the children the chance to really feel how the characters within the story might feel and to reflect upon those 'right choices' that grown-ups talk about so much!
Please talk to your child about this story and the importance of talking the someone about any worries.
Our first topic in Year One this year is Marvellous Me!
Today was ALL AROUND THE WORLD DAY!!!
In Year One we learned about all things french!
We began by learning a few geographical facts about the country, including it's capital city & it's famous landmarks.
We learned about the french flag too.
We then watched a short film about how croissants are made & sampled some ourselves!
We watched a virtual tour of Le Louvre, and then watched a video all about the Mona Lisa. We learned some interesting facts about this priceless artwork.
We then had a go at re-creating it ourselves!
In the afternoon, we learned how to count to 10 in french!
We then went on the learn how to say hello & greet each other in french.
When we had practised, we took it in turns to video our conversations.
Here are some examples -
We all made french flags to wave as we shouted 'Bonjour!'
I asked the children what they had learned or what was their best bit of the day -
Monday was our very first DT Day!
The children were learning all about fruit and vegetables.
Their first task was to look closely at a selection of chopped fruit and vegetables and see if they could see which category the food belonged to, based on spotting any seeds.
Next, we talked about where fruit and vegetables grow.
After that, we all had the chance to practise our cutting and juicing skills, as we prepared all of the ingredients for our afternoon of making smoothies!
In the afternoon, firstly we sampled a pre-made smoothie and the children had to guess the ingredients. There were some interesting suggestions!
Then we all sampled the ingredients for our own drinks. These included lemon, lime and orange juice. Also, avocado, pineapple, banana and strawberries.
After tasting, the children then created their own recipe with the ingredients they had liked.
They all made their smoothies with a little adult support, and finally evaluated them with a thumbs up or thumbs down.
In Science this week we learned all about the pioneering zoologist Joan Procter.
Joan Procter was obsessed with reptiles and even had a pet crocodile when she was young!
Here are a few examples of the children's work about this Scientist.
In Art this week we learned how to use our previous skills in continuous line drawing to move onto developing our observational drawing skills.
Initially drawing shells with 2B pencils and ink, we then chose objects from around our classroom to attempt to draw using continuous drawing.
In PE this week we have been practising our jumping skills.
We thought about how to use our whole bodies to help us jump higher and further!
We even had a class competition to see who could jump the furthest!
In Art this week we began to learn about the skill of continuous drawing.
We began by practising drawing spirals on paper with 2B pencils.
We discussed how this involved using different parts of our bodies - not just our hands!
We then moved on to look at the work of Molly Haslund, a Dutch artist who creates artwork outside using circular patterns.
We were inspired by this and took ourselves outside with chalks to create our own art.
Our next step was back in the class room!
We all got a large piece of black paper and began using oil pastels to create 'rainbow snails' using the spiral shape as our inspiration.
Here are our amazing creations -
In PE on Thursdays we are learning about how we use our whole bodies to move. This week we played a game where we had to copy a partner and move just like them!
In PE on Tuesdays we have been looking at ball skills. Here are a few photos of us having fun practising our catching skills -
In Science we are looking at our senses.
Today we conducted experiments to find out just how tricky it can be to identify things using only one sense!
We had 5 Senses Stations, and the children had to identify & record what they thought they touched, tasted, heard, smelled & saw.
Here's a few photos of the Scientists exploring!
In our first Art lesson this week we all drew self-portraits in our new Sketch books.
We used mirrors to study our own faces, to help us remember those details that we sometimes forget!
There were some truly super pieces of work.
When we had finished we had 'an art gallery' and walked around admiring each other's work.
We then talked about the subjectivity of Art, and how we all like different things for different reasons and that's ok!
In PSHE this week we looked at 'Being the same, being different'.
We read the story of Elmer and talked about how we should embrace being unique!
The children then talked to their friends about what was the same and what was different about them.
Here are a few examples -
