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.

Dragons, number bonds and a Paper bag Princess!

 Hi Year One families,

We had such an exciting week! The highlight was meeting Luna and Roger the dragons on Tuesday, we thoroughly enjoyed this experience and followed the visit up with our English focus on The Paper bag Princess (which just so happens to be one of Ms Evans' favourite stories!) We used the story to help us focus our learning on adjectives- writing descriptions, wanted posters, how to take care of a dragon and finished the week writing our own stories about what Elizabeth (the paper bag princess) did next. Ms Evans  and all the year one staff were very impressed by our writing. 

In Maths we continued our focus on adding number bonds to 20 and next week will be begin our focus on subtracting within number bonds to 20.

In science we went on a winter spotting walk focussing on evergreen and deciduous trees. Happily we spotted some signs of Spring to!

In Geography we continued our focus on maps and made maps of the area surrounding our homes showing symbols to denote local landmarks or community resources. 

Turning our attention to the week ahead. In English we will be recapping the fundamental skills we have been learning in Year One such as nouns, verbs adjectives, contractions and conjunctions. We will be using Room on the Broom as our theme.

URGENTLY we need children to bring in a small cardboard box such as a cup of soup or cereal bar box. We have had very few brought into school and we may not have enough spares for every child to make one.- PLEASE CAN THESE BE BROUGHT INTO SCHOOL ASAP! We will not have time to complete the DT project without them.

Here is some photos from our brilliant experience with Luna and Roger!

Please don't hesitate to get in touch if  you have anything you wish to discuss.

Ms Evans and the Year One team.

Maze Explorers: Setting Our Own Challenges

In Year One Computing this week, pupils took their Maze Explorers learning a step further by becoming challenge designers themselves, using the 2Go programming tool on Purple Mash.

The lesson began with a recap of key computing vocabulary, including algorithm, instruction, command, route and direction. Children reflected on their earlier experiences with 2Go, discussing how challenges became more difficult as algorithms grew longer and required more careful planning.

The main focus of the session was creativity and collaboration. Working in pairs, pupils created their own maze challenges for a partner to complete. They learned how to change and select background images while keeping the same challenge level, thinking carefully about where their partner would need to travel and how tricky the route should be. Once complete, challenges were saved and swapped, giving everyone the chance to try solving a classmate’s creation.

As children attempted each other’s challenges, there was lots of purposeful talk. Pupils explained their thinking, tested different routes and used debugging strategies when their first attempt didn’t work. 

The atmosphere was supportive and positive, with children offering feedback about what they enjoyed, what made the challenge tricky and how it could be improved.

By the end of the session, pupils could confidently say:

“I can change the background and save my own challenge.”

“I can try and solve challenges made by other children.”

It was fantastic to see Year One pupils showing independence, creativity and teamwork — not just following algorithms, but designing them for others to explore. True Maze Explorers in every sense!