This week we have had a wonderful time taking part in Science Week. We have been learning about animal classes and classifying animals, exploring scientific questions and we even took part in a live lesson all about mini beasts.
This week in Year 1 we put on our coats and headed out into the school grounds to become ACE Scientists. Our aim? To make careful scientific observations. Before we set off we thought about what we already knew about the seasons, particularly Autumn. The children came up with ideas such as, ‘The leaves are changing colour,’ and ‘The leaves are turning red, yellow, brown and orange’.
During our walk the children were excited to see that many of the trees had leaves that had changed colour. We also found lots of leaves on the floor and collected some to explore in more detail. We noticed that not all the trees had leaves that were changing colour and that these called evergreen trees.
Throughout the year, Year 1 have been looking at the changes in weather and what that means for trees and plants and the clothes we wear. This week we’ve been looking back at all the seasons to compare them. Some children drew pictures for each season while others recreated the seasons with resources found around school.
Last week we finished writing our own stories based on the Julia Donaldson book ‘Superworm’. As part of our Design and Technology learning we are going to turn these into actual books with front and back covers. In Art we have started to make a pop up picture for the centre of our books and have explored creating different textures with pastels for the background.
This week Year 1 planted spinach, rocket, radishes and cress. We looked at the different types of seeds and thought about what seeds need to germinate. Then we discussed how to look after the plants to make sure they grow. We will need to be careful gardeners over the next few weeks to make sure that the plants are healthy. At the end of term we will harvest the plants to make a salad to eat at our class picnic.
As part of Science week, Year 1 had a virtual zoo session with a zookeeper from Chester Zoo. We learnt all about nocturnal animals and discovered the different ways that the animals were suited to moving around and finding food at night. Building on our previous learning about senses, we noticed different features such as large eyes, to give us a clue as to how the animal is adapted to life in the dark.
We have also been learning about lions, writing our own non-chronological reports full of interesting facts. Here are some great examples:
At school we have been noticing some changes to our school grounds. We found some crocuses outside and some buds starting to grow on the trees. We were also very excited to see the sun shinning and feeling the warmth on our faces!
To end our Spring 1 half term, the Year 1 team wanted to create a bit of a showcase of some of the amazing work that has been going on at home.
We are incredibly proud of the effort and engagement that has been going on over the last six weeks.
We’ve had Tough Tortoises when the work was tricky and we persevered through, we’ve had Team Ants working with our adults or brothers and sisters at home, Helpful Hens have been pausing videos and using their previous learning to help them in new activities and I’ve even noticed some Beautiful Butterflies editing and improving their work!
English
In English we have been working around the story Samson’s Titanic Journey by Laura Graham. We thought about how the different classes and used this story to help us with our descriptive writing, as well as post cards and letters.
Week 2: Noticing and wondering about the front cover
Week 3: Using verbs and adjectives to to explain what Samson was doing
Week 4: Using new vocabulary and adjectives to describe the first class dining room
Week 5: Thinking about how Samson was feeling and using “and” to join ideas together
Week 6: Writing letters to Samson’s family
Maths
For our Maths home learning we have been using White Rose Maths Hub videos and our usual Flashback 4s. This half term we have covered shape, addition and subtraction within 20 and numbers to 50. Take a look at some of our Maths work.
Reading
During our Spring 1 home learning we have continued with our Sound of the Week, daily Read Write Inc Phonics lessons, weekly Read Write Inc books, Goldilocks words from our story and some retrieval tasks.
Sound of the Week
Week 2: ir – whirl and twirl
Week 3: ou – shout it out
Week 4: oy – toy for a boy
Week 5: ea – cup of tea
Week 6: oi – spoil the boy
Goldilocks words
Titanic
Our theme for this half term was a history focus as we based the majority of our learning about the Titanic. Take a look at some of the learning taking place at home based on the Titanic.
Wider Curriculum
As always, we have continued to offer our wide and broad curriculum and the children have responded brilliantly. In Science, we started the half term by observing the changes in the seasons and then moved on to learning about the human body. We learned about our body parts and the five main senses. Our RE unit started with learning about the parable of the lost son. This guided our thoughts towards forgiveness and we considered this value in the story as well as when we have shown forgiveness. Then we learned about 4 types of prayer and wrote our own prayers. In PE we have been keeping healthy by taking part in Joe Wicks’ weekly exercise sessions. Linked to the Titanic, in Music we have reflected on the music played in both the first and third class dining rooms and then learned to perform the waltz and the Irish jig. Finally, as part of our PHSE, we consider real life lifesavers and what they do to help make the word a better place.
This challenge requires you to go on a hunt around your house. Can you find all of the items on this list? They link to our learning from our Science topic ‘Materials’.
Good morning,
I hope you are having a great start to your Easter break!
If you are looking for something fun to try today, I have shared a couple of Science experiments below. Let me know how you get on if you decide to give them a go!
Today we were lucky enough to have a visit from Mrs Amblin’s dog to help us see another example of a mammal. We noticed his fur and used what we already knew about dogs to work out that he gave birth to live young.
