Welcome to Year 1

 

We hope you have all had a fantastic break and that your children are fully recharged, ready for this last term.  It has come around very quickly but we are rearing to go!

The children really are making great progress in their learning and we are delighted.  We have discussed at length the changes we are seeing in the children; not just in their work, but as individuals. We are thrilled with the resilience they’ve shown throughout the last 2 terms where expectations have been high and much of the learning has been demanding. Despite this however, the children are maturing all the time and taking more responsibility for their own learning and attitudes towards it, while still keeping hold of their sense of humour and bubbly personalities!  We are very proud of all of them!

 

Summer Term Focus 

This summer term our topic will be,"Beside the Seaside"

In Geography we will be looking at seasides and how they are similar and different to other places. We will be finding out about human and physical features of the seaside and how they may differ across the UK and Europe. We will also be finding out how humans use and affect the seaside, with a focus on environmental issues like pollution.

 

History will see us finding out about Christopher Columbus and how he explored and discovered different parts of the world. We will be comparing his expeditions to those of Neil Armstrong who we learnt about in Spring Term. What do you think the similarities and differences are when you explore land and space?! We will also be thinking about seaside holidays and how they have changed since Victorian times.

 

Our Science work will continue to focus on the changing seasons and investigating how seasonal changes look within our school grounds. We will also continue to look at the similarities and differences between animals (including humans) and plants.

 

In Art we will use paint programmes to create seaside landscapes and look at creating repeating patterns with a seaside theme and to create Pirate flags. We will also find out how to change a colour from dark to light shades in creating an ‘under the sea’ picture.

Within English our main focus will be narrative and information writing.  The children will be creating their own stories with a beginning, middle and end, including capital letters, full stops, commas, exclamation marks, description and a variety of words to join clauses and ideas  (but, so, because, then, next). There will be lots of pirates, mermaids and treasure involved too of course!

 

Our Maths work will have links to our topic wherever possible but we will continue to learn our times tables (2s, 5s and 10s) and make links between multiplication and division. Your children will be introduced to new methods, as well as revisiting ones already taught this year. 

Time will be a focus this term too. It is always beneficial, when at home or out and about, to ask your children the time (include o’clock, half past, quarter past and quarter to) and then follow it up with ‘what time will it be in 60 minutes or 1 hour?’ etc. 

We will be revisiting place value up to 100 and position and direction (including turns and ordinal numbers) as well as looking at simple fractions and measures such as length, height, mass and volume … a lot to fit in!

Spelling tests will continue to take place on Fridays. It is crucial you support your child's development by practising the spellings as they are sent home, especially as all the words in the spelling lists are linked to our KS1 word lists.

Please continue to hear your child read.  We cannot emphasise enough how important this is to your child’s continuing development and to support the reading they are doing in school.  It is also just as important to ‘talk’ to your child about the book.  So for example, what they liked about it, what the characters were like and why, what exciting words has the author used to describe a setting? Why was a character upset/happy?  How would they feel if it happened to them?  What could happen next? These questions will not only help develop reading but writing also, as the children can draw ideas from these discussions.

PE and homework remain on the same days. Homework will continue to be returned the following Wednesday, giving the children a week to complete it.

So, as you can see we will be having a busy, stimulating and exciting term with lots of activities going on both in and out of the classroom! Our main priority up to the holidays will of course be Phonics as we prepare for our screening tests in June. We know the children will continue to work hard in preparation for this. We also have our Summer trip to Llandudno to look forward to after the Whit break! More details will follow regarding this nearer the time.

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

Here's to a successful Summer Term!

The Year 1 Team :0)