Year 1
Welcome to Year 1!
The Meerkats
Spring 1, 2019
Welcome back! We hope that you all enjoyed the Christmas break and are ready to continue your learning with another exciting topic.
Our theme this half term is ‘Where in the world?’
Which is your favourite animal? Why?
In which continent does it live? How would you describe its climate?
Parents Information & Meeting Information
Powerpoint from the Reading Information meeting on 26th September can be found here.
Powerpoint from the Maths Information meeting on 3rd October can be found here.
Powerpoint from the Writing Information meeting on 9th October can be found here.
Information about the Phonics Screening Check (as discussed at the meeting on 6th February) can be accessed here (please note that this links to an external site).
The phonics sounds information sheet can be downloaded here and the Phonics Play website can be found here.
General Information 
Tuesday 29th January – Year 2 SATs meeting for parents @ 3pm
Monday 4th February – Oreo & Friends
Wednesday 6th February – Year 1 Phonics meeting for parents @ 3pm
Thursday 14th February – Year 1 and Year 2 Pride in Our Learning @ 3pm
Friday 15th February – School closes for the half term break @ 3:30pm
Children need to bring their P.E. kits on Monday to be kept in school until Friday. Year 1 will have their P.E. session on Thursdays.
On this days can you please ensure that long hair is tied back and that earrings are not worn.
It would also be helpful to label your child’s PE kit with their name.
Reading books will be changed on Mondays & Thursdays.
Please make a record of every time your child reads because if they read 20 times within a month, they will receive a golden ticket.
Key Stage 1 parents who help their child to read 20 times a month will be entered into a monthly prize draw.
Oxford Owl Library (The library is a fantastic e-book resource, you just need to register your e-mail on the site to access a range of books for free)
Phonics
In year 1 we continue to build on the phonics sessions that have taken place throughout your child’s time in the reception class.
We follow the Read, Write Inc scheme for the teaching and learning of phonics.
At the end of Year 1, all children have to undertake the Year 1 Phonics Screening. Working 1:1 with the teacher, children will read 40 words, some of which are real and some of which are pseudo (made up/’alien’) words containing the 40+ phonemes they have learned during their first two years in school.
You can support your child at home with their phonics by reading as much as possible with your child and investigating some of the phonics links given below:
| Deep Sea Phonics | Dragons Den | Buried Treasure | Obb & Bob |
| Learn to Read | Spelling | BBC Words and Pictures |
EGPS
Spellings
Weekly spellings will be given out on Tuesdays. Your child will be tested on a selection of these the following Monday.
Also during the week, your child will complete a short dictation exercise containing the weekly spellings.
Please support your child at home by helping your child learn their weekly spellings.
Grammar and Punctuation
Below are links to some of the sites which the children enjoy learning from.
| Sentence building | Past tense | Nouns | Spelling |
| Contractions | Conjunctions | Spelling | Punctuation |
| Sentences | Prefixes and Suffixes | Word types |
The Canon Popham Times Table Challenge
We are continuing with the school ‘Times Tables Challenge’ award system to encourage the children to learn their times tables.
In Year 1, children need to learn to count forwards/ backwards in steps of 2, 5 and 10 in order to achieve the award.
Try it!!! Can you do it? You can practise as many times as you like by following the links
English
This half term we will be studying stories with familiar settings, linked to our animals’ topic such as Bring the rain to Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema, Handa’s Hen by Eileen Browne and We all went on safari by Laurie Krebs.
We will be writing character descriptions, describing animals and settings and writing our own animal themed stories. We will also be looking at non-fiction texts, identifying their features and writing our own fact files and reports for others to find out about animals and their habitats.
Take a look at the BBC Bitesize Literacy for KS1 website for some fun things to do.
We use a cursive style handwriting in our school, please try to encourage your child to use this when they are writing at home. A good resource for this is on YouTube to see how we do this. This can be found here.
Maths
This half term we will be learning how to tell the time to the hour and half-past the hour as well as solve practical problems for time. We will be exploring calculation strategies within 20 by representing and using number bonds and use concrete and pictorial representation to solve one-step problems. We will also focus on numbers to 50 where we will count, read, write, identify, and represent in numerals and words and secure our knowledge of place value.
If you have any questions about these areas of Maths please come and speak to me.
Make maths fun by having a go at some Maths games by clicking here.
Topic
Once again Year 1 and Year 2 children will be working closely together and our topic title this half term is ‘Where in the world?.
This topic has been chosen to provide the children with opportunities to develop a wide range of geography and science skills including finding out about animals in different climate zones across the world, learn about their diet and how they adapt to their habitat.
Towards the end of the term, we will be having a visit from Oreo and friends who are a company that bring a variety of amazing creatures into school so that the children can interact with a range of animals that they may have never seen or heard of before.
Topic Homework
We are continuing with our topic approach to homework this year and in addition to their reading book, weekly spellings and Maths homework, children must also complete at least 1 homework project based upon our topic. Your child will receive their homework sheet on the first week back this half term.
Topic homework will be shared during our Pride In Our Learning session on Thursday 14th February @ 3pm. Each of the projects have been designed to allow children to develop their creative and critical thinking skills.
Remember that you can work with your child on homework and it’s a fun activity to do with your child.
We hope you enjoy completing some of these homework projects with your children.
Other information
Our curriculum page for Year 1 can be found here.
Please provide your child with a labelled water bottle to take outside during playtimes.
We also advise that you ensure all your child’s school clothing is clearly labelled too as well as making sure that your child does not bring toys from home into school. This would be greatly appreciated.
As always thank you for your continued support. It really makes a difference to your child’s learning and if you have any questions or comments please feel free to speak to us at any time.
Mrs Milnes, Mrs Margetts and Mrs McCallum