Maths

In Maths this half term, we continued with our ‘Maths – No Problem!’ scheme. 

Firstly, we began our ‘Numbers to 20’ topic.  At first, we counted to 20 by making ten and counting on.  We then progressed onto writing numbers to 20 in both digits and words.  Next, we ordered and compared numbers to 20.   

After this, we moved onto our ‘Addition and Subtraction Within 20’ topic. We began with adding by counting on.  We then moved onto adding by making 10 and then adding by adding ones. We then completed our topic by subtracting by counting backwards using a number line.

English

This half term in English, we started with a celebration of Pancake Day or Shrove Tuesday. We had great fun following instructions to make our own pancakes and we enjoyed eating them. We then used this experience to base our instructional writing. We learnt about imperative verbs and continued to develop our sentence writing and punctuation skills.

After that we began to study the book ‘Beegu’ by Alexis Deacon.

The book is about an alien who is lost on Earth and trying to get home. We began by getting excited about about an alien crash site that we found in the playground. What could have happened and what will happen next? We developed our prediction and inference skills by imagining how Beegu felt and we used drama and freeze frames to act out these feelings. We developed our use of adjectives and descriptive writing by imagining what Beegu’s home planet might look like. We used paper collage to create it and the we wrote a descriptive piece of writing. Also, during this half term, we celebrated ‘World Book Day.’  We brought our favourite texts into school to share with each other.  We were also visited by The Creeping Toad who did lots of fun activities with us.

Science

In Science this half term, our topic was ‘Materials.’

Firstly, we recognised different materials and identified them by a picture and around our classroom. We began to describe the simple properties of the materials and we learnt recording skills by completing results tables. We looked at how different everyday materials are chosen for certain objects because of their properties. We then used this knowledge to design a house, choosing the most suitable materials for doors, windows and walls. We described the properties of each material and why we had chosen it.

RE

In RE, we began our new topic of Christianity: Easter – Palm Sunday.  We were aiming to answer the question ‘Why was Jesus welcomed liked a king or celebrity by the crowds on Palm Sunday?’

Firstly, we wanted to understand how to prepare for a special visitor, which we did through drawing and writing.  In order to achieve this, we had to first understand what makes a visitor special.

Next, we wanted to be able to explain why Palm Sunday is important to Christians.  We were able to explain what the palm leaves mean and show how we would greet Jesus if he visited school.  We also acted out the events of Palm Sunday. 

After that, we were able to know the main events of the Easter Story.  We did this by understanding what happened on each day of Holy Week and understood how Jesus’ death showed He was special.

To finish our topic, we went to St Stephen’s Church for a beautiful Easter service.  We listened to the Easter story and sang songs to our parents. 

Computing

In computing this half term, we have been looking at art and computing. We looked at how images are created using pixels. We then developed our skills of designing pictures using pixels. We started with a 16 x 16 square and progressed on to a 32 x 32 square.

PE  

In Year One this half term, we’ve been learning about Gymnastics. In this unit of learning, we’ve been practicing different rolls, a variety of jumps and a number of different ways to travel as well. Our end outcome of the unit of learning was to create a sequence which included a travel, jump and roll. We then watched and evaluated other children’s sequences. 

Geography

In Geography this half term, we have started our new topic and tried to answer the question ‘How does the weather affect us?’

Firstly, we thought about the question ‘What is the weather?’ We looked at images of a variety of weather and identified the weather types.  We also compared some of the weather.

Next, we wanted to answer the question ‘How do great artists paint the weather?’ We looked at a variety of artwork and discussed how the artists showed how weather makes us feel through their paintings.  We then attempted our own weather artwork.

PSHE

Our PSHE topic this half term was ‘Keeping Healthy.’

We began the topic by thinking about healthy diets and how it is important to have different types of food in our diets.

Next, we were learning about how medicines can make us feel better when we are poorly.  We looked at a range of children’s medicines and discussed how important it is to be administered by and adult and how the instructions need to be read and followed.  We then completed a sorting activity where we had to decide whether images of things we put into our bodies were always healthy/safe, sometimes healthy/safe or never healthy/safe. 

DT

In DT this term we have been designing and constructing a windmill. We were inspired by the song A Mouse Who Lived in a Windmill in Old Amsterdam to design a windmill for an animal. We looked at different types of windmills and we explored the structure of a windmill. We began to use the term axel, turbine and structure. We continued to develop our cutting and joining skills as we assembled the windmill. We will continue to assemble the structure and evaluate our designs after the holidays.

Music

This half term the year 1 children have been appraising music and using our musical vocabulary learnt from last half term.

During our weekly music sessions, the children listened to a piece of music and identified the tempo of the piece, using the Italian words presto and largo. The children listened to the dynamics too and tried to identify whether the music was loud or quiet.

We talked about our feelings created by the music.