Phonics
In phonics we have been focusing on consolidating our phase 4 sounds and introducing phase 5 sounds such as ie, ea, ou and oy. We have been working hard to segment and blend which has helped us with our reading. We have been practicing our handwriting and sounding out our words phonetically to help with our writing.

English
During this half term in Year 1, we have been reading the books ‘Blue Penguin’ and ‘Man on the Moon’. Our story ‘Blue Penguin’ is based in the North Pole, and we started our topic by looking at the climate of the penguins. This linked in with our Geography topic where we discussed whether penguins could fly. We used lots of role play to understand the character’s thoughts and feelings and created story boards to re-tell the story. This half term, we have also been reading ‘Man on the Moon’ we discussed his occupation which involved watching short trailers and composing pieces of writing on character descriptions, setting descriptions and action scene narratives. We have focused so much on our writing these past few weeks, developing our vocabulary, grammar and punctuation and we are super proud of our improvement!

Maths
In our Maths lessons this half term, Little Marvels have been counting, ordering, and adding numbers up to 10. We have been learning our number bonds to 10 using different manipulatives such as rekenreks, cubes and number lines. We know how to count using our fingers and can show different ways of representing these numbers. We have been working very hard focusing a lot on our arithmetic learning; we have been doubling numbers and reading word problems and understanding how to calculate the sum. We have been learning composition and understanding what numbers we can add together to create another number. We have been singing songs linked to Odd and Even numbers. We have made so much progress this half term during our Maths lessons.

Science
This half term, Little Marvels have been learning lots of different things about the world around us. We have learned about the four seasons and the different things we can see during each season, we have read books and looked at pictures all about the seasons and the environmental features around us, even going on a nature walk to identify how trees change over time. We have created our own trees using colours to represent the changes in seasons. We discussed the changes in the day length and talked about how during certain seasons the day is shorter and some seasons the day is longer and brighter. We conducted a range of experiments as a whole class and measured the rainfall. We used thermometers to measure our own body temperature.

History
This half term during our history lessons, we have been learning about what a history maker is and why they are important to us. We looked at important people of History such as Marie Curie, Queen Elizabeth, and Malala Yousafzai. We have dived deep into who each person was and how they made history. We discussed who Guy Fawkes is and how Bonfire Night is an event based on his history. Little Marvels are extremely excited for the upcoming Bonfire Night.

Art
In our Art lessons, we have been learning how to control a pencil, draw straight lines using a ruler. We have been drawing using different materials such as chalk, paint, and watercolours. We have created Artwork using 2D and 3D shapes to improve our fine motor skills. We looked at the colour wheels and how we can mix colours to create other colours.

Computing
Little Marvels have enjoyed their first half term learning about computers, keyboards, and the mouse. We were extremely excited during our computing lessons. We learned all the parts of a computer, how to power it on and off. We practiced how to hold a mouse, scroll up and down and click. We also have been learning how to drag and accurately click onto something. Little Marvels have been typing their own names into the computer using the keyboard.

PE
This term in PE year 1 have been practising an overarm throw, which is one of the fundamental skills that they learn as part of  their core PE lessons. The lessons have included throwing the ball with accuracy, using the correct technique. Once secure they have then used what they learnt in a game situation. The children were told that learning the correct technique of an over arm throw is extremely important as this skill as they will utilise this in sports further up in the school, such as in cricket and rounders.

RE and PSHCE

In Little Marvels we have been learning about the religion of Christianity, linking into our history learning we learned about Protestants and Catholics. We visited the church for our Harvest Festival which was an insightful experience for us all. We have spoken about relationships we have with our family and friends and how we should respect one another.