Friday 23rd May

This week as been Eco Week! All of our learning has been based on learning about looking after our environment and we hope that the children have been sharing ideas of how we can all ‘do our bit’!

Monday we started with ‘Reduce, Reuse Recycle’. We thought about what all of these words mean and how we could try to reduce, reuse and recycle in our lives. We started by sorting out different rubbish by the material it was made from. Then it will be ready for the recycling bins!

We then used our learning to make a poster explaining this process.

We have also thought about the temperature of our environment, and how it needs to be not too hot, nor too cold. We were scientists and tested how long ice takes to melt in different environments.

We have learnt about some endangered animals, and what they are threatened with extinction. We coloured in pictures and write phrases to encourage people to look after all animals.

Today we have been energy experts! We thought about the problems with energy, and how we should not waste the earth’s precious resources. We looked around the school to see if we were wasting energy and we were! We then wrote a letter to encourage people to look after planet and we drew a poster on the other side. We are trying to use both side of the paper! Please look out for the posters in your child’s book bag!

In maths this week, we have been finding half or quarter of a shape, object or quantity. We continued our eco theme by using rubbish for recycling or natural materials we found outside.

In music and Woodland Learning, we have been making musical instruments from rubbish or natural materials. They made great music and I hope you enjoy playing with them at home!

Phonics This half term in phonics we have been  learning about suffixes (endings in words).  In Year One when we are adding suffixes to words, the root word always remains the same, it doesn’t change.  This week have focused on the suffix ‘er’. Add ‘er’ to these adjectives – cold, rich, poor, long, short, small, smooth, rough, sweet, quick, slow, fast, weak, strong, bright, light, smart, quiet, sharp Can your child show you how they use their phoneme fingers to segment the words above and then blend them back together again?Can they spot the digraphs in the words above? Is there only one digraph in these words or do some have more than one or none? Over half term  your child may like to follow the links below to play the games to practise their phonics.  Make sure they read each word using their phoneme fingers and blending arm.  These three  phase five phonics games are all free on Phonics Play. https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/PicnicOnPluto.html https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/BuriedTreasure2.html https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/DragonsDen.html Spelling ideas. Perhaps you could get your child to think of a sentence using the words above with this week’s digraphs and the word ‘said ’ and ‘says’ and to practise the common exception words. Don’t forget all the Year 1 common exception words are in your child’s Progress Book. Well, that is it for another half term! It has been as busy as usual and we hope you enjoy the half term break. We look forward to seeing you on 3rd June for the final half term of Year One. The Year One team

Friday 17th May

Thank you for coming to our assembly this morning, and for staying to visit our classrooms. We hope it gave you a greater insight into all the amazing learning the children have been doing this term. The children impress us and make us smile every day! We had a wonderful day on Tuesday, learning about the Great Fire of London. Thank you to all the parents and grandparents who supported us, you enabled us to provide a wide range of activities for the children and we hope you had fun! The children had the opportunity to engage with activities typical of time, such as sewing, weaving, leather work, making bread, making scent bags and even visiting the barber doctor! This allowed the children to use replica artefacts and deepened their understanding of life at that time. The children also enjoyed the ‘storytelling’ aspect of the day, and being ‘archaeologists’ in the afternoon. This helped them think historically as they worked out what the hidden items may be and what they were used for. It really was a wonderful day, full of hand-on experiences and learning. In English we have finished our 'Fire of London' information books. We added sections about how the fire was extinguished and interesting facts that we had learnt at our workshop on Tuesday. We hope you enjoyed sharing them after the assembly. Please encourage your child to write sentences about interesting facts that they learn. We would love to share them in school!  Add ‘er’ to these verbs - hunt, paint, dust, mend, help, call, drink, eat, jump, plant, test, teach, play, sail, cartwheel, whisper, chew

Can your child show you how they use their phoneme fingers to segment the words above and then blend them back together again? Can they spot the digraphs in the words above. Is there only one digraph in these words or do some have more than one or none? Spelling ideas. Perhaps you could get your child to think of a sentence using the words above with this week’s digraphs and the word ‘push ’ and ‘pull’ and to practise the common exception words.

Don’t forget all the Year 1 common exception words are in your child’s Progress Book.

We have been making London buildings from junk material. We worked in group and are very proud of our efforts! 

Today Kingfishers have enjoyed their ten apple treat. We had lots of fun outside, despite the cloudy skies! 

Next week is our school ‘Eco Week’. We have lots of exciting activities planned and we hope your children will come home and share their learning and ideas about how we can all ‘do our bit’! If you would like to find out about events in the local area, please take a look at  https://sustainablestalbans.org/. There are lots of events planned for families to enjoy.

We hope you have a good weekend,

The Tear One team