Welcome to the Year 1 blog!

Each week, we will be updating this page to show you what the children have been getting up to in the classroom. You may like to talk about this with them when they come home. 

Friday 19th April 2024

Welcome back everyone, we hope you have all had a good holiday.

Following the Phonics Screening Check meeting, we have added the PowerPoint to the school website. It can be found in Key information – Curriculum – English – How you can help your child with their reading – then Yr 1 Phonics screen meeting 2024. The screen takes place directly after the half term break from Monday 10^th – Friday 14^th June. I have copies of sounds mats and links to websites which would be useful to use with your child, especially during the half term break! If you would like a copy, please let Mrs Holden know on the door or speak to your child’s teacher. The children really enjoyed all the activities in the ‘Come and See Phonics’ this week. They are so proud to show everyone their developing reading skills!

This week in maths, we have learnt about repeated addition. The children have used lots of recourses such as counters, multilink cubes, numicon and shapes to build equal groups and then add them together to find the total amount. The children have also practiced how to draw representations and write number sentences to match lots of different equal groups.    

In English, we have been learning the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. We listened to the story and then used a text map to help us to learn the story. We made up actions to represent the pictures and re-told the story verbally. We then sequenced the events in the story on a story mountain and thought about what happened in the beginning, in the middle and at the end. We also thought about some of the language in the story and sorted words into different word groups.

In topic this week we thought about what we already know about the seasons, plants and trees. Then we talked about the different parts of a tree and what they do. We then worked in groups and used twigs and leaves to create our own tree collages, including the roots, trunks, branches and leaves.

Thursday 18th April

It was lovely to see so many parents this afternoon for our Come and See Phonics event.  You will find the PowerPoint Mrs Holden shared with you below.  If you need a sound mat, please just let us know on the door in the morning. 

Thursday 28th March 2024

This week in English, we have learnt all about Pandas. The children planned for their non-chronological report and sorted lots of picture facts about Pandas into three sections. The children have all worked so hard and have written some wonderful reports full of lots of fun facts and super adjectives!

In maths, we are continuing our leaning of numbers up to 50. We are learning to count in 10s and have been practising counting forwards and backwards to 50. We have been building numbers up to 50 using dienes and comparing them.  We then moved onto drawing dienes, thinking carefully about which digit represents tens and ones.

This week in art we used different materials to create our island collages. We used different techniques such as tearing and cutting to create the features of our islands. We worked really hard and we are very proud of our artwork.

In topic we have been learning about maps. We moved a compare bear to different places on our maps. We used position and direction language to describe where our bear was on our map. We wrote sentences to describe the bear’s position and also thought about how to describe a journey on a map, using compass directions.

Congratulations to 1D and 1SM for such a lovely performance in your assembly this week. The children know so much about continents, climates, maps and compass directions. Everyone was very proud of all the children for taking part. We especially loved the singing! Well done everyone!

Friday 22nd March 2024

This week in English, we have learnt about lots of bears but polar bears in particular. The children have found out lots of new facts and worked as a team to sort them under different subheadings. We then used all we had learnt to write some wonderful sentences and we included some brilliant descriptive adjectives! The children have also learnt about plurals and found out that some plural nouns need an added ‘s’ and some need an ‘es’ instead.  

In topic this week, we have been thinking about maps. We have looked at maps online and maps in an atlas. Then we made our own maps of our school playground. We thought about the features in the playground and how we could draw them. We also talked about what a key is and how we use it to explain what the map symbols mean. We then created our own, imaginary playgrounds, with all of the features that we would love our school playground to have!

Well done to all the children in 1H and 1M who so confidently showed their geography learning in their assembly this week. They know the continents song so well and made wonderful maps and compasses.  We are so proud of you all. We are excited to see the assembly for 1D and 1SM on Wednesday morning next week.

We enjoyed an Easter Hunt in Forest School this week. We searched high and low for all the pictures and ticked them off on the sheets. We wonder whether a chocolate bunny hopped away because we couldn’t find it anywhere!

Friday 15th March 2024

In topic this week, we have been learning more about the continents. We found out about the equator and worked out which continents are in the Southern Hemisphere and which are in the Northern Hemisphere. We talked about climate is affected by the equator and sorted animals by whether we thought that they would live somewhere hot or somewhere cold. We placed the animals on a world map, either near to the equator or far away from it.,

In art this week we have been designing our own island collage. First, we thought about what features we want our island to have. Then we drew our design and thought about the different materials we will use to create our collages.

Friday 8th March 2024

This week in English, we used Language Through Colour to plan our character description. The children identified some of their teddies important features and wrote down some wonderful adjectives to describe them. The children then used their plan to write down all their ideas.

In art this week, we experimented using a range of recycled materials to explore cutting, layering, tearing and fixing different materials together. We looked at some collages of islands and sketched our favourites.

In ICT this week we used 'I animate' to create a short animation. We learned the new words ‘animation’ and ‘image’. We worked with a partner to create a short animation, moving our character a tiny bit each time as they went on a journey.

In maths, we have been counting all the way up to 50 and building numbers using dienes.

The children (and adults) really enjoyed dressing up in their pyjamas for World Book Day this week. They shared storied with the Year 6 children and enjoyed making bookmarks. They also enjoyed meeting Paul Deslandes, author of The Garden Monster, and hearing him read to them. We were also very grateful to have some adult visitors who came and read to the children. The teachers also swapped and read a story to each other’s classes. We hope that your children enjoy their free World Book Day books and enjoy using their vouchers!

Friday 1st March 2024

In art this week we have been continuing our work on collages. We looked at lots of collages of islands and talked about what materials there were made from and what features we could see on the islands. Then we chose our favourite island collages and carefully sketched them in our art books. We had to look really carefully so we could include all of the details.

In maths we have been continuing our learning around subtraction. We have been reading ‘subtraction stories’ and thinking carefully about how to solve mathematical problems. We can draw dienes to represent objects in the story and cross some out to show ‘taking-away’. We then counted how many were left (not forgetting to count the tens too!).

This week in English we have continued our work on the book ‘Dogger’. The children have shared lots of wonderful adjectives and written some brilliant description sentences about Dogger’s face and body. The children have also started to plan a character description about their own teddies from home, which was lots of fun!

In our topic lesson, we learned about the compass points North, East, South and West. We made our own compasses, using arrows and split pins, and used them to direct our friends around the room. We then used them to explain how bear could get home, by giving instructions on a map.

Friday 23rd February 2024

In maths, we have revisited subtraction - taking away small amounts from 2-digit numbers. First, we built the number using dienes and subtracted by removing some of them. We then counted how many were left. After lots of practise we began to draw the dienes and cross out the amount to be subtracted. We are confident to read subtraction number sentences.

This week in English, we have learnt all about the book Dogger. The children listened to the story and we used Language Through Colour to sort different words from the book. The children worked hard to create and learn actions to recite a character description. The children have also revised capital and lowercase letters and have sorted lots of words into the correct alphabetical order.

In Art this week we looked at collages made by the artist Kurt Schwitters. We learned that collages are artworks made from different materials, such as pictures, newspaper, photographs, patterns and found objects which are stuck and displayed together. We worked in groups to create our own collages. We practised cutting, tearing, layering and arranging the images in different ways to create different shapes and patterns.

Friday 2nd February 2024

This week in DT we evaluated the wonderful toys that the children made from recycled materials last week. The children the discussed the toys that they had made and revisited their design criteria to think about what worked well and what could have been improved.

This week, in English, we have enjoyed the story ‘Each Peach Pear Plum’. We have explored rhyming words from the story and matched them together. We have unscrambled sentences about the characters and we have written sentences to describe what is happening. We have continued to work on our pre-cursive handwriting, as well as writing capital letters.

In maths this week we have been solving different types of addition problems. We have been using lots of different strategies, such as drawing dienes, counting on from the biggest number and using a number line. We are really confident with addition to 20 now!

Friday 26th January 2024

This week in English, we have continued to look at the story, ‘Nothing’. We have been practising our pre-cursive letter formation, as well as learning to form capital letters correctly. We have used our language through colour displays to help us to write sentences using ‘who’, ‘what doing’, ‘what like’ and ‘where’ words. We have talked about the terms nouns, adjectives and verbs. We have also continued to look at past tense verbs and have used these in our independent writing.

This week in DT we used all of the different recycled materials we have collected to make our toys with help from lots of our friends and families. The children worked hard to collect all of the materials needed and follow their design criteria to make some fantastic final products!

In maths this week we have been using dienes to add 2-digit and 1-digit numbers. First, we had to think how many tens and how many ones were in each number and then we made the numbers using the 10 dienes sticks and the ones. We have also been drawing the dienes to help us add. We had to put the biggest number in our head and count on. We’re becoming really confident adding to 20!

Friday 19th January 2024

This week in DT the children drew diagrams of the toy they will make from recycled materials. We thought hard about our design criteria and listed all of the tools and materials we would need. The children have made some fantastic designs and look forward to sharing them with you!

This week in English, we have been learning about the story ‘Nothing’. We have been unscrambling sentences and writing our own sentences about the story. We have used our language through colour displays to help us to sort words into different word groups. We have talked about nouns, adjectives and verbs. We have also thought about how to change some words into the past tense by adding the ‘ed’ suffix. 

In maths this week we have been look at numbers to 20. We have used dienes to how many tens and how many ones are in each number. We have also drawn dienes to represent different numbers and we have been plotting numbers on a number line.

This week we have been looking at old toys from the past. We have explored what materials they are made from and how the toys are different and similar to the toys children play with now in the present. We had lots of fun and would like to have some to play with in our classroom.

Friday 12th January 2024

This week in DT we started to think about which materials would be best for our project. The children explored lots of different materials and we learnt about their properties. We also looked at how we could join different materials. The children worked super hard and found that some adhesives worked much better than others.

In maths this week we have been looking at numbers from 11 to 20. We have been making numbers using counters on a tens frame, drawing counters, and using numicon. We have practised saying how many tens and how many ones are in each teen number.

Friday 5th January 2024

This week in DT, we have explored lots of the toys found in the classroom in preparation for when we make our own out of recycled materials! The children discussed which materials the toys are made from, how they work and what they like/dislike about them. We decided on which toys we would make and talked about our design criteria.

This term we are very excited about our new topic- Let’s Play! First of all, we discussed what we already know about toys- new or old. We created a mind map to show the different types of toys we like to play with. Next, we drew a picture of our own favourite toy and wrote a sentence about it.

In English we have been learning about the story ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’. The children enjoyed listening to the story and acting it out in the forest school. We have been unscrambling sentences from the story and practising writing sentences, using a capital letter and a full stop. We talked about prepositions and identified them within the story.

This week in maths we have been looking at numbers to 10 and numbers to 20. We have been doing lots of practical activities making numbers in different ways using cubes and Numicon, ordering numbers and reading and making numbers on tens frames.

Friday 15th December

In English this week we have been writing our own fact files all about reindeers. We tried really hard to remember all of the interesting reindeer facts we have learnt. In our independent writing, we tried to use full sentences, capital letters, full stops and adjectives.

In DT, we made our Christmas cards based on the plan and design drawn last week. The children did a fantastic job of constructing their moving part and used a range of materials to make their cards look fun and festive. Glitter was a favourite! Everybody shared the resources and helped one another, and we all worked together to clean up the classroom afterwards. Here are just a few of our fabulous creations…

This week we had lots of fun at our Christmas party making hats, playing games and watching a Christmas panto. We also had a super special visit from Father Christmas!

Friday 8th December 2023

In maths this week, we have been having lots of fun with 2D shapes! We have been naming and describing the shapes, by talking about the number of sides and corners that each shape has. We have worked on our fine motor skills whilst cutting around shapes to make shape pictures. We have then talked about the shapes that we have used. We have also enjoyed making shape patterns and continuing repeating shape patterns.

This week in Topic we have learnt all about maps and have used them to describe the location of lots of different features. The children then drew or built their own maps of the classroom. We also had lots of fun when we used a map to find the location of a set of Stickman clues hidden around the whole school! The children worked super hard and used the key they drew to help them.

In English this week we have been learning about reindeers. First, we thought of questions to find out facts about reindeers. We learnt about question marks and practised using them at the end of our own questions. We discovered that reindeer live in the tundra, and they have hollow hooves. We wrote our sentences remember to use capital letters and full stops.

Friday 24th November

In maths this week, we have been using all of the knowledge and skills we have gained so far to solve different maths problems. Some of the problems were number and place value, some were addition and some were subtraction. We had to think carefully about how to solve each problem.

This week in English we have been continuing our learning reading Stick Man. We have been sequencing the story, thinking carefully about the order of Stick Man’s adventure. Then we retold the story in our own words. We tried really had to use adjectives in our writing.

In DT we have been designing a Christmas card with a moving part. We looked at our design criteria and thought carefully about the tools and resources we are going to need to need to create it. We have some really fun ideas: Santa going up and down the chimney, snowflakes falling outside, presents appearing under the tree… we are so excited to start crafting!

This week in ICT we have learnt all about algorithms. The children explored what an algorithm is and we discussed the importance of the order of instructions. We then sequenced instructions to tell a robot how to make a jam sandwich. The children have also used Beebots to create precise instructions to move from one place to another, which was lots of fun!

Friday 17th November 2023

In maths this week, we have been focusing on subtraction. We thought about different words for the taking away, such as subtract, minus, difference, fewer and less. We used objects to make a number and then took some away, to see how many were left. We then we took away by drawing pictures and crossing some out. We wrote subtraction calculations to go with simple word problems.

This week in English, we have been enjoying the book Stick Man by Julia Donaldson. We have been thinking of lots of brilliant adjectives to describe Stick Man and the different settings in the story. We have also been practising using adjectives to write our own sentences about Stick Man.

This week in our topic lessons we have explored the outside areas around school to learn the difference between physical and human features. We have also learnt about which countries make up the United Kingdom. The children labelled UK puzzles and used playdough to make a map of the UK with England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in different colours.

Friday 10th November 2023

In our Topic lessons this week, we have explored Margate in the past and present. The children looked at lots of different pictures and compared them, thinking about what was the same and what was different. We have also learnt how to sequence pictures through time in order from oldest to newest.

This week, in maths, we have been learning how to use bead strings to help us to add two numbers together. We have read word problems and found the important information. We then counted out each of the two numbers on our bead string and counted how many we had altogether, to find the total.

In English this week we have been continuing with our fireworks poems. We thought of lots of adjectives to describe what we can see and hear on Bonfire night. Some of us have written our own fireworks poems and some of us worked together to create a group poem. We are all really proud of our amazing ideas!

Friday 3rd November 2023

In maths this week, we have been adding two groups of objects together. We started by building the calculations, using physical objects. We then drew circles to represent the two groups that we were adding. Finally, we practised writing the calculations for our drawings. We worked out the answer by counting all of the objects/circles together or starting with the first number and counting on to find the answer.

In DT we have been exploring books with moving parts. We have learned about different types of mechanisms used in books including flaps, pop-ups, turning wheels, levers, and sliders. We all really enjoyed finding out how they work by watching videos and looking closely at real books. We began to think about our design criteria for making our own greeting cards with moving parts.

In topic, the children have explored the features of a setting. We discussed some of our experiences at the beach and thought about what we see and do there. The children then worked together to make some super beach collages. We also learnt about Guy Fawkes and how he tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament! The children drew their own firework pictures, built the Houses of Parliament and made their own stick puppets.

In English this week we have been reading firework poems and learning about adjectives and exclamation marks. We had lots of fun using glowsticks to create our own firework display and we made some amazing firework pictures using chalk. We thought of sound words to describe the noise fireworks make and adjectives to describe what they look like and used them in our brilliant sentences.  

Friday 20th October 2023

In English this week we have continued our learning around the ‘Funny Bones’ story. We have had lots of fun improving a boring sentence by using adjectives or extending it to give more information. See our amazing writing below! We thought of some excellent adjectives- frightening, shiny, spooky…  

In maths we have continued to use the ‘part-whole model’ and have started to learn about how we can use one to add two numbers. The children have drawn their own part-whole models and used counters and Numicon to practice. We have also written some super number sentences!

In PSHE this week, we have been thinking about being kind to each other and how we can show kindness on the playground. We talked about ways that we could help others and how we can share with them. We thought about how it feels to be left out and how we can be kind by asking others whether they want to join in with our games.

This week in topic we have been learning about the seasonal changes which happen in autumn. We went to the field and forest school and spotted lots of leaves changing colour and falling from the trees, lots of berries on the trees and sycamore seeds. We then studied different autumn leaves and thought of some interesting adjectives to describe them.

A little home learning activity…

Over the half-term break, why don’t you go for an autumn walk with your family? What signs of autumn will you spot at the park? Perhaps you could take photographs or draw a picture and add some labels with adjectives, for example ‘crunchy leaves’ or ‘spiky conker shells’. Plus, you could really impress your parents with your knowledge of different types of trees!

Friday 13th October 2023

On Monday, in English, we practised letter names and sequenced the letters of the alphabet from a-z. We enjoyed a range of activities such as: missing letter sheets, matching magnetic letters and putting letter mats in the right order. Our story this week is Funny Bones. We have been practising writing sentences from the story using a capital letter, full stop and finger spaces.

In maths this week we have learnt how to split a number into two parts. The children have used animal counters, pom poms, numicon and much more to practice. We have also explored how to use a ‘part whole model’ to find all the different ways a number can be split.

The children enjoyed forest school this week and made witch’s broomsticks out of sticks and leaves. They had fun in the mud kitchen, which is finally starting to be a little bit muddy, and enjoyed looking at nature, building dens and swinging through the trees!

In science this week we have been learning about trees which are common to the UK and how we can identify them by looking at their leaves. We carefully studied oak, sycamore, pine, holly and horse chestnut leaves, describing what they looked like and whether they were evergreen or deciduous. We have also been making repeating patterns using the seeds from the trees, and making some lovely leaf rubbings too.  

Friday 6th October 2023

In maths this week, we have continued to practice using greater than, less than and equal to symbols in lots of different ways. The children have used the symbols to compare pictures, objects and numbers. We have also learnt about ordinal numbers and when we use them. The children enjoyed a bus stop game where we all had a number card and had to work together to line up in the correct order.

We have been using Language Through Colour to answer questions about stories and to better understand different types of vocabulary. We used nouns to answer questions about who is in a story, where they are and what they have. We used verbs talk about what they were doing. We also used adjectives to describe what things were like.  

This week in topic we have been learning about the properties of different materials. We learnt that the properties of a material means what it is like. We sorted lots of objects, identifying the material it was made from and the properties of that material, such as hard, soft, waterproof and transparent.

Friday 29th September

In maths we have continued to compare one group of objects with another but have learnt to now use the symbols, greater than, less than and equals to. The children learnt that the crocodile always wants to eat the largest amount! We have also practiced using greater and less than in sentences and learnt how we can use greater than to describe the largest group of number.

In PSHE this week, we thought about what it means to be unkind. We talked about how it feels when someone is unkind to us and what we can do about it. We then listened to different scenarios and decided whether the children were bullying, teasing or just joking (in a friendly way). The children enjoyed listening to a story about a cheetah who was left out by others, and what his friend did to help.

This week in topic we have been learning about different types of materials, such as glass, wood, plastic, metal, and fabric. We went on a materials hunt around school, looking for objects made from the different materials. We have also been sorting objects by identifying what materials they are made from.

In English this week we have been reading the story ‘The Lumberjack’s Beard’. It is very funny! We used our fantastic fine motor skills to make our own bears using strips of paper and cut out animals to stick on. We worked together as a group to write sentences that included a capital letter, full stop and finger spaces. We have also been learning about verbs and acting out interesting actions such as lugging and trudging!

Friday 22nd September

In English this week we have been reading story of ‘The Tree’ and talking about how the forest changes during each season. We drew things that we might see in a tree and learned about plural and singular words (owl, nest, acorns, squirrels). We have been building and writing sentences about our own tree pictures, deciding whether to add an ‘s’ or ‘es’ to plural words.

In maths we have looked at more, less and equals. We have learnt how to match one group of objects with another and compare groups of objects to explain which one has more or less. The children also enjoyed a dominoes game where we explored what it means when groups of objects are equal.

In PSHE this week, we thought about good listening. We talked about why it is important to be a good listener and how we can show others that we are listening. We then played a traffic light game, to test our listening skills! When the teacher called green, we jumped on the spot. When the teacher called orange, we jogged on the spot. When the teacher called red, we stood very still.

This week in topic we have really enjoyed lots of panda themed activities linked to our school value ‘Safe and Settled’. The children have made a panda house from Lego and panda masks, as well as creating beautiful panda pictures, labelling the parts of a panda, and even watching a live stream of Pandas at Edinburgh Zoo!

Friday 15th September

Welcome to the Year 1 blog. Your children are settling in really well and have had a lovely week in their new classes. They have been enjoying lots of fun activities this week.

In maths we have worked with numbers from 1 to 10. The children have ordered and written numbers both forwards and backwards! The children have also worked super hard to practice their number formation and have enjoyed lots of missing number activities too.

The children loved visiting the forest school again and had lots of fun climbing, exploring and working together. They discovered different creatures and talked about different materials that they found. They made cakes and potions and even dens! We can’t wait to see what they will find next week!

In English this week we listened to a story called ‘The Jar of Happiness’. We thought of things that make us feel happy and drew pictures of them inside our own jars. We added labels, learning how to use a ruler to draw a straight line, and used our phonic knowledge to sound out words.  

This week in topic we have really enjoyed lots of panda themed activities linked to our school value ‘Safe and Settled’. The children have made a panda house from Lego and panda masks, as well as creating beautiful panda pictures, labelling the parts of a panda, and even watching a live stream of Pandas at Edinburgh Zoo!

Friday 21st July

Thank you Thanet Earth!

We are so grateful to Thanet Earth for their support again this year with our DT food project.  Thanet Earth kindly donated lots of peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers for our project. As you saw on the blog last week, the children had so much fun planning, preparing and eating everything (well almost everything!) that they made. They loved seeing the bell peppers and the pointy peppers although we had trouble persuading some of the children that the pointy peppers weren’t chillies!

We had lots of fun looking after jelly babies this week. We chose our jelly babies, named them and made birth certificates for them. We thought about the things that they might like and drew pictures of their families. The jelly babies enjoyed playing with the toys in the classroom, reading books, riding on ponies and being chased by dinosaurs! We also enjoyed building houses and transport for our jelly babies, along with beds and even designing and making clothes! We also had lots of fun building a jelly baby village. Unfortunately, some were not so lucky and ended up being trodden on, or even worse – EATEN!

Your children have had such a fun and busy year! They have learned and grown so much and we are all very proud of them. We would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to all our families for your support throughout the year and would also like to wish everyone a very happy holiday. 

Best wishes to you all from everyone in the Year 1 team.

Friday 14th July

We had lots of fun this week making our face salads in DT. We spoke about food hygiene and made sure we washed our hands and had a clean surface to work on. We also learnt how to cut vegetables safely. We made very fun and silly faces!

In English this week, we looked at the story 'Sam’s Sandwich'. We talked about the different fillings and designed our own sandwiches, with both tasty and disgusting ingredients! We enjoyed making a sandwich with different pictures and collage materials and then wrote about what we would put in our sandwiches.

Some of the children enjoyed planting wildflower seeds in our outdoor planter this week. The seeds were very kindly donated to us and were to commemorate the coronation of King Charles III.

Friday 7th July

In English this week, we have enjoyed talking about the animal visit from Creepy Claws. We looked at photos and talked about our favourite animals. We used adjectives to describe the animals. We also enjoyed talking about our library books and Jackson brought in a picture to share, which he had created using his arts and crafts library book - great work, Jackson!

1A had their visit to the library this week and had lots of fun! We sat for a talk about the library from a librarian named Jill, and then explored all the different books available. Some of us then chose a book and scanned it out using the self-service tills and our new library cards!

Friday 30th June

We have had an exciting week in Year 1 with some children visiting Cliftonville library, the RNLI coming into school to teach the children how to stay safe at the beach and lots of animals visiting too!

We had lots of fun at the library exploring the books! There were loads to choose from. The children said such lovely things about the experience:

“I have had a great time walking around looking at the lovely books!”

“I would love to come here again!”

We were told about the summer book challenge “Ready, Set, Read!”. This is a challenge to read 6 books during the summer, do you think you can do it? It would be amazing if you could try you even get a medal!

This week we have also had a visit from Creepy Crawlies. They bought in some animals for us to meet, including a snake, a millipede, a ‘skinny pig’, a hedgehog, a scorpion and a tarantula! We had lots of fun touching the animals and learnt lots of interesting facts!

Friday 23rd June

This week in topic we have continued our learning on different groups of animals. We found out that frogs, toads and newts are known as amphibians and can live in water and on land. We also learnt that many of our favourite animals are mammals, including elephants, dolphins and dogs. We also found out that mammals have either 4 legs or no legs, and that some have two legs and two arms, like us! We enjoyed creating posters to show our learning on mammals.

We had great fun taking part in the Sports Day races on Wednesday! Everyone tried their best, including Mrs Smith, and we all had a lovely time in the sunshine. Thank you all for your support – you were a wonderful audience!

This week, we have been learning all about money. We focused on why we might need or want to save money. We came up with lots of fantastic ideas!

Friday 16th June

We have loved exploring animals in our new topic this term! We already know lots about animals and enjoyed sharing this information with each other in class. This week we have begun to learn about different groups of animals, including birds, fish and reptiles. We labelled important features of birds and fish, such as wings, a beak, claws, gills, scales and a fin. We also learnt that reptiles are cold-blooded and need to be in the sun to keep warm. We loved watching a video showing a chameleon change colour and then created our own chameleons with a camouflaged background.

In English, we have continued our work on the story, ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’. We have practised unscrambling and writing sentences and have enjoyed improving our fine motor skills by completing handwriting patterns and collage on tea and cake themed pictures. We have also been showing what we have learnt by doing some independent writing, in the form of a diary, to explain what happened when the tiger came to visit. We have used lots of exciting adjectives to describe the tiger and we also included an exclamation mark to show shock and surprise!

Friday 9th June 2023

Welcome back everyone! How many of the chalked words have you read this week? Here is an activity you could play together at home this week. Draw a grid on paper or card. Write sounds on the grid. Using small toys, take it in turns to move the toy and say the sound. Who will get to the end first? If you are feeling creative you could make a dice with the sounds on and roll the dice and only move if you roll the sound you need. Have fun!

This week in PSHE, we have been looking at money. We spoke about all the thing we know such as how we get money, what we do with it and what it looks like.

In English, we have been enjoying the story ‘The Tiger Who Came to tea’. We have been writing sentences about the beginning of the story, as if we were writing a diary entry. We have also been practising our pre-cursive handwriting and pattern formation on pictures of tigers and a milk float!

Friday 12th May 2023

I hope you are all enjoying reading the chalked words in the mornings. Here is a phonics activity you could try this week. If you complete any of the phonics activities at home, please send or email a photo – we would love to see you taking part. Write phonics sounds or words on pasta for your child to ‘mix up’ and pick out and read. The sounds your child has been learning are in the middle of their reading record, on the sound mat sent home at Easter or on the mini flashcards that some children have. Alternatively, you could take words from practice government phonics screening check materials which are available online and write those on pasta. Have fun!

This term we have been looking at plants. We have learnt so much! To see whether what we know is correct we conducted an investigation with water cress seeds. We decided to take away one thing that they need to survive this was light. We decided for the investigation to be a fair test we could only change one thing! Here is what we predicted: 

In maths this week we have continued our learning on equal groups by looking at arrays. We learnt that arrays are lined up in rows and each group needs to be equal. We looked at different arrays and talked about what we could see and then we practised building our own.

This week, we created our own Pop Art artwork, in the style of the famous Pop Art artist, Andy Warhol. We used a repeated image of our chosen animal and coloured it in using oil pastels. We made sure that we used bright, bold, unrealistic colours! We tried to include some of the oil pastel techniques that we had practised in Week 1. We then stuck our four pictures onto a brightly coloured background to make them really stand out!

Friday 5th May 2023

A coronation phonics challenge this week! You will need paper or card and tape or glue. Can you make a paper crown and decorate it? Write words on paper ‘jewels’ for your child. Your child then draws on sound buttons, says the sounds and blends them together to read the words. Suggested words; crown, king, queen, fun, throne, orb, wave, crowds, flag, shout, greet, Saturday, visitors, coach, abbey etc. Each correct word can then be stuck onto the crown to make it fit for a king or a queen!  

We have been excited to see our sunflowers growing! It has really helped us to complete our Hot write, about following instructions on how to grow a sunflower. We have also been reading the book ‘Ten seeds’ by Ruth Brown.

In maths we continued to learn about repeated addition and practised writing number sentences to match equal groups. We also had lots of fun using playdough to build equal groups. We also learnt about multiplication and that we can use this instead of repeated addition when adding equal groups.

In art, we have been experimenting with colour! We looked at the book ‘Farmyard Hullabaloo’ and read some poems as the inspiration for our artwork. We then used what we have learnt about Pop Art to make a colourful rooster, cow and sheep. We thought about which animal we would like to use in our own animal Pop Art.

As a year group we are very excited for the coronation! Using our fantastic Pop Art skills, we have all created a special Pop Art for King Charles.

Friday 28th April 2023

Who would like to play a Hide and Seek phonics game? Write some words on pieces of paper or card and hide them in simple locations at home. The words could have a theme such as space, things you need to plant a seed or things you find at the beach or park. Write the locations of the words in a table on a piece of card. Your child reads the first location clue and goes there to find the word and then writes the word they find next to the location in the table. Can you find them all? Can you guess the theme? Have fun!

In English this week we have been following instructions to draw sunflowers. We then followed instructions to plant our own sunflower! We have been looking at non-fiction text and using a contents page to look up information.

In topic this week, we have been focusing on plants and understanding a flowers structure. We looked at marigold plants and labelled the parts.

This week in maths we have been learning about repeated addition. We practised building equal groups and added them together to find the total amount.

Friday 21st April

Fancy a fun phonics activity to do at home? You will need some paper or cardboard. The children love this game because they think they are drawing but sneakily there is a lot of reading! The children have to read the words and draw the relevant pictures. Have fun!

This week, we have been looking at signs of spring. We went on a walk and found lots of exciting things such as, blossom, daffodils, buds and much more! We revisited our prior learning of deciduous and evergreen trees.

In maths we have continued our learning on measure by exploring mass and volume. We built on our understanding of mass by weighing different objects in class to find out which were lighter and heavier. Then we used unifix cubes to find out how much each object weighed and compared this information to find the heaviest and lightest objects. We also had lots of fun filling up containers with different items, including water, sand and pasta! We learnt that volume is the amount of something actually inside a container, and that capacity is the maximum amount that something can hold inside it.

In our art this week, we have been learning about oil pastels. We found out what oil pastels are and learned about different techniques that can be used with oil pastels. We then had a go at these techniques, using different coloured oil pastels. The techniques used were blending, layering, sgraffito, scumbling, stippling, tinting and shading.

Friday 24th March 2023

Watch out for the words!

Watch out next week for a morning reading challenge as you come through the gate into school. The children need to look for the words, then say the sounds and read the words. Which word will they be able to remember and tell their teacher when they reach their classroom? Watch out for them- they might be chalked on the ground or they might be on a flipchart!

This week we enjoyed taking part in an ICT lesson where we used iPads to create an animation. We began by watching a video of the playdough character Morph and spoke about how this was made. We then worked in small groups to design a map for our character to move around on. We then took it in turns to take pictures and create our animation! We will continue to practise this next week.

This week we enjoyed making our collages! We used a range of materials like pasta, material, shiny paper tinfoil and much more. This is what we produced:

Did you know that pandas are pink and blind when they are first born? Ask us to tell you what we have learnt about Pandas this week in English. We’ve done some fantastic information writing about them too.

Friday 10th March 2023

This week in English we have been reading facts about bears. We have found many facts about polar bears. We talked about where they live, what they like to eat and what they look like. You could help your child to find out some more fun facts about polar bears at home.

In maths this week, we have been exploring numbers to 50.  We have been using different manipulatives to consolidate our learning. Look at how well we are forming our numbers!

This week in topic we have been learning about the 7 continents of the world. We have also begun to look at some ocean names. We learnt about the equator and hot and cold climates. We spoke about animals that live in hot and cold areas and had lots of fun sticking pictures of them onto maps.

This week in Art, we have continued to look at collages, but with a focus on Islands. We had lots of fun exploring different ideas. We came up with lots of amazing imaginative ideas. Here are our designs!

Friday 3rd March 2023

What better time to introduce the Year 1 children to the Northern Lights phenomenon, than the very week that they have been spotted all over the UK!

We watched our very own Northern Lights show in our classrooms using Mrs Smith’s light projector, as well as creating chalk pastel pictures. We are hoping that these activities will help us with our descriptive writing about them in the next few days…

This week, in maths, we explored subtracting from 20 in different ways. We counted back on number lines and wrote calculations to show the answers. We also learnt about finding the difference and solved some word problems by taking away the smaller number from the larger number.

Thursday 24th February 2023

This week in English we started to look at the story ‘Iris and Isaac’ by Catherine Rayner. We had some great discussions about the story, we tried to work out why the bears were not friends anymore. We explored the pictures in the book including the beautiful Northern lights. We practised correcting some errors in sentences and sorted some scrambled sentences.

This week we also learnt about the work of Kurt Schwitters. We discussed the materials he used in his art and how he sourced them. We learned about techniques he used and discussed our feelings about his different collages, we then made our own collages find materials from around the classroom.

In topic this term, our learning focus is geography. To begin the unit, we shared what we already know about the planet we live on and we also loved sharing all our knowledge of space we learned in Reception! We made a class mind map of what we already know and then drew pictures and wrote our own things down. Then later in the week we learnt about a compass and what it is used for, before making our very own compasses!

Thursday 9th February 2023

It’s the last week of term! In English we had lots of fun listening to Each Peach Pear Plum and spotted lots of fairy tale characters! We also heard lots of rhyming words and completed different activities including matching the rhyming words and writing sentences. We had different pictures from the story on the table and practised writing ‘I can see’ sentences.

This week, in maths, we have been learning about doubling! We learnt that doubling is where a number or amount becomes twice as big. We practiced this is in lots of ways.

In computing this week, we celebrated Safer Internet Day and thought about the good and bad uses of the internet. We listened to the story ‘Hanni and the Magic Window’ and we created our own happy window pictures. We also thought about different ways that we can use the internet and which websites we have visited. We used pictures of different websites/apps to create our digital footprint. Finally, we thought about who we could tell, if we saw something that we didn’t like online, and we created a trust tree.

We are beginning to feel right at home out in the Forest area – so much so that we made dens this week to camp in. Some of us made a campfire and others went hunting for treasure.

Friday 3rd February 2023

This week in English we continued to look at the story ‘Nothing’ by Mick Inkpen. We practised correcting some errors in sentences, wrote about fixing the bear, and then at the end of the week we enjoyed speaking and writing about the cat’s journey along the rooftops with Nothing.

We tried not to get too tied up in knots this week out in Forest School. We enjoyed practising our plaits, wrapping up woollen hearts ready for Valentine’s Day (it’s February already!) and tying string shapes around nails on tree trunks.

This week it’s Puzzle Day and Number Day! We had lots of fun! We had variety of puzzles to explore, but we focused on dot-to-dots. We spoke about the main features of a dot-to-dot. We have to put the dots in the right places with numbers, so that we can join them together in the right order to make an amazing picture. But it is really important that we only go through the dot once! We did so well!

Friday 27th January

In DT this week, we made and evaluated our own toys! We followed our design criteria to create and decorate our toy rockets. We then thought about what went well and what we would do differently next time.

This week in English we listened to the story ‘Nothing’, about a toy teddy who doesn’t know who he is or where he belongs. We practised writing the alphabet, played ‘I spy’, completed sentence scrambles and wrote about what the toy could see. We also began to use purple pens to correct our own work!

This week in maths, we have been exploring lots of different ways of using greater than, less than and equal to with numbers to 20. The children have all had a go at using tens frames, dienes, number beads and number lines. We enjoyed all the different methods!

It was another squelchy day in Forest School for some this week! The new spider’s web obstacle course was a huge hit too. Mrs Latham reports she saw a Blue Tit flying into one of our nesting boxes this week – we have made so many yummy bird feeders, it’s a great place to build a home.

Friday 20th January

In English this week we had lots of fun thinking of adjectives to describe mud! We explored mud in forest school last week to get some ideas and thought of ‘squelchy’, ‘watery’ and ‘gooey’! In class we completed sentence unscrambles and wrote sentences using our adjectives.

In maths, we have been focusing on 1 more and 1 less using a number line. We are super confident with our numbers to 20! We can make our own number lines and use it to figure out one more and less. We explored this in lots of way, jumping, drawing, chalking and much more!

1BE and 1SM went on a trip to the church. We used a map and a key to find and name the different features in the church. We met Reverend Clifford and were excited to ask him some questions.

The freezing cold weather didn’t stop us having fun in Forest School this week. We made bird feeders for our feathered friends. Mrs Latham told us that she saw so many different birds tucking into the tasty treats we had made for them first thing in the morning.

Friday 13th January 2023

As a class we recapped counting to 20, we are confident now! We then focused on what less and more mean. We recalled that less means the number gets smaller and more the number gets bigger. In small groups we practised finding 1 less and 1 more of a number to 20.

We have had lots of fun this week reading ‘We are going on a Bear Hunt’ in English. We acted out the story and spoke about adjectives we could use to describe the cave. We thought of ‘spooky’, ‘slimy’ and ‘mysterious’! We also made our own journey maps to show the beginning, middle and end of the story.

Mud, Glorious Mud!

Our class text this week has been “We’re going on a Bear Hunt” with lots of oozy, thick mud in the story. Out in forest school we had fun exploring all things squelchy and squerchy!

In topic, we are learning about toys. We recycled old rubbish to make our junk toys! We thought about which materials we could use and how to join them together.

Friday 6th January 2023

In topic this week, we have been thinking about our favourite toys. We drew a picture of our favourite toys and wrote a sentence about them.

This week in maths, we have been looking at numbers to 20. We explored our numbers in a variety of ways.

Friendship bracelets, the rope swing and natural weaving were some of the new activities we explored in Forest School this week. Great fun!

In English this week we enjoyed sharing what we did during the school break. We drew pictures at the start of the week and practised saying our sentences out loud. Then at the end of the week we wrote our sentences independently.

Friday 9th December 2022

In English this week we read The Gruffalo! Afterwards we spoke about our knowledge of adjectives and thought of different parts of the Gruffalo and how we can describe them. We labelled a picture of the Gruffalo with adjectives and nouns and then finished the week by using these to write our own sentences!

Friday 25th November

We have been listening to the story ‘One Plastic Bag.’ We talked about how our actions affect the environment and we came up with lots of ways we could look after the it. We decided that it is very important to recycle our rubbish and so worked with a partner to sort some items.

We have also been learning which countries make up the United Kingdom. We sorted letters into 2 groups; letters to countries in the UK and letters to countries in the rest of the world.

We found out that England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are in the UK. We found out that Ireland is part of the British Isles but is not part of the UK. We learned the names of the capital cities for countries in the UK.

We have had lots of fun this week in English thinking of questions we want to ask Santa! On Monday we enjoyed sharing different ideas and recording them in groups on large paper. We then created a plan for our questions and practised asking them in pairs, taking it in turns to be Santa! We finished the week by writing our questions independently.

On Monday we looked at addition word problems and how to solve them in a variety of ways.

The following day we looked at subtraction, to see whether we could apply the same skills.

Friday 18th November

In ICT, we learned how to programme a Beebot using an algorithm. We also learned that if we made a mistake, we could debug it. We worked with a partner to create our algorithm, using direction cards, and then tested it using the Beebots.

This week, we have continued to look at subtraction by crossing out. We have been drawing our numbers onto a tens frame and crossing out the amount we want to subtract. We have tried to challenge ourselves by looking at numbers to 20. We have enjoying learning about subtraction!

In English this week we have continued our learning on question marks. We are enjoying the story of Stick Man, and this time needed to think of questions we might ask Stick Man, or questions that another character in the story might ask him. Here are some of our ideas.

We then practised matching questions to pictures from the story and thought of questions that Santa might ask Stick Man.

Friday 11th November

In history this week, we have been thinking about Margate in the past and the present. We looked at pictures and compared them, thinking about what was the same and what was different.

In ICT, we talked about following instructions and making sure that we give instructions in the right order. We learned that a set of instructions is called an algorithm and we ordered the steps to make a jam sandwich.

In P.S.H.E this week we talked about all the different groups and communities that we belong to.

We had fun creating art together and talked about how amazing it looks when we work as a team.

This week in English we began working with a new story, Stick Man! On Monday, we had lots of fun listening to the story and making our very own stick men. We also enjoyed drawing Stick Man’s journey and have been thinking of questions Stick Man might ask along the way.

We have been busy in our maths lessons this week. Firstly, we looked at our numbers to 10 and practiced counting backwards. We were very confident with this! We then went on to looking at the subtraction symbol and what this means, we discovered that there are lots of ways to say subtract.

We then had a go at subtracting by getting a group of objects and then putting some in the bin! We noticed that when we subtract the number should always get smaller!

Friday 4th November 2022

In English we had lots of fun on Monday taking part in a rocket experiment with Mr James! Each class had a coloured rocket and Mr James used his rocket booster to see which rocket could fly the furthest. IBE were the winners – well done!

After that we enjoyed making our own firework pictures and learnt about Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot.

We finished our week by creating a class poem all about fireworks. We came up with some great adjectives and enjoyed writing more firework poems in groups.

In maths this week, we have continued to look at adding using tens frames. Here is the work we have produced

In topic, we have thought about the features of a setting. We discussed our experiences at the beach and looked at beach pictures, thinking about what we could see and do there. We then made beach collages with a partner.

In PSHE we have been thinking about all the different people who help us in our community – from parents, teachers to dentists, police officers and paramedics.

Friday 21st October

We can’t believe that your children have been in Year 1 for a whole term already! They have been super busy having so much fun and learning so many new things.

As you are aware, PE days are changing next term and your child has been given a new timetable to take home but we thought it would also be useful to have them on the blog for you to refer to.

Well done 1A! The reading bear will be holidaying in your classroom and staying for a week afterwards! So many more of you read at home this week. Keep up with your reading in the holidays and let’s see where the bear goes next time!

This week in English we have been looking at the book Dear Zoo. We focused on using adjectives to describe the animals from the book but also animals we choose ourselves.

It may have been pouring down with rain on Thursday morning, but it’s never dull on a Forest School day and there is always something new to explore. What was that strange orange stuff growing on the tree trunk? Anyone for toasted marshmallows on our pretend fires?  

In maths this week we continued to use part-whole to practise adding amounts together. We began the week by adding together counters and finished the week by drawing our own part-whole models, drawing on amounts AND writing number sentences!

Happy holidays everyone!

Friday 14th October 2022

Wow! 1BE are so excited to be keeping Reading Bear again! I think Reading Bear is getting a little too comfortable in 1BE and needs an adventure into another class! Can you help Reading Bear go exploring into another class this week or are 1BE going to keep up with their amazing home reading to keep the bear in there? I can’t wait to find out!

This week in English we have been looking at a new animal, a squirrel. We learnt lots of new and interesting facts. This is some of the work we produced:

In maths we have been busy exploring ways to split numbers into 2 parts using a ‘part whole model’. Your children have been using counters, playdough, poms poms, chalk, animal counters and more to find different ways to split numbers.

Your children were very busy in Forest School this week! They loved using clip boards and pens to hunt for things in Forest School made from materials such as wood, plastic, rubber and bricks. There were some lovely discussions about what wellies are made from and where wood ‘actually really’ comes from.

It was a little muddy in Forest School but fortunately our Year 1 children have made a path in the fairy garden to help the fairies get to their house easily. What a great idea!

There was also plenty of messy play! Lots of exploring in the mud kitchen and lots of potion making but also looking after the snails and worms by pouring water onto log slices so they had somewhere damp to live.

Friday 7th October 2022

Congratulations to 1BE who have won the Reading Bear again this week. Come on everyone! The bear would love to come to your class next week.

What have your children been learning about this week?

We have been learning about what different materials are used for in our topic work. In Forest School we collected natural materials and built shelters for different woodland animals.

In maths this week we enjoyed learning how to use number lines. We took part in a variety of activities including drawing a number line and writing numbers on outside, building number lines inside the classroom, filling in missing numbers and answering questions on more and less using our number lines.

In English we have been learning facts about magpies and sorting the facts into what they look like, what they eat and what they do. We used these facts to write simple sentences, remembering to use a capital letter, finger spaces and a full stop.  Look at this beautiful writing!

Friday 30th September

Breaking news! ……Year 1 now have their own Reading Bear! Your children have been very excited to find out which class have had the most children who have read at home at least 3 times in the last week. I have even heard that there were 2 children in 1BE who read 7 times! There were joint winners this week. Well done to 1BE and 1K who both had 11 children who read 3 times or more this week. They will be sharing the Reading Bear this week. Can you beat this? Let’s see what happens next week!

In English this week, we have been looking at the story of The Lumberjack’s Beard. We made our own beards and stuck the animals in them! We have also been learning about magpies. We learnt facts from a text map and used actions to help us to remember them. We then wrote sentences, using a capital letter and a full stop.

This week in maths we continued to compare groups of objects, this time using symbols. We enjoyed watching the Numberblocks episode ‘Blockzilla’ and learnt that Blockzilla always eats the bigger amount. We practised saying sentences using ‘less than’ and ‘equal to’ and learnt that we can use ‘greater than’ as another way to describe a larger group. We practised using these symbols with objects in class and also recorded outside using chalk.

We enjoyed another bright sunny afternoon in Forest School this week. We have been learning about all things autumn. Some of us were lucky to spot a squirrel. We also made clay hedgehogs.

Friday 23rd September 2022

We are very excited that Key Stage 1 now has a Reading Bear that can be won by a Year 1 or Year 2 class each week.

We are very keen that the bear comes to visit one of our Year 1 classes next week!

To win one of our Year 1 classes needs to have the most children who have read at home 3 times a week Please read with your child on 3 different days and sign and date your child’s reading record. A short comment would also really help your child’s teacher see how they are doing. We would love to see the bear in one of our classes on Friday next week. Watch this space!  

In English this week we have been writing about what is in the tree! We thought about lots of ideas and then chose three things to put in our trees. We drew and labelled each item. We then used the tree as our plan for writing and we wrote sentences about what we could see in the tree. We tried to remember to start with a capital letter, leave finger spaces between words and end our sentences with a full stop. We then used a writing checklist to see whether we had included everything that was needed in our writing.

In Forest school this week, some of us were detectives, searching for different types of leaves. We enjoyed doing leaf and bark rubbings, too.

Following on from this we also looked at the parts of a tree in more detail. We could identify where the leaves, branches, trunk, and roots are. We then went on to make our own tree!

We have continued our learning on ‘more’ this week in maths and enjoyed comparing two groups of objects to say which has more. We also moved on to look at ‘fewer’ and ‘same’ and what those words meant when sorting groups of objects.

On Friday we finished off our week on learning about more, fewer and same by taking part in a class quiz! We had lots of fun and worked together very well to share ideas and write down answers.

Friday 16th September 2022

It was lovely to see so many of you at the Come and See this week. We will be having more events like this but in the meantime please chat to us on the door in the morning or after school if you have any questions about reading or Doodle Maths or indeed anything else!

In English this week, we have talked about singular and plural words. We have counted out one object and then more than one and thought about how each word changes when it becomes plural. We then practised writing singular and plural words and wrote simple sentences, remembering to start with a capital letter, leave a finger space between each word and end the sentence with a full stop.

Our maths in Year 1 this week has been all about one less. We have found ways to count different objects and then show one less. Here are some of the fun activities we have been doing in class.

We had fun again in Forest School this week, hunting down natural and man-made items that did not belong.

Friday 9th September

Your children are settling in so well and enjoying all the activities that the teachers have planned for them. We are so proud of them all.

What’s been happening in Year 1 this week?

In English, we have looked at the story 'Each, Peach, Pear, Plum'. We talked about the different characters and thought about our word of the week, 'tradition'. We then wrote about the story, made playdoh fruit and built models of different traditional characters.

This week in maths we have been working with numbers to ten. First, we practised ordering and writing numbers going forwards. We then explored counting backwards, followed by ordering backwards. We also enjoyed filling in missing number activities! 

In Year 1, our school value is safe and settled. The animal for our value is a panda, so we have all had a go at making a panda. It was so much fun!

Even though it was pouring with rain, we loved being back in forest school again. Exploring, imagining, playing and having so much fun!

Friday 15th July 2022

This week in maths, we have been revising division through sharing. Firstly, we decided how many counters we needed for our number sentence, then we thought about how we would share the counters between the smiley faces. This then gave us the answer.

In English this week we have been busy inventing our own dragons and creating a fact file about them. First, we had to design our dragon and then we wrote a plan to help us write our fact file. We included lots of interesting facts about them. We also had to try and use words with prefixes and suffixes in our writing.

We are very grateful to Thanet Earth who kindly donated peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers for our DT project which your children completed this week. They planned and made a plate of salad in the shape of a face and then evaluated their finished work. It was lovely to see them enjoying eating it all afterwards!

Friday 8th July 2022

In English this week, we have been learning about Mandrills. As a class, we used a fact file to learn new and interesting facts about them. We then used the text map to help us write different information about mandrills to start creating our own fact file. We have also been learning about prefixes and suffixes and have tried to use words containing these in our writing.

We have also had so much fun visiting Margate Caves.

This week in maths, we have been looking at sharing numbers into groups of 2,3,4 and 5. The children have been doing this very practically! We later discussed that sharing these numbers into groups has a mathematical name, which is division!

This week we have begun our next unit of design and technology. Our focus this term is to design and make a healthy salad that children will like eating. We started off by researching pictures of salads and learning more about vegetables that grow above the ground and below the ground. Then we wrote down our design criteria, which included making sure the salad would be colourful, fun and tasty!

Friday 1st July

We have had a very busy week in Year 1 and we were lucky enough to be visited by an ex-team GB athlete. Ezekiel Ewulo, who became the British Champion in long jump in 2011, told us all about his career and his training. He demonstrated how to do a long jump and let the children (and teachers) join in. He then led some fun circuit activities, which everyone joined in with. We were all hot and sweaty but we had lots of fun.

This week, we took part in our sponsored walk. We walked 10 laps of the school field and we had a great time! Luckily, the weather was on our side, with plenty of cloud cover but no rain in sight. If your child was sponsored, don’t forget to collect the sponsor money and send it in to school as soon as you can.

This week in topic we recapped our learning on different types of animals and their features. Then we moved on to explore a different way of grouping animals by looking at what they eat. We discovered that some animals only eat plants and are known as herbivores. We learnt that the name ‘carnivore’ is given to an animal that only eats meat, and animals that eat both meat and plants are called omnivores. We looked at some of our favourite animals in class and organised them into each group according to what they eat. After that we had lots of fun creating different animals using craft materials!

Friday 24th June 2022

This week in maths we have continued to practice our multiplication skills, this time through using arrays. We learnt that arrays are when we build columns to show multiplication. We practised this on Monday using counters. On Tuesday we built on our learning by drawing arrays and building them with stickers. Later in the week we practiced drawing and writing arrays.

In 1K, we were very lucky to have a special guest in for the day called Gary the snail. He is an Giant African Snail, we learnt lots of facts! It was really fun! We hope that Gary will be back in to see the rest of the year group very soon. 

In PSHE, we have been thinking about how we use money and we talked about how kind it is to donate money to charity and to help others. We also linked this to our school value of Community Unity.

This week, we were lucky enough to receive some cornflower seeds, pots and compost from Morrison’s. We were very grateful for this donation and we enjoyed planting our seeds and thinking about what they will need to help them to grow.

In English this week we have been inventing! We changed the story of the ‘Tiger who came to tea’.

We choose our own animal, we choose four things for our animal to eat and two things for it to drink.  We made sure that we added adjectives to describe our animal and the delicious food and drink.

This is what our plan looks like,ready to write our own story.

We’ve been animal fact-finding again in topic this week! We learnt about two groups of animals, amphibians and mammals. We found out that amphibians live in the water and on land, they have a backbone and are cold blooded. Mammals have hair, are warm blooded and can live on land or in the water. We were excited to know that we are mammals!

We enjoyed finding out about a frog’s life cycle and made our own mammal posters.

Friday 17th June

In maths this week, we have been looking at multiplication for the first time. We looked at how repeated addition sentences like 2+2+2+2+2 are far too long, so we can change them to a multiplication sentence such as 2x5 as they have the same answer.

In PSHE this week, we talked about money. We thought about what money is, how we get it and how we can use it. We then acted out different jobs to the class and, if they guessed correctly, we were rewarded with a money picture card.

In topic, we have continued our learning about animals which we are really enjoying! This week, we learnt about birds and fish and their key features. We learnt that birds have wings, feathers, a beak and claws. Fish have gills, which they breathe through, scales and fins. Later on in the week we explored reptiles and found out they are cold blooded, which means they have to lie in the sun to keep warm. We also focused on chameleons and watched a video of a chameleon changing colour – we were all amazed! Afterwards, we enjoyed reptile craft activities and chose to complete some independent writing.

Friday 10th June 2022

This week in English we have been looking at the story ‘The Tiger who came to tea’. We talked about what happened at the beginning, middle and end of the story and then sequenced it.

This week in topic we started looking at our new learning for the term – animals! We began by making a mind map of all of the things we already knew. We then spoke about what pets we have and explored the features of these pets.

After this, we read clues about different animals and had to guess and write down with pet the clues were about!

We also enjoyed sorting animal figures and pictures according to their features. We sorted by what animals eat, where they live and whether or not they can fly.

This week we practiced counting in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s. We noticed that they go up in equal groups. We then went on to see if we could build and write repeated addition number sentences

Friday 20th May 2022

In art this week, we evaluated our Pop Art artwork. We shared our work with each other and talked about what we thought we had done well, as well as what we liked about it. We thought about the features of Pop Art that we had included and the different oil pastel techniques that we had used. With our partners, we then talked about what we would do differently next time and gave each other ideas about how we could improve or change our work.

This week we have been looking at money. We looked at 1p, 2p, 5p 10p, 20p, 50p, £1 and £2. We explored money in a variety of ways such as coin rubbing, sorting by value and properties as well as making repeated patterns.

Later in the week, we looked at the values of coins and how we can add different coins to make the same value.

This week we have been very creative. We have been looking at poems with the theme of ‘Spring’. We had a look at some poems and discussed the features such as rhyme, repeated words and starting a new line for a new sentence. We used all the skills we have learned so far this year to improve our ideas by using adjectives to describe the nouns we chose. We created a class ‘Spring’ poem (see below) and then planned and wrote our very own poem.

During our topic lessons this week we looked at the results of our cress experiment. Last week, we set up our experiment by planting some cress seeds and placing some in the light and some in the dark. We predicted that the cress seeds in the light would grow, and many of us thought that the seeds in the dark would not grow. Look at our results below!

Our cress seeds that were placed in a light area grew full and green. The cress seeds kept in a dark cupboard grew very tall and looked very stringy and yellow! We found out that this is because plants use sunlight to make food so that they can grow healthy and strong. The seeds kept in the dark had grown very tall trying to find some light. They also had yellow leaves because they had not been able to make enough food to grow healthy and strong. Afterwards we drew pictures in our books and wrote about our findings.

Friday 13th May 2022

This week we created our own Pop Art artwork in the style of the famous Pop Art artist, Andy Warhol. We used a repeated image of our chosen animal and coloured it in using oil pastels. We made sure that we used bright, bold, unrealistic colours! We tried to include some of the oil pastel techniques that we had practised in Week 1. We then stuck our four pictures onto a brightly coloured background to make them really stand out!

This week in English we have been practicing our reading skills. We have been reading about elephants and finding out facts about them. We looked at a different text about going to a farm and then found out some excellent information.

This week in maths we have been looking at the word ‘quarter’ and what this means. We learnt that a quarter means to split shapes or numbers into four equal groups. We explored finding a quarter using playdough, shapes, chalks, and numbers.

In our topic work this week we undertook our very own investigation! Firstly, we spoke about the things a plant needs to grow, and thought of water and sunlight. We spoke about what might happen if the plants didn’t get any sunlight and then set up a fair test to find out. We planted some cress seeds and put some in a light area and some in a dark space. We predicted if they would grow or not grow in both areas. We are looking forward to finding out the results of our fair test next week and will keep you posted!

Friday 6th May 2022

In Art this week, we have used the themes of animals and poetry to plan our own Pop Art pictures. We read some poems from the book ‘Farmyard Hullabaloo’ and talked about the different animals on the farm. We then experimented with unrealistic, bright colours to colour the animals in. We also thought about some of the techniques that we could use with our oil pastels. After this, we then chose our favourite animal, which we will use to create our Pop Art pictures next week!

This week we have been looking at the word ‘half’ and what that means. We learnt that half means to split a shape or object down the middle, and that each half needs to be equal. We explored finding half using playdough, shapes, and paper.

Later in the week, we explored the idea that we can half quantities as well as shape. We made different numbers and split them into two equal halves.

This week in our topic work we have continued our focus on science and learning all about plants. We looked more closely at the different parts of a plant and what their function is. We especially liked learning about the roots and knew that they held the plant in the ground! We were interested to find out that roots also soak up water from the ground to help the plant grow.

Friday 29th April 2022

In art this week, we have been finding out about Pop Art! We looked at some Pop Art pictures and thought about what they had in common. We also had fun playing a game called ‘Pop or Stop!’, where we looked at lots of famous artwork and decided whether we thought that they were Pop Art or not.

This week we have explored turning our bodies and looked at quarter, half, three quarter and full turns. We went outside and drew circles on the playground and practised our turns with a partner.

Later in the week we looked at 3D shapes and their properties. We hid the shape in the bag and had to explain what we could feel and what shape it might be!

This week in our topic work, we have been looking more closely at plants. We went on a plant hunt around the school and found dandelions, daisies and daffodils. We also learnt about the structure of a plant and identified the petals, stem, leaves and roots. We enjoyed using magnifying glasses to look at marigold flowers too!

Friday 22nd April 2022

This week we have been looking at the word equal and what this means. We looked at making two groups of numbers and seeing whether they were equal or unequal. We then went on to speak about how we could make the two groups equal.

Finally we spoke about how two equal groups when added make a double.

This week we have been following instructions to make a paper plate fish. We looked at our fish and discussed the features. We talked about a title and what makes a good title.  We wrote about keeping a fish as a pet and made a list of all the things that you would need. We discussed what an imperative verb is. The children then had to spot the imperative (bossy!) verb in the sentences.

In science this week have been learning about seasonal changes. We used sticks and leaves to make ‘trees’ and then we labelled all the parts of trees that we could remember. We observed trees, looking carefully at how they have changed now spring has finally sprung! We learned the words deciduous and evergreen.