Welcome to Year 1

Mrs. Smith and I are very pleased to welcome you to our Year 1 homepage.  We hope that this is a very enjoyable and exciting year for your child. On this page you will be able to find out about all of the different and exciting things that we are doing in our classroom.

If you wish to contact me you can either do so by sending me a message on Class Dojo or emailing me at s.wright@stpetersprimary.org

310eb7b4cd4a497f91fa99168e8c26c2 1x1

 Mr. Wright – Class Teacher

29a4d5237e6647b491f66acfe701a3f8 1x1

Mrs. Smith – Teaching Assistant

What We Learn In Year 1

Year 1 is when your child starts to follow the National Curriculum. All of our learning activities and lessons are based around the objectives set out in the curriculum, whilst still taking into account your child’s individual  interests, skills and stages of development. Although the learning may seem more formal compared to that of the Early Years Foundation Stage, we are still very keen to ensure that your child has the opportunity to learn and develop through hands-on, practical style activities alongside more traditional activities. Therefore, although you will find that there is more table time and less ‘Cool Time’ in Year 1, many lessons may take a practical approach through activities such as drama, hands-on experiments in Science, exploring different art mediums and visits around the local area to name but a few. You can click on the link below to see our yearly overview of the curriculum for Year 1. I have also included a copy of the Year 1 National Curriculum objectives so that you can see the aims of the curriculum in Year 1.

Year 1 In Action

In this section of our web page you can see photos of some of our different lessons in actions. As the year progresses you will be able to view a wide range of lessons in action so make sure that you check back regularly. Parents remember that you can also see our lessons in action on our Class Dojo page.

Weekly Newsletters

Each week your child will bring home a newsletter which will keep you up to date with what we have been doing that week, and also informing you of any important dates or information that you may need. You can find a digital copy of the newsletters here.

Our Topics

Please see our topics below

The Big Question:  Where Is The Best Place For A Little Pig To Build His House?

For our first topic of the Lent Term we shall be thinking about where is the best place for a little pig to build his house. In this topic children will have the opportunity to explore different features of landscapes, both man-made and natural, and also different types of materials that might be used for building a house. For our Literacy we shall be using the story of The Three Little Pigs, and considering not only the materials that the different pigs used but also if where they built their houses played a part in the Big Bad Wolf coming to catch them.​

Through Science the children will be exploring Everyday Materials, and alongside examining the properties of a wide range of materials, we will also explore how the pigs might thought more carefully about the materials that they used, and how they used them. Our Geography work builds on from last terms topic about the local area, and we now look further afield at different parts of the UK. We shall look at both rural and urban areas of the UK, and examine the man-made and natural geographical features of these areas. Using what we discover we shall be able to think more critically about where the best place for the little pig to build his house would be.

​At the end of the topic we shall draw together all of the strands that we have explored and celebrate what the children have discovered, whilst finding out what they think the answer to our Big Question is. There is no right or wrong answer to the Big Question it is personal to each and every child and will be based on what they have discovered throughout the half term.

We continue to work through the Read Write Inc. phonics programme in Year 1. This works in exactly the same way as it did in Reception with the children grouped according to their needs and level of development. In Year 1 we learn some of the more tricky diagraph (e.g. “ay”, “ee”, “ow” etc.), split diagraph (e.g. “a-e”, “o-e”, “u-“e etc.) and trigraph (e.g. “igh”, “ure”, “ear” etc.)sounds, and also some of the alternative way of writing the sounds.

Each Friday your child will bring home a reading book that is linked to the learning that they have been doing in Phonics that week.

Our first ‘Talk 4 Writing’ story of the Lent Term is ‘The Three Little Pigs’. This story is what we call a ‘Defeating the Monster’ tale. In this story the Three Little Pigs set off into the world to build themselves a house each. However, the Big Bad Wolf comes along to put their building skills to the test! This story links with our over-arching topic of where is the best place for a pig to build his house. Through our Literacy the children will explore writing their own ‘Defeating the Monster’ tales based on Little Charlie, whilst focusing on how to describe characters.

For our non-fiction strand of Literacy, the children will be exploring writing a fact file about a part of the UK that they will explore during our Geography topic.

We are following the ‘White Rose’ Maths scheme. Through ‘White Rose’ the children have lots of opportunities to delve deeper into problem solving and reasoning using a range of different methods and techniques, which enables them to develop a real mastery of Maths.

For the first half of the Lent term we shall build on our previous Maths work on Numbers to 10, and begin by exploring place value of numbers to 20. We shall then look at mathematical concepts such as addition and subtraction whilst using numbers from 0 to 20. The children will have the opportunity to explore different mathematical representations on numbers and problems, and will also have the opportunity of writing and representing these themselves. We shall also continue to develop our skills of using number lines and number charts.

Our fourth topic of the Year 1 is ‘Special People’. The experience of community is an essential and enjoyable part of life for people of every age and faith. The cycle of a year and the span of a lifetime contain occasions for regular celebrations as well as unexpected surprises, when people want to celebrate with family, friends and communities. All families who live or worship in a parish are part of the parish family.  As in any family there are people who have special roles within the parish.  On Sunday, in church, we meet people who do special jobs as we gather to celebrate the Good News of Jesus.  There are special people in our lives who are there to help us. Through this topic the children will get to think about the Special People both in their lives and at the church.

Word of God 

We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live it. 

(Ephesians 2:10

In Science this half term we shall be looking at Everyday Materials. Through this topic we shall be naming different types of materials, such as wood, paper, glass metal etc. We shall also be exploring the properties and features of these materials and how they can be used in our everyday life. We shall also experiment with testing different materials for different purposes and think about why some materials are better than others for certain job.

 

For the first half of the Lent term of Class 1 we shall be looking at our next Geography topic which is ‘Our Country’. This topic will help the children build on the geographical skills that they developed last term, whilst also learning about:

  • the countries of the UK, developing learning beyond the children’s immediate environment and own locality
  • the UK by looking at individual countries and their capital cities,
  • the human and physical features of areas of the UK
  • comparing and contrasting the capital cities of London and Brasilia

 

Y1 Our Country(opens in new tab) Knowledge Organiser

100 Years of Wonder Celebration

This year in Class 1 we shall be undertaking one of our most ambitious projects yet. To help commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Walt Disney Company we shall be holding our very own celebration! As a class community (including children, teachers, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, bothers, sisters) we shall be collecting Wonder Memories. A Wonder Memory is linked to a Disney character, location or moment that is important to that person. This will be collated to create an historical record of the impact that Disney has had on our community over the past 100 years. In the Pentecost Term we shall have an exhibition of the Wonder Memories collected, and Class 1 shall also be going on a special trip as part of their celebrations.

You can find out more about our 100 Years of Wonder Celebration by clicking on the newsletter about the event.

100 Years Of Wonder Celebration 20th January 2023