Friday 10th January

This week in English we have started our new power of reading book, Lila and the Secret of Rain. We thought about the setting of the story, what the weather would be like, what the houses were like and how the landscape looked. We also thought of questions that we would like to ask Lila. We said them out loud using our Kung Fu punctuation and wrote them remembering to include a capital letter and a question mark.

In Maths we have been investigating the numbers 1 to 10 and how to write them as words as well as digits.

In RE this week we have learnt about Patariki the Penguin, one of the Catholic Social Teaching characters. We have thought about how he encourages us to all join in. We ended our topic by reflecting on Christmas scripture, saying the Hail Mary and creating Patariki Penguin badges to wear and share with our families.

Friday 20th December

This week in English and Maths we have read Little Robin Read Breast by Jan Fearnley.

We have applied our learnt phonics to spell the days of the week, we sequenced them in Maths and re wrote the story in English, remembering to say our sentences out loud and include capital letters and full stops. The children all did an amazing job of segmenting their spellings before writing them down. The only spelling that we helped them with was Wednesday!

Well done super spellers!

In RE this week we thought about how Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus in the community. We designed posters welcoming the community to our celebrations.

Our class mangers are now full of our acts of kindness and love ready for the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day.

Happy Christmas from Year 1

Friday 13th December

This week in English we created fact files on The Gambia, the country Grace visited in our power of reading book.

We included headings such as Location, Food, Weather and also added pictures and a map. We made sure we said our sentences out loud and included a capital letter and a full stop.

We also remembered that the names of places need capital letters too; Africa, The Gambia, Atlantic Ocean.

In Maths we looked at the properties of triangles - 3 vertices, 3 straight sides and described 3D shapes too.

In RE this week we continued to read from Luke’s Gospel. We read about the angels appearing to the shepherds and understood that angels are God’s messengers who bring good news.

Friday 6th December

This week in English we have pretended to be Grace and have written to Ma explaining what we have been doing and what we have enjoyed in Africa. We remembered to: Say our sentences out loud, include capital letters and full stops and segment our words when spelling.

In Maths we have looked at 2D shapes that we can find within 3D shapes and investigated the properties of circles and triangles.

In RE this week we wrote prayers to Mary asking her to help us get our hearts ready for Jesus this Christmas time by loving God and loving others.

We have also started to prepare the manger for baby Jesus. Each day every child has added a piece of straw to the manager, thinking about an act of love or kindness that they have carried out that day as they do so.

We have also read the story of the Birth of Jesus. Luke 2:4-8

Friday 29th November

This week in English we have thought about all the sights and sounds at the African market that Grace visited in the story. We drew pictures, labelled items, wrote shopping lists and even role played shopping at the market. We then wrote a postcard explaining what we had done.

We remembered to :

• Say our sentences out loud before we started to write (this helps our sentences to be much clearer
• Use a capital letter
• Segment our spellings and use our sounds
• Include a full stop

In Maths we have been looking at 3D shape.

Sphere, cube, cuboid, cylinder, cone, pyramid  

We have explored the shapes by sorting into those that roll and those that do not roll. We have opened up boxes to see which 2D shapes are used to create 3D shapes and printed with them so we can see this too.

In RE this week we have started to prepare for the birth of Jesus. We have written our Advent promises, thinking of acts of love and kindness that we can carry out during this time of preparation.

Friday 22nd November

This week in English we have been created a story map showing all the events that took place in the story.

We then chose our favourite part of the story and wrote about it.

We remembered to :

• Say our sentences out loud before we started to write (this helps our sentences to be much clearer
• Use a capital letter
• Segment our spellings and use our sounds
• Include a full stop

In Maths we have been looking at 2D shape:

circle, triangle, rectangle, square, pentagon, hexagon and octagon.

We have used these shapes to copy and create repeating patterns.

In RE this week we have reflected on the annunciation and the visitation and thought about how the words of The Hail Mary reflect what was said at these times. We have learnt the Hail Mary with actions.

Friday 15th November

This week in English we have been thinking about how Grace felt as she went to meet her family that live in Africa. We have thought about our families and how they are all different. We wrote sentences describing our families remembering to use capital letters and full stops. We also remembered to say our sentences out loud so our thoughts were really clear before we wrote them down.

In Maths we have been using the language one more than and one less than. We have looked at consecutive numbers and applied this vocabulary.

4 is one more than 3

3 is one less than 4

We have also learnt how to draw a vertical bar model to illustrate this.

In RE this week we have continued to read from Luke’s gospel. We listened to the story of The Visitation when Mary went to visit Elizabeth to tell her how God had chosen her to be the mother of his son. We made puppets and acted out the story.

We have started to think about Our Advent Liturgy. Please help your child to learn their words that have been stuck in their reading diaries. Thank you

Friday 8th November

This week in English we have started our new Power of reading book Grace’s Family by Mary Hoffman. We thought about what we would like to find out about Grace and wrote questions to ask her. We tried hard to remember to use a capital letter and a question mark for our question sentences.

E.g.  How old are you?     What is your favourite story?

In Maths this week we have been thinking about ordinal numbers, 1^st 2^nd 3^rd 4^th etc and using them to order things and answer questions. We have also been looking at numbers written as words.

1. one
2. two
3. three  to 10 ten.

We have started our new R.E. topic Prophecy and Promise. We have learnt about the importance of the Bible as a way of us coming to know God and the good news of Jesus.

We read the story of The Annunciation from Luke’s gospel, looked at art work that depicted this story and created our own water colour painting in response to God choosing Mary and her saying “Yes.”

“Do not be afraid.”

Thursday 24th October

This week in English we have thought about which poem we liked the best out of all the poems that we have read and learnt this term from Out and About by Shirley Hughes.

We listened to A little bit of food by Joseph Coelho and wrote our own version about food.

In Maths we have been looking at the vocabulary associated with time;

Before, after, next, days of the week and months of the year.

We have made sure we know the days of the week in order and answered problems about them.

What is the day before Friday?

How many days are there in the weekend etc.

Linked to our Science topic about seasonal change we have also looked at the months of the year, ordered them correctly and created a bar chart representing our birthdays.

We have continued to count forwards and backwards within 100.

In RE this week we have reflected on all that we have learnt in our topic Creation and Covenant. We went forth and celebrated by making prayer cards with the words of The Our Father and planting bulbs to show how we can care for all that God created.

We are looking forward to them appearing in the spring.

Friday 18th October

This week in Science we have been looking at the season of Autumn. In English we have thought about all that we have learnt and used our ideas to write Autumn poems.

We have continued to investigate part part whole models in Maths this week and using them to split wholes into two different parts.

We have also split numbers into 3 parts by using a part part part whole model.

We have used our models to help us solve problems.

E.G. Tom has 2 marbles in one hand and 5 marbles in the other. How many marbles does he have altogether?

We have continued to count forwards and backwards within 100.

In RE this week we have reflected on the first 4 lines of the Nicene Creed:

I believe in one God,

The Father almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth,

Of all things visible and invisible.

We made binoculars and went on an awe and wonder walk looking for all the amazing things that God had created.                                                          

Friday 11th October

This week in English we thought of more ideas and words to describe fire. We then wrote our own poems and included all our super ideas.

E.G.

Fire is like a dragon, hot and angry.

Fire is like a poisonous puddle.

Fire is like swimming lava.

Crackle, snap, BANG!

In Maths we have been looking at part part whole models and using them to split wholes into two different parts.

We have said the stem sentences

My whole is 7

One part is 2.

One part is 5.

Altogether I have 7.

We have continued to count forwards and backwards within 100.

In RE this week we have learnt about Sofia the Sloth (CAFOD Social Teaching) who reminds us to take care of all God’s gifts.

We learnt her song (to the tune of Here we go round the mulberry bush)

Friday 4th October

This week in English we enjoyed performing poems to an audience (our next door class) that we invited with invitations last week. We read a poem about fire and have been collecting ideas so that we can write our own poems next week.

In Maths we have been working on recognising whole objects and objects that are not whole. We then looked at groups of objects that were whole  and groups of objects where something was missing so was only a part. We then started to split a group of cubes into different parts.

Our maths vocabulary this week is

whole     not whole        missing        part  

We have continued to count forwards and backwards within 100.

In RE this week we have thought about how we can come closer to God by looking at and responding to art work. We also designed posters to show how we can protect the amazing world that God created for us.

Friday 27th September

English

This week in English we have continued to read  poems from the anthology Out and About. We explored the rhythm of the poem Spring Greens and worked as a class to learn and perform it with expression and volume. We wrote a simple invitation to ask the class next door to come to our performance.

Maths

In Maths this week we have been comparing groups of objects using the language fewer than and more than.

The boy has more balloons than the girl.

The girl has fewer balloons than the boy.

We have introduced the children to the inequality signs

greater than   > and less than <

We have used these signs to compare numbers

3>2

2<3

We have also used equal to = when comparing groups

     3=3

RE

We have been reflecting on ways of getting closer to God. We have looked closely at our Reflection Area and sung some hymns about The Creation, remembering that singing a hymn is like praying twice.

We have started to learn the words to The Our Father so that we can say it together at prayer time.

Friday 20th September

This week in English we have read poems about the wind and sand. We have learnt a poem about wind and performed it as a group with actions. We also thought of our own words to describe the wind and wrote poetic sentences making sure to include a capital letter and a full stop.

In Maths the children have been comparing objects by their length and their weight.

During their maths activities hey have been using the mathematical vocabulary:

Longer than shorter than heavier than lighter than

We have continued to count forwards and backwards within 100.

In RE this week we have listened to the children’s version of the letter that Pope Francis wrote, Laudato Si. We have thought about the beautiful world that God created as a gift to us and how actions that we can take to protect it and care for it.

Friday 13th September

English

This week in English we have continued to read the poem Out and About. We thought about the describing words that the poet has used. We thought about the things we do when we are out and about in different seasons and wrote sentences about what we like to do best.

Maths

In Maths this week we have continued to count both forwards and backwards within 100. We read Spinderella by Julia Donaldson and counted legs of flies and spiders. We also solved problems like:

If there were 2 spiders, how many legs would there be?

We drew pictures so that we could count all the legs to help us to solve this problem.

RE

We have started our new topic, Creation and Covenant. We read the story of the Creation in The Book of Genesis. We created a whole class display that included all the things that God created. We wrote prayers to say thank you for all the special gifts that God gave us.

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

Friday 6th September

This week in English we have started our new Power of Reading book, Out and About by Shirley Hughes which is a collection of poems.

We read the title poem Out and About which is all about exploring on a Spring day.

The children responded to the poem and said what they liked best about it.

In Maths the children have been practising counting within 100. We listened to a story about a sheep who couldn’t get to sleep, we made sheep and then counted them. We thought carefully about how to say the numbers correctly

13 thirteen 30 thirty

14 fourteen 40 forty

15 fifteen 50 fifty etc

In RE this week we reflected on our school mission statement and thought about how Jesus loves us all very much.

With Jesus alive in our hearts, we celebrate each other and learn together as a family.