Bringing Stories to Life!

This week in Year One Computing, pupils took another exciting step in their digital storytelling journey as they continued working on their animated e-books.

Building on their previous learning, the children opened their saved stories and explored them in play mode, watching their animations come to life. This was a great opportunity to reflect on their work so far and think about how they could make it even better.

🔊 Adding Sound to Stories

The focus of this lesson was all about sound — and how it can enhance storytelling.

Pupils learned how to:

- Add sound effects to match what is happening in their story

- Record their own voice to narrate parts of their e-book

- Create simple music using digital instruments such as the piano, keyboard and violin

It was fantastic to see the creativity on display, with pupils carefully choosing sounds to match their characters and settings. Some children recorded expressive narrations, while others composed short musical pieces to add atmosphere.

Creativity in Action

Using the “My Story” mode in Purple Mash, pupils explored a range of sound categories and tools. They discovered how even a simple sound effect can completely change how a story feels.

There were lots of thoughtful decisions being made:

- Which sound best matches this page?

- Should I narrate this part to help the reader?

- What kind of music fits my story?

Looking Ahead

We are incredibly proud of how confidently Year 1 pupils are using technology to express their ideas. Their stories are becoming richer, more engaging, and more personal with every lesson.

We can’t wait to see (and hear!) how their animated stories continue to develop in the coming weeks.

Music, Moons and much paint!

 Hi Year One Families,

We are busy continuing our adventures in Year One.

This week has been a busy one! 

In Maths we have finished our unit focus on Counting to Fifty, please continue to support children with counting within 50 at home- especially counting in tens. We will now have a short focus on Introducing Height and Length, before moving on to Mass and Weight before the end of term.

In English we finished reading The Comet and have been focussing on writing questions and statements. We will move on to story mapping and planning over the coming week.

In Art we mixed primary colours to make secondary colours and created a background for our self portraits. We practised our brush stroke techniques, using thin paint brushes to carefully paint around our self portrait. Next week, we will paint the face and facial features! 

In History we got in to character and pretend we were Neil Armstrong at important stages of his life. We loved pretending to walk on the moon.

Important information:

Our Moon Buggy parent session is this Wednesday from 2:00 you are very welcome to come and join your child junk modelling and crafting their very own Moon Buggy!

Farm Trip: We will be visiting Maiden Castle Farm on Friday 20th March (covered by our local trips consent form) please ensure that children have suitable footwear (wellies or walking boots) warm clothes, or waterproofs with a coat etc which is suitable for the weather on the day.

Our class assembly will be on Wednesday 25th March at 9:30- the children are really looking forward to sharing their learning with you.

Please do get in touch if you would like to discuss anything.

Ms Evans and the Year One Team.

Channeling our inner Neil Armstrong

Animated E-Books (Continued)

Today in Year One Computing, the pupils continued their work on creating their own animated e-books. Last week they began designing digital stories, and today they returned to their saved work to develop their ideas further.

The children opened their previous files and explored the different pages they had already created. Using the arrows at the bottom of the screen, they were able to move backwards and forwards through their stories and think about how their animal characters could develop further. Many pupils added new ideas about what their animal likes to eat, where it lives, what it enjoys playing with and the sounds it might make.

A big focus of today’s lesson was learning how to add animation. The pupils experimented with the animation tools, testing different effects to see how pictures could move on the screen. They quickly discovered that animation can bring a story to life, and there were lots of smiles as characters began jumping, sliding and appearing across their pages.

The class also learned how to use play mode to watch their stories as a reader would experience them. This allowed the children to check their animations and see how the pages worked together as a complete digital book.

Throughout the session, pupils practised an important computing skill — saving their work. They learned how to save their files so that any new changes would overwrite the previous version, ensuring their progress was not lost.

By the end of the lesson, the children had extended their stories, added animation to their pages and enjoyed watching their creations come to life. We look forward to seeing how these imaginative animated e-books continue to develop over the coming weeks.

What a fabulously busy week!

 Hi Year One Families, 

Well it's been another week absolutely wonderful week here in Year 1, we had a great World Book Day, the costumes were brilliant and we had lots of lovely time reading books and talking about books. Year One really enjoyed Friday's session with local author Keith Hatton. Thank you to all our mystery readers, the children were thrilled to have visitors this week.

In Art this week, we have learnt how to draw a self portrait which is a important skill for our art focus this half term. The children were extremely resilient whilst we learnt this tricky new skill! We can't wait to show them to you, once they are finished.

In History we learnt all about the life of Neil Armstrong, I wonder if the children can remember a fact about his life.? We will continue this learning next week.

We will have a fantastic Moon Buggy construction family session on  Wednesday 18th March at 2:00, as part of our Science Week learning, please do come and join us for this fantastic afternoon of family learning.

As a reminder, we have had to move our Class Assembly to 25th March at 9:30, we can't wait to share our learning with you all.

Next week we will be finishing off our Maths focus on Numbers to 50, continue our Science focus on Everyday materials exploring what objects are made from. In English we will continue our focus on the lovely story  The Comet.

Please don't forget all children should have pe kits in school- we have mini ballers on a Monday afternoon this half term.

Please do get in touch if you have anything you would like to discuss.

Ms Evans and the Year One Team

Change of Date!

Hi Year One Families,

Due to unforeseen circumstances we have had to change our Class Assembly day, the assembly will now be held on Wednesday 25th March at 9:30, we are looking forward to seeing you then!

There is also two free mystery reader slots on Tuesday and Friday, please let me know if you would like to be our mystery reader on these days!

Have a great week!

Ms Evans

 

BRINGING STORIES TO LIFE IN COMPUTING

This week in Year One, we launched our brand-new Computing unit: Animated Story Books using 2Create a Story on Purple Mash. 

We began by thinking about how we usually read books. The children had some fantastic discussions about:

• Traditional paper books

• Books with sound buttons

• Stories read on a computer or tablet

We learnt a new word — e-book — which is a book you can read on a computer or tablet. The class compared traditional books and electronic books, talking about what makes each special. Many pupils loved the feel of turning real pages, while others were excited by how animation and sound can bring stories to life on screen!

---

Creating Our Own E-Books

Inspired by The Pirate Cat example story the children began creating their very own e-books.

First, they:

🎨 Chose an animal character
🖌 Used different paint tools and coloured pens
✨ Experimented with textured brushes
🧽 Used the eraser tool to improve their drawings
↩ Practised undo and redo
💾 Learnt how to save their work carefully

The focus of this first lesson was drawing and designing the main character on the first page. We talked about adding detail to make characters interesting and unique.

We were so impressed with how confidently the children explored the tools. There was lots of problem-solving happening — especially when someone accidentally pressed undo!

New Vocabulary We Learnt -

This lesson introduced some important computing vocabulary:

• Text – words typed into the computer

• Sound – audio that can be added to a story

• Paint tools – tools used to draw

• Undo/Redo – fixing or restoring changes

• Save – making sure work isn’t lost

• E-book – a book read on a computer or tablet

The children are becoming increasingly confident using technical language — we love hearing Year One pupils talk about “saving their file”!

Our Success Criteria

By the end of the lesson, pupils could:

✔ Explain the difference between a traditional book and an e-book
✔ Use drawing tools to create a character
✔ Begin adding text to a page

Next week, we’ll continue developing our stories and begin bringing them to life even further…

Watch this space — Year One authors are in the making! 📚✨

A Truly Wonderful start to Spring 2

 Hi Year One Families,

Firstly a quick apology, my beginning of term blog did not upload and I'm not sure why, so please find all the details you need for this term below.

We have had a lovely first week back, the children are full of good vibes! Their work has been brilliant and their good nature and humour is shining through, today we had a particularly lovely day in the sun!

In English this term we are focussing on a story called The Comet, we will be writing stories, focussing on adding adjectives  or 'Lava words' as I like to call them to our writing. This week we have had a SPAG week, we have used Oi Frog as our focus to help us write questions, commands and statements.

This week we are finishing off our addition and subtraction within 20 and next week we will start numbers to 50.

We have a History focus this half term. We are learning about the  Moon Landings and important historical Space figures Neil Armstrong and Katherine Johnson. The children really enjoyed learning about Apollo 11 today.

We have an art focus this half term (I'm sooooo excited) we will be studying colour, drawing and painting which will culminate in everyone creating a self portrait. There will be a whole school exhibition at the end of the project. Details to follow.

 This term PE will be on Mondays please ensure all children have their PE kits in school. Our turn at Forest School has now finished.

Important dates:

World Book Day!

Mystery Readers: Next week as part of our world book day celebrations we would love to have a mystery reader (aka you or a family member) visit us at 3:00 every day next week to share a story with the class. The children absolutely love this, please email me if you would like to be a mystery reader. j.evans@princeofwales.dorset.sch.uk.

World Book Day is 5th March:

This year’s theme is “Go All In”, which focuses on inspiring children to read by making meaningful connections between books and their hobbies, passions and interests.

Dressing up

Children will be invited to dress as:

• their favourite book character, or

• a character linked to their interests (e.g. a sports figure from a book, scientist, explorer, musician, etc.)

Please do not feel pressured to buy a costume, homemade is just as brilliant!

Book Swap

We will be running a book swap on World Book Day. Children will be asked to bring in one or two good-quality books they no longer read, which they can exchange for another book. 

Science Week:

This year as part of Science week and combing our topics of DT and History we will be running a family Moon Buggy afternoon. We would love to invite you or a family member to join us at 2:00 on Wednesday 18th March. We will co-create moon buggies in a fantastic crafty afternoon.

Class assembly:

Our Class assembly will be on Thursday 26th March in the morning. We can't wait to show you what we have been learning.

As usual please ensure all jumpers, clothes and drinks bottles are labelled, we had almost 2 boxes full of unclaimed, unnamed lost property which has accumulated since September. We also have brown trousers and a brown top left over from the Christmas production- if this is yours please get in touch.

Please do get in touch if you would like to discuss anything.

Ms Evans and the Stella Year One Class Team.