Year 1
Welcome to Year 1!
Spring 1, 2020
Welcome back! We hope that you all enjoyed the Christmas half term break and are ready to continue your learning with our topic in year 1.
Our theme for this next topic is ‘What is the message?’
Which is your favourite traditional tale?
Does your favourite traditional tale pass on a character trait?
Does your favourite traditional tale pass on a core value?
Why are traditional tales important?
We will begin our next theme ‘Who lives here?’ on Monday 23rd January 2020.
Parents Information & Meeting Information
- September Reading Workshop Information can be downloaded here – KS1 Reading Workshop Presentation
September Maths Workshop Information can be downloaded here – KS1 Maths Workshop Presentation- September Writing Workshop Information can be downloaded here – KS1 Writing Workshop Presentation
- January Phonics Presentation Information can be downloaded here – Phonics Meeting Presentation
Tuesday 21st January 2020 – Phonics parent information meeting @ 3.00pm
Thursday 23rd January 2020 – Year 1 and Year 2 parent pride afternoon
Thursday 13th February 2020 – Last day of half term
Friday 14th February 2020 – Training day
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 Fridays.
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..
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.
EGPS
Spellings
Weekly spellings will be given out on Mondays. Your child will be tested on a selection of these the following Friday.
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.
This half term we are learning to join words and phrases with and. We are also learning about question marks and exclamation marks. We will continue to embed our learning of writing sentences with capital letters and full stops.
Below are some games to help your child develop their phonic skills.
| Deep Sea Phonics | Dragons Den | Buried Treasure | Obb & Bob |
| Learn to Read | Spelling | BBC Words and Pictures |
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 are continuing to read texts linked to our topic such as Old Bear, The Jolly Postman, Dear Fairy Godmother, Yours Truly Goldilocks, The Three Little Pigs and The Three Billy Goats Gruff. In Poetry we will be linking our science learning of the senses and seasons to create repetitive poems around the theme of Spring. In fiction we will be writing character descriptions, creating story maps, retelling stories and creating our own stories based on our topic texts.
In phonics we will continue to revisit set 2 phonemes, consolidate blending and segmenting with these and consolidate the set 3 phonemes taught so far. We will continue to learn the set 3 phonemes following the Read, Write Inc programme. Our spelling homework will continue to be linked to our phonics learning. Please practice spellings throughout the week, little and often to help you child embed them as we have a spelling quiz on Friday’s using words from our homework.
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 about time. The unit focuses on reinforcing the concept of time, recognising and using the language of time and sequencing events in chronological order. We will learn to tell the time to the hour and half past the hour, drawing the hands on
a clock and using the written form to represent these times. We will compare, describe and solve practical problems for time and will begin to explore minutes and seconds and the relationship between them. Finally we will learn to describe position, direction and movement, including whole, half and quarter, with reference to the clock face. We will explore calculation strategies within 20. In this unit, we will deepen ourr understanding of calculation strategies, such as deriving facts from known facts (related facts and derived teens facts) and the ‘Make ten’ strategy. We will learn how to use doubles to derive near doubles and explore the idea of the = symbol as an indicator of equivalence. This will lead us to see how different strategies can be more efficient for different calculations. The strategies taught in this unit will be built upon in the future.
We will also be learning about numbers within 50. In this unit, we will extend our understanding of the number system to 50. Place value is introduced through grouping tens, looking at how many ones are left and drawing attention to the patterns that occur. We will learn to compare numbers by considering the tens first, as well as looking at position on a number line. In addition we will practise counting in twos, fives and tens, and identifying and continuing number patterns.
As a school, we are also doing Maths with Parents which is a fun activity to try with your child.
If you haven’t signed up yet, you’re missing out on the fun! Go to www.mathswithparents.com and add your child’s class code to register. More information is on the Maths with Parents page. Year 1’s code is – 949522.
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
We will be finishing our topic ‘What is the message?’
We will explore how traditional tales have evolved over the years but have the same message. We will be comparing a range of traditional tales looking at
their similarities and differences, then using this knowledge to plan and write our own traditional tales in our English lessons. We will explore the life of a famous author from the past to create a fact file and create maps for our traditional tales in Geography.
The second half of our half term will move onto our new topic ‘Who lives here?’ This topic is based around animals and links closely with our Science. We will continue with our maps learning in geography and explore the life of David Attenborough, who has made a significant contribution to national and international achievements. More information about this topic will be on the webpage in Spring 2.
Topic Homework
In addition to children’s 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 grid on the first week back this half term. Each of the projects have been designed to allow children to develop their creative and critical thinking skills. Once topic homework is complete it can be brought to school, please ensure your child’s name is clearly marked on their homework. Topic homework will be shared during our Pride In Our Learning session on Thursday 23rd January @ 3pm.
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 Rowe (Class Teacher)
Mrs Drake (Learning Support Assistant)