Welcome to Year 1

Welcome back!

We hope you have had a lovely half term break and enjoyed the gorgeous weather. We can't believe it is our final term in Year 1 already and we are so proud of everything we have all achieved so far this year!

In our second week, the class will have their phonics screening check - they will be given 40 real and made up words to read based on the phonics that we have done in school this year. The last few years the pass mark has been 32/40. With this in mind your child may come home with phonics homework to boost their recall of the many phonemes (sounds) they have learned and increase their confidence. They are all doing so well with their phonics learning and we want them to all reach their full potential, so any help you can provide at home is so beneficial. Little and often is the key. In the meantime if you have any questions please come and speak to a member of the Year 1 team.

As always if you need to speak to us about anything this half term you can always send us a message on class dojo or speak to us after school.

There are lots of exciting new things for your child to learn this term…

English

Our class book this half term is ‘Goldilocks and Just the One Bear’. This story is an alternative version of the traditional tale where instead Baby Bear goes to Goldilocks’ house in the big city. We would love it if you could remind your children of the original story as this will help them to make comparisons between the two

The children will continue working on the basics of writing using capital letters, full stops and finger spaces and will try to remember to use exclamation marks and question marks from their learning throughout the year. This book will give them the opportunity to use lots of interesting description (adjectives) to describe the many characters and the settings in the story. The class will continue to practise using -ed and -ing at the end of words and will begin to write words using the prefix -un.

Maths

Maths sessions will begin each day with a recap of the foundations in maths, such as number bonds to 10, counting in sets of 2’s grouping numbers etc.

This half term the children will begin with learning about positional and directional language such as left, right, above and below. Then we will be focusing on expanding our place value knowledge to numbers up to 100, using addition and subtraction skills we have built upon throughout the year

Towards the end of the half term we will also be looking at money to aid the recognition of different coins and notes, followed by time in which we will consolidate our knowledge of days of the week and months of the year, before introducing telling the time to the hour and half hour.

Other subjects…..

Science - We will be learning about animals, including the different animal groups, classifying by what animals eat and identifying the features and differences between wild animals and pets.

Geography - Our topic will focus on the United Kingdom. We will look at the rivers and countries included within the UK and discuss the weather and landscape found within the UK.

RE - ‘Dialogue and Encounter’. Exploring our identity within the Catholic Church and the role of our local church and Catholic Church within the world.

Art - We will be looking at the works of Andy Goldsworthy which will include exploring his use of natural materials and creating our own art using spirals, sculptures and reflections.

Music - Simple melodies, pitch and performing together.

Things to remember

Our PE day will be on a WEDNESDAY. Children need to come into school wearing their correct PE uniform please.

Please make sure your child brings their book bag in every day.

Their reading book will then be changed every Thursday. Please read their book with them every day if possible - little and often is much better than trying to do a lot in one go.

Although the weather and temperatures are improving, please bring a coat to school still as the weather can change very quickly. On sunnier days please ensure your child has a hat and suncream on to keep them protected during play times.

Children also need to bring a labelled water bottle to school each day. This needs to be plastic please and small - no metal water bottles.

Please make sure your child has their name in any cardigans, jumpers and coats.

Keep an eye on class dojo - we will use this to send home information about school and class events and any information that you need to know. We will also put the word of the day on here each afternoon so that you can discuss it with your child at home after they have learned about it in class.

Any issues please come and see us or send us a message on class dojo.

Mrs Lyon, Mrs Rainey & Mrs Ford x x x