Year 1 2023 - 2024
Mrs Gray
Mrs Doig
Mrs O'Neill
Spring is here!
The Spring term is such a great term for learning. The days are getting longer and we now know all about Year 1 and what to expect. Our Spring timetable is in the 'Files to Download' section below, (scroll down) and there is also a link to our Year 1 Long Term Plan. School library visits are now timetabled for Friday with Mrs Gray and Mrs Doig will continue to teach us Maths on a Wednesday afternoon. PE is on Fridays and Mrs O'Neill is with us Monday through to Thursday.
Our Spring term Big Question is...
Does everyone feel the same?
We have completed our work on 'Halibut Jackson' by David Lucas and are now looking at 'The Queen's Hat' as a text to support our work on London landmarks in geography.
We will continue reading some 'seasonal' poetry, and each week in school we will have a guided reading book to read in our reading teams.
Science in the Spring term lends itself to growing plants. Your child has chosen a tree in the school grounds to observe through the different seasons, so we will monitor what is happening as winter ends and spring approaches. We will finish exploring materials and then begin to look at ourselves as humans and our five senses. In History we are learning about three significant Queens - Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II. Next half term we will be looking at London landmarks in our Geography unit 'Let's Explore London' and reading a book "The Queen's Hat" to write our own London landmark narrative. In Art we will be creating sculptures with paper and we are word processing and being computer programmers in Computing. Road safety is an area we will explore for keeping safe and we will be thinking about how and why we celebrate special times in RE.
Reading is essential. The children are developing their fluency and some have now 'taken off'. It is lovely that those children are showing their love of books by talking about chapter books they are reading at home. If this has not happened for your child yet - don't worry but keep practising school books and sharing those bedtime stories. Please, please find time to read together or organise family members or friends to read with your child. Any problems, contact us and we will sort out a plan to make reading happen.
The following links give some hints and tips about reading at home.
Phonics remains a target for our children - using and applying phonic knowledge to read and now to spell also. To find out about how we teach Phonics and early writing you can click here. There are some useful links which will take you to videos which show you how we pronounce different sounds correctly and how we form lower case letters. As we use Bug Club to support phonics and reading in school, there is a link in the 'Files to Download' section below that may help you to navigate the website. As we go through our Year 1 Bug Club programme, I will make reading books available to you online, that link directly to the phonics being taught or that your child needs to practise from previous learning.
It is wonderful to see the mathematics learning from class, being practised at home by many children. We will build on manipulating numbers to find different strategies to add and subtract and will count in steps of 2, 5 and 10. We will continue to use Mathletics for maths homework each week.
As always, speak to Mrs O'Neill, Mrs Doig or myself if you have any questions or concerns and we will be happy to try and support or help.
Files to Download
Year 1: Calendar items
Children Break up for Spring Break, by Dodd
Staff Inset Day, by Dodd