We have been learning about Esther Mahlangu. She was an artist from South Africa. We were surprised to find out that she only learnt to paint when she was 10 years old! She was part of the Ndebele tribe and we loved looking at the bright traditional clothes that she wore. Her paintings are based on tradiaitonal wall paintings from the tribe and she travelled over the world sharing her art, including on a British Airways plane. We had a go at painting a pattern in bright, bold colours like Esther did, it was great fun!

We had a lovely day today because Safari Stu came to school. He brought lots of amazing animals such as a lesser tenrec, hissing cockroaches and two pythons. Our favourite animal was the lesser tenrec. His name was Bob and he looks like a hedgehog. We found out that lesser tenrecs come from Madagascar and they live in the trees. We also loved the chameleon and the bright colours. Safari Stu told us that chameleons change colour depending on how hot they are and what they are feeling. We were all very proud as we all held or stroked the animals Sarafi Stu brought to show us, some of us even discovered a new favourite animal!

The children in Year 1 have had another fantastic week of learning. It is wonderful to see them becoming more resilient each day. Please find attached the home learning which includes some fun phonics sounds to practise, mental maths to help reflect on this weeks learning and an interesting project for your child to complete as the half term goes on. 

Have a wonderful weekend and we look forward to seeing all of the happy faces again on Monday!

The Year 1 Team

We have had a super start to Year 1. We have particularly enjoyed learning about our topic of Amazing Animals. We started by thinking of everything we already know about animals. We could name places animals lived, what they could do as well as a large variety of animals.

In maths, we managed to use animals to help us with our learning of ordinal numbers by lining animals up and talking about which position they were in the line.

In English, we have been looking at a book called ‘Plenty of love to go round’ by Emma Chichester Clark and we have enjoyed predicting what will happen with the characters Binky and Plum.

We are really looking forward to learning more about animals next week!

Become a Reading Role Model

Whether you enjoy relaxing with a magazine or planning your next ‘Great British Bake Off’ dessert with your favorite recipe book, show your child that READING IS EVERYWHERE!

Reading aloud to your children shows them that reading is a pleasure, not a chore.  Older children can read to younger children too!

Make reading part of your bedtime routine. Making time to read alongside one another helps develop children’s reading stamina, interest and their vocabulary as you learn new words together.

Children will pick up on the new and exciting vocabulary they have heard in these stories and transfer this to their writing!

Chat, Play and Learn!

Promote a love of language by fully engaging in conversation with your child.

Modelling language as you play alongside your child is a great way to develop vocabulary and understanding.

Reading Expectations

From Nursery. Children embark on their phonics journey starting with Foundations for Phonics. In Reception, children will begin phase 2 phonics, where they will participate in a daily phonics lesson.

Children will also take part in 3x reading practice sessions at school. On the day of their third session, children will be assigned the e-book that they have been practising earlier in the week, at school.

This book has been carefully matched to your child’s current reading level. If your child is reading it with little help, please don’t worry that it’s too easy – your child needs to develop fluency and confidence in reading. We ask that you practise the decodable (phonics) e-book with your child, a 2-3 times every week. This will be the same book that your child has been practising, with an adult at school.

To ensure children are keeping up, not catching up, we will planning additional opportunities for children to work with an adult to practise phonics and reading skills.

 Reading Expectations at home:

Þ Read a decodable phonics booked 2-3 times weekly with your child. You can log into the e-library or listen to your child read the paper-based phonics book.

Þ Read a range of genres to your child at home, as part of your daily routine. Record this in your child’s reading record.

Þ Share the Little Wandle home learning sheet with your child, to recap the sounds that we have been practising in school.

Þ Sign your child’s reading record when you have shared a story or listened to their reading.

We have been working hard on our changes topic and were excited to have some caterpillars move into our classroom! We watched them transform into chrysalises and then butterflies!  We have been writing all about caterpillars and butterflies and doing our best to improve our handwriting.  We decided to write about what we found out about butterflies and show Reception our wonderful writing.  We loved visiting Reception and they were very impressed!

Yesterday we had an exciting visitor come to see us. He explained that he is deaf, which means he can't hear. He came to teach us lots of different British Sign Language signs. First we learned different types of weather including snow, rain and sun. We loved finding out how to sign when it is raining really hard! We learned how to make the sign for the moon and stars which we hope we will use in our topic of Space. Then we had a go at signing lots of different animals, such as dog, sheep, tiger and giraffe. Finally we learned the colours and sang and signed the song 'Sing a Rainbow'. We felt we learned so much today, not just about sign language but also about people with different abilities and how they live and communicate. We loved learning about sign language!

Cherry Class had an AMAZING trip to the STEM Discovery Centre! We saw the test site for the Mars Rovers and watched a fantastic science experiment show. We found out that science is all around us when we explored the exhibits in the hands on science area.  We even conducted our own experiment and made slime!  We all agree, science is fun! 

Cedar Class went to the STEM Discovery Centre. First we thought about how different chemicals react when mixed together and made our own slime in different colours. We were then able to investigate lots of different activities which included making volcano's from sand, making predications and moving a robotic arm to pick things up. We loved seeing the Mars Rover and were surprsed to find out that Mars can be cold and dusty.  The best part of the day was experiencing the scientific experiments including making fire, making rockets and watching our grown up sit on a bed of nails!

Today we went to the STEM Discovery Centre. First we watched a ‘magic show’ which was really science. We loved to watch all of the experiments particularly the ones involving fire! After that we created our own slime, we all made ours different colours. Then we had time to explore the area and all of the different activities such as moving a robotic arm, looking at the inside of your body and creating sand to look like volcanos. Finally, we went and saw one of the Mars rovers. It was sitting on a pretend Mars waiting to be controlled. We had a go at designing our own Mars rover before we came back to school.