Year 1 - End of Term

Hello everyone,

We are nearly at the end of the 1st term this year and I'm sure you'll agree that the children have worked incredibly hard and probably deserve a Christmas present... maybe... a little one? 

2 Fantastic performances of this years Christmas play: 'The Inn-Spectors' yesterday and today. Thank you to everyone that bought costumes in, you should have got these back today. 

Also coming home today will have been a variety of crafts that we have created in school: Salt dough tree decoration, Christmas card and Calendar - we hope you enjoy these as the children all put in a lot of effort for each piece. 

A reminder that tomorrow is our party lunch and party games afternoon. We will also be handing out this half terms awards in a special assembly.

If children want to wear a Christmas hat or accessory tomorrow then this is absolutely fine! Although it is NOT a non-school uniform day tomorrow.

Year 1 team

Year 1 - Party Lunch!

Hello everyone! 

We are looking forward to sharing our Christmas play with you all over the next couple of days. All the children have been working incredibly hard. Thank you for all your help with getting costumes together. We had our dress rehearsal today and they all looked amazing! 

I would like to remind everyone that this Friday we will be holding our party lunch! The sign up sheet for this is in the classroom, we will be grateful for anything you can send in. The party lunch will be followed by some games and fun in the afternoon. 

If there is anybody that is available on Friday to come in and help to clean/tidy the year 1 classroom and indeed the school, please let us know and we would be very happy to find you something to do! As if all that Christmas wrapping will do itself?! 

Year 1 team

Year 1 - Bits And Pieces!

Hello everyone,

It's that time where I put lots of bits and pieces into a blog just so lots of information is in the same place. 

Firstly, a massive well done to everyone on their Big Write efforts this morning! Once again we have been blown away with the concentration and attention to detail in the children's writing. Thank you for any support and discussions with this at home. All of the children's will be added to their writing books which are located in the children's trays. So if you have a spare moment, please feel free to have a look and ask any questions!

Next, tomorrow there is a lot happening in school. 

1 - It is Christmas Technology Day. All the children have chosen 3 different technology based activities to engage with tomorrow so will be heading off to work in different classrooms and with different adults to get stuck in to these! With this in mind, there will be several things coming home with your child tomorrow. If you would like to provide a bag, please feel free to do so. 

2 - It is Christmas Jumper Day! (no more comment needed!)

3 - It is the POWSA Christmas Fair tomorrow after school! You are all welcome to come and see what is on offer! 

Next week is the last week of term and we are busy adding the final touches to our Christmas play. Thank you to everyone that has bought in a costume, massively appreciated! We look forward to showing you all what we have been working on!

We have now finished Forest School for this half term. If you want to take any of your wet gear and/or wellies home for the holidays then please feel free to do so! Please note that we will be carrying on with Forest School in the new year and will need it back in school for then. 

PE kits will also be coming home next week for their half termly wash and rinse. 

Next Friday (21st) will be the last day of term and we will be partaking in another picnic lunch instead of hot dinners - ALL HOT DINNERS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED. There will be a list up in the classroom for you to pop your name down to contribute towards a class picnic. Please let us know if you have any questions about this. We will also spend the afternoon having a bit of a class party with some games and other activities.

Year 1 team 

Year 1 - Big Write!

Hi all,

This coming Thursday the children in year one will be penning their Big Write for this half term! Tomorrow, children will be coming home with a supporting document to help them plan for this - any help or discussion that takes place for this is invaluable and supports children through the stages of a successful piece of writing. 

We will be basing our Big Write on 'A Christmas Calamity' - I have put a video with this blog that you will hopefully be able to watch. If not, here is the link. We will be watching this video with the children tomorrow also and having different discussions.

Thank you in advance! 

Year 1 team

Year 1 - Joint Morning With Reception & Forest School!

Hello everyone,

A few pictures of what we got up to last week in year 1! This coming week will be the last week for spellings until the new year. We have also got Christmas Technology Day to look forward to this Friday. It is also Christmas Jumper Day! 

Some Christmas yoga!?

It was incredibly wet on Wednesday for Forest School! The whole class will be doing Forest School this coming week!

Some of the fun and games we got up to on Friday with our joint morning with Reception.

Year 1 team

Year 1 - CHRISTMAS! OMG!

Hello everyone!

Apologies it has been a little while since the last blog post. This does not mean that we have been sat idly while the world goes by, oh no! We have been busy preparing for the festive time of year in school which is now in full swing. After the launch of our Inspired Writing week today where children were taken back to the Victorian times through the tale of 'A Christmas Carol', we are non-stop in the classroom. We have decorated our own classroom to give it a more Christmassy feel and have even got a visitor... Cracker the Elf has come in to the classroom to keep an eye on us all for Santa! Apparently he's a mischievous Elf so we'll have to see what he gets up to!

In the next 3ish weeks we have got numerous art and craft activities to get our hands stuck in to as well as some Christmas maths, card writing, Christmas story retelling and, of course, play rehearsals ready for you to come and watch in the last week of term! Speaking of which, costume letters were sent home this evening to all the children who we would be eternally grateful for with their help sourcing a costume! If you did not receive a letter, do not worry! Your child is still in the play! Christmas play tickets are available from the office so please get yours soon if you haven't already!

Spellings will continue this week and next but not in the final week of term so please continue to practice these at home when you have 5 minutes.

As always, if you have any questions please come and see us. 

Year 1 team

Year 1 - What's Been Going On

Hello everyone,

First of all I have to start with an apology: spellings were not sent home last week! They will resume this coming week and be sent home on a Wednesday now instead. So you will have a full week to have a practice. 

On Friday we had a great time building piles of leaves and then jumping in them! What else is Autumn for?!

Also, I have updated the home learning wallets with some new content so please take a look and take as many as you would like. 

A reminder that it is the year 1 class assembly this Friday from 9.20am - We are looking forward to showing you everything we have been up to since September. 

Year 1 team

Year 1 - Weekly Report

Hi all,

We continue to have incredibly busy weeks and this one is no different. Some great learning happening this week as always. We are continuing to grow all the children's independence with their learning and give them all the tools and resilience to be successful. 

A big well to all the children for completing their first set of spellings this week! you should have received this weeks set today! Again, we are promoting this to children as another way for us to learn. Scores will not be recorded and consequences not put upon the children, rather, we will use what happens to help children with the next step in their learning. Any questions, please come and ask. 

A reminder about some of the avenues that you could do for Home Learning as a few parents have asked recently: 

1. We are always updating our home learning activities that are by the exit door of the classroom. Please take as many of these as you wish to. 

2. Also sent home recently were your child's Reading Eggs and Mathletics login cards. These can be used at home as a further home learning activity.

3. We send home a weekly Book Bag book that is targeted at your child's current reading ability.

4. Practice some spellings.

There is no expectation that any of this is done and handed in so please do not pressure yourselves to complete all of it every week. It is a selection that can be completed if required. Hopefully there is something there to get stuck in to.

A first reminder that we will be putting on our first class assembly this year on Friday 23rd November at 9.20am - we would love to show you what we have been working on. 

Year 1 team

Year 1 - Spellings!

Hello everyone,

A quick note to say that children will have come home with their spelling sheets today! You should have a list of spellings as well as a sheet to do some practicing on through the week. Obviously, you are more than welcome to practice more than once! We will be having our first spelling test next Wednesday! You will then get the next set of spellings next Thursday! 

Any questions, please come and see us.

Also some pictures from this weeks Forest School session!

Year 1 team

Year 1 - Spellings!

Hello everyone,

I hope you all had a great half term break and are ready for one of the most wonderful times of the year?! 

This week we will begin the process of giving out spellings for every child to have a go at. So this Thursday everyone will be coming home with their first set of spellings! There are 10 spellings to have a practice with at home over the week and then the following Thursday we will have the spelling test! Everyone will come home with a practice sheet to use at home as well as the actual list of spellings! 

We want to use this opportunity to begin children on the path towards seeing routine learning at home as a worthwhile and useful activity. It is important to note that there will be no consequences for getting the spellings wrong! It is another chance for us to help children to learn to the best of their ability. 

If there are any questions, please don't hesitate to come and ask us! 

I hope the pictures I include highlight some of the more humorous cases of miss-spelt words!

Year 1 team

Year 1 - End of Half Term

Hi all,

We have made it to the end of our first half term in year 1! Yippie! Thank you all for your support so far, it has been great to work with you all again. The children have achieved an awful lot in this short period of time.

Please enjoy the half term holiday and relax, ready to come back for what must be one of the most enjoyable times of the year: CHRISTMAS! 

Year 1 team

Year 1 - Bumper Blog!

Hello everyone,

We have been very busy as per usual in year 1 and the learning we are seeing has been phenomenal lately! So thank you for all your efforts at home too. The picture above is one of focus, perseverance and determination.

Sight experiment this week which involved covering one eye and using coins...

I have lots of information to pass along to you in this blog and instead of doing it in 3 blogs, I'm going to try and get it all in to one! So it may be a bit long... but hopefully all the info you need will be in one place. 

Firstly, there will be a few things sent home this week or already sent home; the first is a Christmas Card making activity. This was sent home a couple of days ago and consists of a white piece of card with some instructions on it. I've popped a picture down below so you know what it is to look for. The deadline for these is 19th October - end of this half term - please bring them back in to school once completed. You may remember these from last year. Once they have been sent away and made you have the option to order the card with your child's design on it for family and friends. 

Secondly, coming home this week will be one of the home learning tasks! This is related to our Big Write that we will be composing next week. This will be centered around our work of the Galapagos Islands and Charles Darwin. The home learning activity is really to talk about and plan a very rough outline of what you will write about next week. We will be writing from the perspective of Charles Darwin heading to the Galapagos Islands for the first time. There are some pictures on the back to help you. Adults, please feel free to write things if it helps, although it is not an expectation that children bring this back in to school. However, it will be helpful for children to have more of a discussion using interesting vocabulary. We have introduced children to adjectives so this will hopefully be a term they are familiar with.

The second piece of home learning you could choose to do if you would like to between now and 1st November is a poster competition run by Dorset County Hospital... here is the jist from the hospital;

"So the first question that you probably have is what is required for the competition? 

The theme is to encourage the use of recycling and how the varying ages interpret this from what they have seen at home, at school, in a supermarket, in surrounding areas and through public information services.  

The prize is for the winner of each Key Stage to have their picture created into a poster for use around Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to help promote and encourage recycling of waste, with plans to promote locally. Pictures by the children are to be colourful, but in any form. Encourage the children to use an image or theme that will fill the sheet of paper. Pictures on A4 sized white paper blank unlined, unsquared"

Again, please bring any entries for this competition in to school ready to be collected on 1st November.

Children running their own phonics lessons in their own learning time this week.

You may have also noticed our new class charter taking shape over the last couple of weeks... This is an integral part of the classroom and highlights to children their rights and responsibilities in school. Thank you to Mrs. Webb for this!

Next! As we will be off on our half term week at the end of next week, we will be collecting in all the Read, Write Inc reading books that we have been sending home for you to read with your children. This is so we can have a full set for some new groupings when we return after half term. Could we ask that all of these books are kept in book bags ready for us to collect.

And lastly... a quick note about spellings in year 1. The plan is for a weekly spelling sheet to come home with all children after half term. These will be to practise at home ready for a spelling session in school. We will be encouraging children to select the level of their spelling test with the simple rule of 'If you can read it, you can learn to spell it'. More will follow on this but I thought a little heads up would be useful.

All done. 

*Phew*

Forest school Autumn pictures this week.

If you have any questions about anything please come and speak to us. Thank you.

Year 1 team

Year 1 - An End To Farming Fortnight!

Hello everyone,

We have reached the end of our Farming Fortnight! We have learnt and achieved so much! Big well done to the whole class for putting on a fantastic assembly yesterday morning! We hope you enjoyed it. 

Next week we will continue learning about the Galapagos Islands and will begin building up to our Big Write! A little picture and activity will be coming home next Thursday to help with this - more to follow. 

A reminder that the parents evening sign up sheet is up on the inside of the year 1 classroom. Please pop your name up for a time. If you cannot make any of those times, please come and see us and we can sort something out.

Year 1 team

Year 1 - Great Farm Trip

Hello everyone,

Year 1 enjoyed a great trip to Maiden Castle Farm on Friday afternoon. We got to see how a farm operates at Harvest time as the farmers bring in the crops they have been growing all year. We got to see the difference between wheat and barley as well as learn how a combine harvester works! 

To top it all off, we got to go in to see the cows in their barn. I'll let you ask your children what the smell was like...

Quick note; on Monday morning we are going to head straight through to the hall for some morning yoga instead of morning tub activities. This will become a weekly occurrence. 

Year 1

Year 1 - So Far This Week

Hi everyone,

We have had a great start to our Farming Fortnight! On Monday we got to learn about where milk comes from and what other products can be made using milk. 

Today we have learnt about bees and how honey is made through watching a live camera feed! Very exciting and interesting. 

We have also continued learning about our 5 senses. Today it was touch we were exploring and experimenting with. If your child says that they got poked with a paper clip today, they are probably right - all in the name of science!

And of course, we continued our Forest School sessions this afternoon in the glorious weather! We made some autumn hanging decorations and continued learning to tie knots.

Little reminder that we have our farm trip this Friday - children can come in to school with play bottoms and school tops on. Most wellies are already in school! 

Year One team 

Year 1 - Why Do We Come To School?

Hi all,

So, today in our Jigsaw session we began discussing the reasons WHY we come to school - and here are our reasons. I cannot stress enough how this list was made with pretty much zero adult assistance... we just set the conversation going. 

This forms part of the larger topic which is linked to our rights and responsibilities and will eventually go toward making our class charter! We then discussed a world where there was no school...?! A very mature discussion from the class.

Year 1 team

Year 1 - Taste The Rainbow!

Hi all,

We have had another busy week in year 1, which is pretty much the norm. Lots of REALLY good learning going at the moment. I don't know what you are feeding your children for breakfast, but please keep doing it, because little bits of steam are popping out their heads quite frequently! 

Yesterday we continued our learning about the 7 Continents of the world and made our own maps. Very impressed with the knowledge children already had about this! 

Today we continued our Science investigation into the senses. Today we looked at taste. Needless to say, we had to try some things. We looked at how the mouth can only really pick up on 4 main flavours - sweet, salty, bitter and sour (we left out umami!) As well as doing this we also looked more closely at what actually makes up the mouth. #

If any children came home asking if they could put their clean fingers into the side of their mouth to check what the inside of their cheeks feel like, I apologise - we got a bit curious about saliva!?

To wrap today off, the other half of the class got their first taste of Forest School with Catherine whilst the children who went last week, worked with Mrs. Webb on their art and crafts project.

Year 1 team

Year 1 - Forest School

Hi all,

Today, the first half of the class got to taste Forest School! Forest School is an educational initiative that engages with the outdoor environment in a meaningful, playful and developmental way. Today, we were using the round house area of our grounds but who knows where we'll end up!? 

A reminder that Forest School will be every Wednesday. Please ensure that children have appropriate clothing in school for this day, as some of the activities will be hands on and messy - as the pictures show! Please come and see us if you have any questions.

Year 1 team