Year 1 2020 - 2021
Mrs Cheadle
Year one is the beginning of Key Stage One where we begin to access the National Curriculum 2014. Most subjects are taught through a half termly theme/topic to help make the learning more meaningful for the children.
Welcome to the start of a new half-term! I hope you had a lovely week off even if we couldn't go on visits over Lockdown. Hopefully, you had sometime to play with your own toys. Speaking of toys...
We are about to begin our new spring topic.
During our new topic, we will share a variety of stories about toys.
We will also use the famous Disney Toy Story to explore different themes. For example, Woody's feelings towards Buzz when a new toy joined the team. We will use our questioning skills to hot seat characters from the movie and find out more.
In Maths, we will continue to follow the White Rose scheme of work as we learn about 'Number and Place Value (numbers within 50)'. Later, we will focus on 'Measure' as the children find out about length and height, weight and volume in a range of different scenarios. They will also learn to use the corrects units of measure and how to explain and record these.
Miss McArdle (Maths lead at Excalibur) has added some useful home learning booklets which can be downloaded to use as extra home learning activities. These can be found on the website under…
Curriculum > Maths > Maths Workbooks for parents > Year 1 Workbooks
In Science, we will be exploring the ‘Weather and the Seasons’ with Miss Harris at Oak Academy.
We will also discover how the weather changes due to the different seasons. We will keep a 'Weather Log' to observe how the weather changes over the week. We will look closely at the trees and notice how they change over the seasons. We will design an experiment to help measure the rainfall.
You can look at the local weather forecast for Alsager by following the link below.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/forecast/gcqq59dv7#?date=2021-02-20
Two activities will be set on Seesaw every Monday. One will be a Maths activity and the other will vary. It maybe a topic activity or a task based on a guided reading book. The children will have a week to complete. The activities will remain online so they can catch up over the half term breaks (if they didn't get time to complete) or to have another go at something that they really enjoyed. Remember to feel free to adapt activities if the device your child is using has technical issues or if your child wants to work away from the screen.
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The children can continue to access the Epic website from home if they have a tablet or computer to use. Sometimes, books will be set for your child to read but the main purpose of Epic is to provide free access to thousands of eBooks. Children are encouraged to explore the range of books available. Epic will also help to provide non-fiction eBooks to support our research activities.
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The children can continue to access 'Prodigy' for some online maths fun. Sometimes, I will set activities to check that the children understand a certain area of maths. When the task is complete the program will return the children to their usual place in the game. If your child enjoys using 'Prodigy' then they can continue to play to enhance their maths skills.
The children will all receive a new spelling booklet for each half term. A spelling check will take place every Friday. This is always very low key and we don't call it a 'test'. The children mark their own spelling check. They might remember how they went on and tell you about it. It is important that they practice over the week. This could be done using the resource booklet or the children could be encouraged to spell the words out loud, record them in coloured pens or chalks. We will also spend time at school going through the list of spellings each week.
Reading basket books will be changed once a week (Fridays). All children are encouraged to change their books. Sometimes, children have a particular favourite which they want to choose again. Please continue to read with your child as often as you can and make comments in their planner.
Guided Reading will continue on a weekly basis. Children will read in small groups on a particular day of the week. Guided Reading books will then need to be returned on their next reading day. Please ensure that Guided Reading books are returned as they are purchased in sets of six and a missing books means that a whole set is withdrawn from use.
Staff
Who is who in Year one?
Class Teacher: Mrs Cheadle
KS1 Teaching Assistant: Mrs Newbould
PE lessons will be on Tuesday and Thursday. Children need to come to school wearing their PE kits on these days. Children may also wear a track suit or joggers (as we will need to go outside as much as possible due to hall restrictions).
Long hair should be tied back, and children should not wear jewellery for health and safety reasons. Earrings should be taken out or covered with micropore. (Children should arrive with earrings already covered or taken out as staff can't assist with this.) Please ensure children are wearing suitable footwear. These should have velcro fastens or pull on ones if your child can't yet manage their own laces.
Refreshments
Children need to bring fresh water in a labelled water bottle every day. The children are encouraged to have regular drink breaks and can have their bottles refilled when needed. Please do not add juice to their water bottles.
Children will need to bring in a healthy breaktime snack as the kitchen will not be selling snacks for the moment.
During afternoon break, your child will be offered a piece of fruit. This fruit is funded by the government healthy eating initiative.
Maths homework
A maths based activity will be set on Seesaw every Monday. The children will have a week to complete the task.
By the end of Year 1, children need to be able to count (in ones) to a hundred. Please make sure your child is secure counting forwards and backwards with numbers to 50 (and then to 100). Skip counting in tens, fives and twos is also a great thing to practice when you have a few spare minutes now and then.
The children also need to record numbers, from memory, using the correct formation. Numbers should be of a consistent size.
Click the formation paper below if you like.
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