Welcome to our Class Page
Please have a look at our curriculum map: Summer-Surfs up
For more information/detail on the whole of the Year 1 curriculum, please see the Year 1 overview here: Year 1 overview
19th July 2019
How quick has this week gone?! I just cannot believe it has been our last full week in Year 1. And I think 2 chilled days together next week will be just what we need before we break up for the summer holidays.
This week we had an exciting day on Wednesday as it was ‘move up’ day. Year 1 spent the afternoon with their new teacher Miss Amey; who they loved! Whilst I spent the afternoon with my new class! We had a lovely crafty afternoon, getting to know each other.
Year 1 worked in pairs to make their own Punch and Judy shows; inspired by Evie’s that she made at home! AND we even did our very last Big Write and even though we are so close to the end of the academic year and feeling very tired, Year 1 still managed to smash it!!
Looking forward to spending next Monday and Tuesday together and hopefully, we will be having a surprise visit from a new furry friend.
Have a wonderful weekend 🙂
12th July 2019
Another wonderful week, made absolutely fantastic by the Year 1’s WOW assembly ? Well done again Year 1 and thank you to everyone who was able to come.
We have had a fun filled week with another play date afternoon with Reception- we have loved spending some extra time with them!
Yesterday we had 2 visitors who came in to talk to us about the Jewish religion. They brought in lots of things to show us, they talked about the Jewish celebration Shabbat, they shared some stories from the bible about Moses and they even shared some prayers with us in Hebrew. Year 1 were very inspired by our visitors and spent the afternoon looking at some non-fiction books about Judaism! Also, the visitors were very impressed with the knowledge Year 1 demonstrated too. A huge thank you to them for taking the time to come and see us.
In RE this week we have also learned about the Jewish celebration- Hanukkah. We have learned some key facts about the celebration and the story behind it. Some excellent drawings of the menorah and grouping facts into true and false categories.
A huge thank you to Caitlin who has joined Year 1 in the afternoons this week, for her school work experience. The children have loved spending time with you and you have been very helpful around the classroom. Good luck in the future!
Have a wonderful weekend and bring on our last full week in Year 1 🙂
5th July 2019
What a lovely sun filled week after our long weekend!
Year 1 have now finished their school value poems and I now have the difficult decision of choosing 10 poems, that will be entered into a competition. Wish me luck! This week we have also been focusing on our spelling; applying spelling rules we have learned and spelling high frequency words independently.
In Maths we have been partitioning 2-digit numbers and deepening our knowledge and understanding of addition; using our number bond knowledge to help us.
We have focused on religious symbols in RE and have made ‘The Star of David’ using lollipop stick and then decorating them. We are excited about a visitor coming in next week to talk to us about the Jewish religion and what it is like to be Jewish.
In between all of this we have been practising for our last ever Year 1 WOW assembly. We are looking forward to seeing those of you can make it next Thursday morning ?
Have a lovely weekend and enjoy this sunshine!
27th June 2019
Another lovely but short week in Year 1.
We have continued poetry in Literacy and are now writing poems inspired by Margaret Wise Brown, about our school values. They are absolutely beautiful; the children have come up with such thoughtful and very sweet ideas. What a pleasure they have been to read. Thank you Year 1.
In Maths we have revisited partitioning. We have been adding 1-digit numbers to multiples of ten, then adding 1 digit numbers to 2-digit numbers. We have found this a little tricky and will continue to focus on this next week.
We have done a lot of Geography and Science learning this week. In Geography we have been learning about the Worlds oceans and continents. We’re having lots of fun identifying these on maps and globes and are doing a very good job at remembering them.
In Science we have been looking at our senses and linking them to the correct body part. Some excellent pictures and explanations for this in our books!
Yesterday we were joined by Reception and we had a wonderful afternoon playing together. What a fab opportunity for them to use all our different toys, to socialise with Year 1 and also for their new teachers to get to know them a little better. We’re looking forward to a few more afternoons with you.
Have a wonderful long weekend and enjoy the sunshine that is heading our way! ?
21st June 2019
WOW! What a super fun week we have had at Clearwater!
We kick started enrichment week with some creative art led by Mrs Russell, Tuesday we got our groove on with a Zumba session, Wednesday was circus day, yesterday we got messy making a class collage with Mrs Ellis and today a double whammy; sports day AND music with Mrs Boughton!
A huge thank you to all those who have made this week AMAZING and an extra thank you to Kristian’s Daddy for the Capri-Sun.
Well done Year 1 for a fantastic sports day- you showed excellent skills and sportsmanship.
Please check out the photos from this week on our School News http://www.clearwateracademy.co.uk/category/school-news/
14th June 2019
What a wet week it has been! Hopefully the sunshine will be back with us next week ready for sports day.
The phonics screening checks are done and Year 1 did brilliantly. Results will be sent out at the beginning of July.
Year 1 have been busy writing their Father’s Day cards and poems this week and have practised their drawing skills by sketching pictures of their Daddy’s! We hope you have a lovely day on Sunday Dads.
We have continued our learning of the UK and have focused on Wales this week. We have started to learn some songs in Geography to help us remember key facts.
This week you may have heard the name Yogi mentioned. Year 1 have written letters to Mrs Moss to persuade her to let us (I mean the children) have a class pet; a sausage dog (I wonder where the inspiration came from?!). We are awaiting a response from Mrs Moss, with our fingers strongly crossed. In the mean time, we’ve been making models of sausage dogs!
Have a wonderful weekend. Looking forward to enrichment week kicking off on Monday with some art taught by Mrs Russel! 🙂
7th June 2019
Welcome back to the final summer term! Can you believe it?!
We have had fun in the sun this week which has been lovely (apart from today!). We were able to take maths outside where we were practising our number bonds to 20 and seeing the links between our bonds to 10. We have also re-looked at counting in 5’s and 10’s just to jog our memory.
In Literacy we are looking poetry this term. We have been learning about similes and metaphors and creating some seaside based poems and also a special poetic treat for Father’s Day… but shhhhhhh, don’t tell!
In Geography we have been looking closely at some of the countries in the United Kingdom- Scotland and England so far. We have re-looked at their capital cities, national flower, landmarks, flag and lots more!
Yesterday Reception joined us to do a bit of sports day practise!! Lots of excellent sportsmanship, cheering and effort from all. We are all very excited and have our fingers crossed for sunshine next Friday 🙂
Have a lovely weekend.
24th May 2019
Another wonderful week and full of sunshine again!
In Literacy we have continued to work hard on our verb tenses and I can see a real improvement- well done Year 1.
In maths we have been recapping on doubling and halving numbers to 10 and beyond. We have also begun to look at odd and even numbers and have been enjoying practising using different games on the interactive board.
We have almost finished our beach huts (hooray) and we have started to write up an evaluation of the design and making process. They are so fab we want to keep some of them to display in school but they will get sent home eventually.
This week we have had lots of opportunities to enjoy the sunshine and practise our running for sports day.
I cannot believe we have one term left before the summer holidays and then…YEAR 2 for these lovely lot!
Have a wonderful half term ?
17th May 2019
What a glorious week of sunshine we have had! We have made the most of it by doing our maths outside on the field and even started sports day practise!
In Literacy we have been focusing on verbs (something you do/an action) and how they change depending on what tense you talk/write in. We have talked about the past, present and future tense. We began this learning by matching verb tense for example- I can see a dog. I saw a dog. We played a few matching and sorting games and now we have started to put our learning into practise and are trying to write in different tenses this week and next.
It would be so helpful if you could correct your child at home when they are speaking, if they use an incorrect verb tense… for example lots of children say ‘I swimmed’ or ‘I goed’, ’ I caughted’. Thank you for your support ?
In maths we have continued our learning about multiplication and have been solving 1 step multiplication word problems using arrays. We are really starting to get our heads around this now. We have also done a bit of number writing practise and recognition.
In science we have started looking at the human body and as a class we labelled Liam! We were very good at this and only struggled with a few trickier words like thigh, shin, ankle etc! We will continue this learning next week and look at our vital organs and linking our 5 senses to the correct body part.
In RE we have continued our learning about Judaism- we have learned the story of David and Goliath which we enjoyed acting out in groups. We have also begun to learn about the 10 commandments.
We had the best afternoon yesterday making our beach huts! We cut down the axle’s for our wheels using a saw (we were so sensible and careful) we then attached this to our huts. Thank you so much to our parents who came in to help and make sure we were all safe ? We cannot wait to get our designs back out and start painting them!
Looking forward to next week but cannot believe that after next week, that’s the first summer half term done!
10th May 2019
These 4 day weeks are flying- week three done!
Yesterday left me in utter shock after Year 1 wrote the most incredible Big Writes. Their handwriting is superb, they used lots of skills we have learned throughout the year and they showed excellent focus and imagination. This week we have focused on using a range of conjunctions to write a persuasive piece of writing about why people should visit Gloucester. Their Big Write was to persuade people to go to Weston-Super-Mare (or any beach).
In Maths, we have begun learning about multiplications and how to solve and record questions using concrete resources and arrays. After some practise, the children are beginning to master this.
We have been looking at world maps and maps of the UK. We have focused mostly on the UK this week and the countries within it, as well as their capitals. We are beginning to recognise the flags for these countries and after we have mastered this, we will start to look at the worlds continents.
In RE we have continued our learning about Judaism. The children remember so much from last week! We have explored the story of David and Goliath and consolidated some new words we learned such as Torah, Synagogue and skull-cap along with many more.
Sadly, our DT project had to be re-arranged to next week… but our resources have finally arrived and we are excited to start construction on our beach huts we designed last week!
A fun week to look forward to next week Year 1. Have a lovely, well-deserved weekend ?
3rd May 2019
A busy, busy week for Year 1!
We have carried on finding out about our letter from Katie and what seaside holidays were like a long time ago. We have been looking at seaside pictures from now and the past and using them to write sentences that include adjectives. We have also shared the story ‘The lighthouse keepers lunch’ and explored the adjectives used to describe the lighthouse keeper’s mustard sandwiches- YUK! We then designed our own disgusting sandwiches and used adjectives in our sentences to describe them.
In Maths we have started learning about division and the children not only loved it but they were brilliant at it! They were excited to learn a new symbol (÷) and were excellent at using this to record their number sentences. We used concrete objects like cubes and grouped them to work out answers and we also practised using pictorial representations (circles and dots) to help us.
We have started a new DT project- we’re designing and making our own beach huts! The children had to follow criteria for their design and next week we hope to start the construction. Following this, we will work on our self-evaluation of the final product; what worked well and what we would change.
In RE we have begun to explore the religion of Judaism. We have started by finding out what Jewish people believe and who some of the significant people in Judaism, such as Abraham. We will continue exploring this religion for the rest of this term but also continue developing our knowledge and understanding of Christianity.
We have also been developing our discussion skills through Geography this week by looking at photos of human and physical features and how to identify them, such as; coast, valley, river, harbour, ocean and so on. Year 1 have made so much progress in their discussion skills and are becoming increasingly confident at leading valuable discussions, not only sharing what they think, but listening and responding to other peoples thought.
Homework will be collected in and set again on the Tuesday due to our long weekend ?
I hope you all have a marvellous bank holiday weekend.
26th April 2019
What an exciting first week back for Year 1!
Our fun started first thing Tuesday morning with a visit from Warburtons. We learned all about how bread is made and food hygiene before putting on our very own hair-nets and Warburtons aprons. Then in groups we made our own bread dough and shaped it how we wanted. Over lunch the kitchen kindly baked our bread which left us a little more time for some DT learning! We found out about the five different food groups and how to have a balanced diet.
The fun didn’t stop there. After this, we designed our own healthy sandwich, which we then made in class! We have also found out about where our food actually comes from. As we have learned so much, we decided to make our own booklets so we can share our learning of how to keep our bodies healthy.
Yesterday was another exciting day because Miss Bratt shared her special discovery at a beach in Devon- a message in a bottle! We almost burst with excitement reading the letter together but there were lots of things we didn’t understand as we think the letter was written by someone a long time ago. We are in the middle of using the internet to research this and we plan to keep you updated!
Have a lovely weekend and let’s look forward to a full week of fun next week ?
23rd April 2019
Welcome back Year 1, to the summer term. I hope you had a great Easter holiday and are feeling fresh!
This term our topic is ‘Surf’s up!’ Please see the link above to check out our curriculum map, showing you what will be covered this term.
A few little reminders and notes…
• Please ensure your child has a water bottle in school to keep hydrated.
• Please can PE kits be in school by this Friday.
• Homework and spellings will start next Monday 29th April. Please note, homework is due in the following Monday.
• The reading challenge starts again! Read at least 3 times a week to collect a sticker. If you collect a sticker every week this term, you will win a prize!
• Summer uniform starts now.
• Sun cream (when necessary), please apply to your child before dropping at school. Teachers are not allowed to apply sun-cream and as you can imagine, when left to the children we have many looking like snowmen!
Bring on the summer term! ?
5th April 2019
What a lovely last week of the spring term, before our well-deserved Easter holidays!
Year 1 had the best day at the Black Country museum! It was an amazing school trip with lots of fun, laughter and learning and a great way to end our spring topic ‘Top hats and tea cups’. A big thank you to our parent helpers who were able to support us on the trip.
After the excitement of our trip, we’ve had a few chilled days making fluffy bunny Easter cards, hot-cross bun making, cheeky chick crafts, a final cuddle with Receptions fluffy friends, rounded off nicely with a DVD day today- thank you to Maksy for bringing in a film for the class.
Well done to our reading challenge winners! You have won yourselves a little book to take home.
Another great term leaving your teachers bursting with pride, yet again. Have the best Easter holidays, rest up, eat lots of chocolate eggs and I’ll look forward to seeing you for our final summer term. ?
Clearwater Family Homework Easter 2019
29th March 2019
We have had such a lovely week in Year 1 ? What a way to start the week with their amazing wow assembly. Their gorgeous little personalities shone through and how much they have learned and their confidence shone even brighter! PROUD TEACHER!
Thank you also, to those who attended the phonics screening check information session. As promised, please see the power-point and 2018 paper below.
On Monday afternoon, we had a wonderful trip to Quedgeley church where Father John met us and told us all about special days leading up to Easter. He also showed us around the church, talking about the different areas (alter, pulpit etc) and the purple decorations in the church. Thank you so much to our parent helpers who came with us.
To follow on from this we have done lots of learning in RE. We finished making our palm leaves and then re-enacted the story of Palm Sunday when Jesus arrive in Jerusalem on a donkey. We also learned the story of ‘The last Supper’ and again, we re-enacted this story and shared bread and wine (BLACKCURRANT SQUASH)- bread representing Jesus’ body and the wine (SQUASH) representing his blood.
On Wednesday we met Receptions freshly hatched chicks! They we super cute!
We have been enjoying the glorious sunshine this week and yesterday we went on an Easter egg hunt and also an Easter pebble hunt!
Looking forward to a final fun filled week before our Easter break. Have a lovely weekend and Happy Mother’s Day!
phonics screening check info pp
26th March 2019 – Year 1 Wow Assembly
What a fantastic way to start a Tuesday! Another huge well done to Year 1- you always work so hard and I am super proud of you lot- you little super stars!
22nd March 2019
This week seems to have disappeared!
We have continued our artwork in RE- we have completed the paint splatting and will be cutting out our palm leaves to finish them today.
We have also been writing up a science experiment to learn about friction. We used cars and ramps with different surfaces and found out which surface the car travelled faster on and which made the car slow down quickest. We felt very grown up writing predictions and conclusions and had a lot of fun carrying out the experiment.
In Literacy we have been learning facts about bears and writing about them using a range of conjunctions- and, because, but, or, so.
In Maths we have begun a unit on money. The children have improved their coin recognition and we are consolidating the knowledge that different coins have different values and the impact this has when we’re working out amounts using a range of coins.
A little reminder…
Next Tuesday is our WOW assembly at 9.15am. We look forward to seeing you
Please can you return your child’s school trip slip by next week- thank you ?
Next Monday we are off to Quedgeley church to visit Father John to enhance and build upon our learning in RE this term.
Have a lovely weekend ?
15th March 2019
Apologies for no Year 1 update last week…our camera had a sleep over at the library! It’s now safe and sound back at school so a double update this week!
Thank you so much to the Library for giving us a fun start to WBD last week. The children all looked fab and we didn’t get blown away walking back! Thank you to our parent helpers on that day too ?
Year 1 wrote some excellent book reviews, made some awesome bookmarks and had fun acting out different stories.
This week has been SCIENCE WEEK, which has encouraged inquisitive minds, excellent questioning and learning about fair tests. Reception joined Year 1 on Monday to learn about the forces ‘push’ and ‘pull’. We made our own air powered rockets and measured how far they could travel. We also made some changes to our rockets to see if it made them travel further and recorded our results in a simple table. Year 1 also joined reception to watch an explosion when a mentos mint is dropped in coke! We have also started learning about friction and are in the middle of carrying out an experiment to find out which surface makes a toy car travel faster…we’ll let you know how we get on next week.
In violin, the children have been practising hard in preparation for their concert next Tuesday morning. We look forward to seeing you in class at 9.15am, if you can make it. The concert will be roughly 45 minutes long.
In maths we have been learning about positional language- forwards, backwards, left right, half turns, quarter turn and whole turns. This has been super tricky but the children have made excellent progress through some fun activities. We worked in pairs and made maps for each other to follow- one partner giving directions. This has linked nicely to our work on fractions. We have also had fun programming the blue-bots giving them the correct information to find different shapes.
In RE, following on from Shrove Tuesday we have been learning about Palm Sunday and Ash Wednesday. We linked this in with our Art this week and have been making different textures by layering medias to make some funky palm leaves! A little bit messy but lots of fun. We will show you the outcome on next week’s update.
Have a wonderful weekend ?
1st March 2019
Welcome back to the final spring term! Year 1 returned even more eager to learn and despite it being a four day week we have got lots of fun packed in. Well done Year 1- back and ready to roll!
In Literacy we have been learning a non-fiction text about The Great Fire of London (TGFOL) and have been writing facts about this historical event with a focus on practising our basic punctuation.
In Maths we have had lots of fun exploring symmetry inside and outside so we could enjoy the beautiful sunshine we have had. Following this we have looked at the fraction- half; exploring halving shapes, objects, number and circling half a set of objects. Our fraction learning will continue next week.
Year 1 are becoming excellent at spreading joy through acts of kindness and this week we shared a wonder book called ‘Have you filled your bucket yet?’. Inspired by the story, we made our own kindness buckets to fill and continue to be mindful of doing little acts of kindness everyday.
In History we have been ordering TGFOL facts and pictures to make a historical timeline and in RE we have begun to look at Holy week. We started this by going outside and checking for signs of spring. We talked about what happens in this season and how new life happens- lambs, chicks, flowers, blossom, leaves etc. We then linked this to the new life that happens at Easter- the resurrection of Jesus. We then decorated our own egg to represent new life and we used purple paint as this colour represents the sadness and miracles of Jesus as Easter.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend and I’m looking forward to a whole week together next week.
15th February 2019
Aw What a wonderful week we have had in Year 1. It has been filled with so many acts of kindness which has filled me up with joy and to top it off, we now have 1 week of rest ?
This week in maths we’ve been braving the chill and learning about capacity and measuring water in millilitres (ml) and litres (L). The children had lots of fun exploring capacity in the water tray and are becoming much more accurate at measuring!
As you know, Year 1 knocked their teachers socks off last week with their story writing and this has continued to happen this week. The children wrote the sweetest kindness notes to a family member; practising the skill of using the conjunction ‘because’ in their writing.
We have had some super fun afternoons this week doing lots of acts of kindness for our local community, each other and our family. We have made some love bug valentines cards, we went and fed the birds AND we made our own kindness pebbles which we hid around Hardwicke to bring some joy to someone else and spread the kindness. During our local walk, we also did some litter picking to help look after our wonderful world. A big thank you to our fabulous parents for helping and also supplying us with special pens and spray to decorate our pebbles ? super grateful for you continued support.
I hope you all have the best half term. Feeling very proud of every single one of you but we can’t stop now! Rest up and re-charge so we can smash this last Spring term.
8th February 2019
Lesson learnt. Making spring rolls with 27 5/6 year olds is not easy. But oh the fun we had! Happy Chinese New Year!
We learnt the story of Chinese new year, found out what animals we were from our date of births and we also watched a video about a Chinese family and the preparation that comes before their celebration of new year. We talked about the similarities and differences between our new year celebration too. Through our spring roll making we were able to practise our cutting and grating skills and general safety and hygiene when we are cooking.
Yet again I am bursting with pride with Year 1’s ‘Big Writes’ they did yesterday. They have been working hard to make up their own stories using lots of different skills and then they have finished it off by writing their very own stories. Year 1 I am SO proud of you!!
In maths we have had more fun learning how to measure weight in grams and kilograms and also solve some simple weight problems.
We have continued our Great Fire of London learning and are putting together our own news reports as if we were real news reporters! The children have been fab at this. It has been a fun way to learn the historical facts, the history and using appropriate vocabulary.
One more week to cram in as much learning as possible before half term…bring it on Year 1!
1st February 2019
The snow didn’t stop us! (well maybe just for an hour) We had so much fun playing in the snow this morning- what a Friday treat!
Week 4 done!
Year one have been little sponges and soaked up all the facts we have learnt about The Great Fire of London. We used wax crayons and water colours to create pictures of this historical event and we have begun to sequences the event using a timeline. Our GFOL learning will continue next week.
In science we have been recapping the animal groups and sorting animals by whether they are herbivores, carnivores or omnivores. The children have been practising this learning in our new science area in the class.
We have LOVED maths this week. We have been learning about measures- length and weight using non-standard and standard units. We have finished our unit of measuring in cm’s and have begun learning how to measure weight in grams (g). The children have really enjoyed using the rulers and scales and have been very accurate when taking their measurements.
In Literacy we are steaming ahead with making up our own stories. We have designed two characters- a goodie and a baddie, we have chosen a setting which to day we wrote a setting description for. Our key skill this week has been to use adjectives in our writing.
In phonics we are learning many more digraphs, trigraphs and alternate graphemes. The alternate graphemes are particularly tricky for the children as there are a lot of them and it is very confusing. Please support your child to complete their phonics homework as this has a huge impact- practise makes permanent! A little reminder that homework folders are due in on Monday.
Enjoy what is left of the snow and have a wonderful weekend ?
25th January 2019
We are officially half way through the first spring term…it seems to be flying by! Despite having to rearrange our Warburtons visit, we were filled back up with joy with a fantastic visit from the fire services. We had lots of fun trying on the uniform, having a go on the hose and sitting in the fire engine! However, this time we were able to really impress the fire fighters with our fire safety knowledge and also some facts about the history of the fire services which we have been learning about this week. We have done some role play for what to do in an emergency and how to keep safe around fire. Next week our history learning will continue as we begin to learn about the Great Fire of London…but shhhh…they don’t know that yet!
This week Year 1 have been writing a story re-tell about Paddington and how he saves the day in London. We have learnt the story and put actions to it, then we made a story map and had lots of fun acting out the story with masks and props. Story writing will continue next week but we will be getting creative and making up our own!
In maths we have started to look at measuring length in non-standard units and next week we will continue this by measuring in standard units- cm’s and mm’s and m’s. We have focused on using the language long(est) and short(est) to compare, describe and order several objects by length.
Happy Friday and bring on next week 🙂
18th January 2019
Year 1 have done it again…another fantastic week of learning- well done troops!
In Literacy we have carried on with our narrative writing and are learning a story about Paddington. We have talked about the structure of a story using the skills we have already learnt to write character and setting descriptions. We have started to make a story map and are working towards writing a re-tell.
In phonics we have learnt the new tricky words- what, her, out, today, his and has and recapped on have, so, was and said. We have also learnt the new split digraphs- o-e and u-e.
We have been magical mathematicians, solving 1 step subtraction word problems with and even without pictorial representations to help us!
In art we have learnt about the famous artist Wassily Kandinsky and created our own art work using pastels, inspired by a piece of his work. We used our art work to create a class kindness tree as that is what we have been focusing on in PSHE. We have thought of lots of acts of kindness and are trying to do them as often as we can to spread kindness. The children came up with really thoughtful acts of kindness- let’s see if you spot any happening at home!
We have started looking at some maps of London and identifying some keys features of a map. Using the London landmarks we have learnt about, we have made our own maps of London and they are just fantastic!
Looking forward to another busy week next week with some exciting visitors.
Have a lovely weekend ?
11th January 2019
What a lovely first week back after our Christmas holidays. We have packed so much in, despite the festive excitement upon the children’s return about what everyone had got for Christmas!
This week in Literacy we have been learning how to use adjectives to write a character description. We used Paddington as our character and we started by thinking of as many adjectives about him as we could. Then, as a class we wrote a character description about Paddington using the adjectives we had collected. In our independent work, we chose a film character to write our own character description using adjectives- the children did an amazing job at this.
In phonics we have been looking at the graphemes; ai, ay, a-e, oi, oy and the tricky words there, were, when, little, one.
In maths we have focused on addition- adding two 1-digit numbers and adding a 1-digit to a 2-digit number. We used number lines and hundred square to work out the answer as some of us were able to count on from the biggest number in our head!
In our afternoons we made a giant class collage of Paddington bear using tissue paper, we made a marmalade cake and managed to capture our own class Paddington! We have also been finding out about where Paddington went to live- London! We have found out about London landmarks and we did some sketches of these too.
In science we have been learning about the 6 animal groups; fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles, insects and mammals and in groups we sorted pictures of animals into the correct groups.
Have a lovely weekend, recharge those batteries and get ready for another busy week! ?
7th January 2018
A huge welcome back after what has been a fabulous 2 weeks off filled with Christmas magic and fun festivities. I wish you all a very happy new year and I am excited to start our spring topic ‘Top hats and tea cups!’
Please see the link above for the Year 1 curriculum map, which outlines what we will be covering over the spring term.
A few little reminders…
• Please ensure your child has their PE kit in school ASAP but by Friday; ready for PE.
• Please pass on any inhalers that need to be updated.
• Please ensure your child has a water bottle to keep in class.
• Reading books will be changed as normal throughout this week and we re-start the reading challenge! Read 3 times per week to get a sticker, 6 sticker at the end of term wins you a little prize, continue this in the second term and you win a book!
• Homework and spellings will start next week- Monday 14th January.
Excited for a fun first week back at school…bring on the spring term Year 1! ?
21st December 2018
Could we have been any more excited today?!? I don’t think so!
The children have been absolute stars this week. Despite all the excitement of Santa’s arrival next week they have continued to work hard and today we had a well deserved chill day filled with Christmas colouring, festive films and having a good natter and a play.
This week has been lots if fun; we had our Christmas party with Reception on Wednesday, we had a Christmas hunt in forest explorers yesterday, lots of Christmas crafts and some Christmas goodies today.
Well done Year 1 for working so hard this term- you are all little stars!
A huge thank you for the lovely cards and gifts we have received in Year 1- you have spoilt us rotten!
Have the most wonderful Christmas and a very happy new year! SANTA IS COMING IN 4 DAYS!!!! ?
14th December 2018
We have had such a fun week in Year 1 full of festive crafts, biscuit decorating and Christmas card making, along with some Christmas tunes in the background to get us feeling even more Christmassy!
The children have worked incredibly hard this week to write their letters to Santa. This was also their Big Write for the term so they had no help from the adults and it was their opportunity to show how much they’ve learned these past 6 weeks…and goodness me does it show! WELL DONE YEAR 1!
This week we also enjoyed a festive themed trip to the library where we were able to embrace our love for books and reading as well as listen to some wonderful Christmas stories. A huge thank you to our local library for having us again and another huge thank you to our lovely parent’s who were able to join us on this trip.
Our classroom has looked like a bit of a snow globe this week what with all the glitter and glue for our Christmas cards and tissue paper snowmen! We are also half way through making our own snow globes! We have made models to go inside using plasticine and we plan to put them together as soon as possible. Thank you for all the jam jars…this is what they are needed for! We have also had fun making some scrummy marshmallow snowmen biscuits which we enjoyed yesterday after school.
The countdown really is on now with one more week left of school. There is no rest for us though as next week will be another festive fun packed week!
I CAN’T KEEP CALM
SANTA IS COMING IN 11 DAYS!!!
7th December 2018
What a festive week we have had! The children did absolutely brilliantly performing their Christmas play on Wednesday- I was one very proud teacher.
After lots of play practising at the beginning of the week, Thursday afternoon we enjoyed some fun in forest explorers!
In Literacy, the children have worked incredibly hard to help Smarty Party Pants and have been able to punctuate questions using a question mark.
In Maths we have learned a song to help us remember the months of the year- another way of measuring time. We have also done some work on ordinal numbers- 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc.
Looking forward to more festive fun next week and who knows, some more elf antics from Smarty Party Pants!
6th December 2018
We had a very special delivery through the post this morning! Year 1 received a big box filled with chocolate coins and with an apology letter from Smarty Party Pants. He said that because he was such a pickle yesterday, Santa put him on the naughty list. Smarty Party Pants was very sad and asked for our help. So in Literacy, we kindly helped him out.
Tonight, Mr Barrowcliffe will be checking to see if we have helped him enough and if we have, we get chocolate coins tomorrow!
5th December 2018
Year 1 arrived in their classroom this morning to find Smarty Party Pants had stolen their advent calendar from Mrs Moss’s office! We were super cross! He left us a note saying we could not have it back until we wrote him some amazing questions using question marks! After literacy we started walking to lunch to find Smarty Party Pants and our advent calendar was in the tree!!! With a bit of help from the children, we managed to get it down and two children enjoyed our advent chocolate from yesterday and today.
4th December 2018
Well our naughty elf- ‘smarty party pants’, was up to mischief last night! He stuck our class advent to the ceiling and said we couldn’t have it back until we posted 5 questions to him using question marks!
As we started to write in Literacy, the advent calendar fell from the ceiling!!!!
We have now hidden our calendar in Mrs Moss’s office over night to keep it safe from smarty party pants.
3rd December 2018
Smarty Party Pants the Year 1 Elf has arrived in school…
30th November 2018
This week has just flown by! I cannot believe it’s 3 weeks until our Christmas holiday.
The children have worked extremely hard this week and we have had lots of WOW moments. In maths we have been learning how to tell the time to the o’clock and half past. It’s been very tricky but we’ve had lots of fun along the way. We have made our own paper plate clocks to help us!
In Literacy we have been practising using capital letters for people, places, I and days of the week. We have practised these skills through two stories- The Christian Creation Story and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
With the Christmas production nearly upon us, we have spent a lot of time this week practising. The children have done an amazing job at remembering their lines and singing all the songs beautifully and with Christmas spirit! Bring on next week…you’re in for a treat!
Enjoy putting up Christmas trees this weekend and let the calendar count-down begin!!
23rd November 2018
What a super fun Road safety week at Clearwater! We kick started our week with a joint afternoon with Reception learning how to stay safe when riding our bikes. We went outside to do some road safety role-play, we had a safe clothing sorting game inside as well as some road safety mat games using cars and figures to practise crossing the road safely. We also learned a road safety song which sounds fab!
The next day was Wheelie Day when the fun continued! Teachers and children have lots of fun riding around on their bikes and scooters.
In Literacy, we have been writing all the ways to stay safe when riding our bikes and about how to cross a road safely. The children have been excellent at using capital letters and full stops in their writing and goodness me, how their handwriting is improving!
In Maths we have continued our learning of subtraction and towards the end of the week we have been learning about ways to measure time with a focus on days of the week and months of the year.
In RE we continued our learning of the Christian Creation Story. We made pictures using pastels of each day of creation and we also wrote a class prayer thanking God for all the wonders of the world that he has created.
We have been doing lots of reading for enjoyment this week where the children have been the teacher and told ‘their class’ a story. They absolutely loved it and we definitely have some potential teachers in Year 1!
Year 1 have been learning about primary and secondary colours and explored mixing colours to make their own colour wheel!
Happy weekend and we will see you Monday ?
16th November 2018
What a glorious week in Year 1 and so much to celebrate.
Firstly, thank you to all who were able to make our WOW assembly on Wednesday. I’m sure you’ll agree, it is amazing to see the change in the children and how much their confidence has grown yet again. Thank you Parents, family and friends for your enthusiasm and generally getting stuck in with our following activity of sewing Christmas decorations with the children- they look amazing!
This week in Literacy we have been busy writing letters using capital letters and full stops. We wrote to Bishop Robert at the beginning of the week to let him know we had found his lost sheep. Then towards the end of the week, we wrote to Pudsey to let him know how we were going to raise money for children in need.
In Maths we have practised naming and recognising the 3D shapes; cube, cuboid, pyramid, cylinder, sphere and cone. We have also begin to look at subtraction which we will carry on next week.
In RE we have learned about the Christian Creation story and made a story map of it to help us remember it.
In science we were doing a little experiment to find out what material would make the best for ice-skates.
In violin we are getting very good at knowing the notes and our teachers said next week we will start to learn Jingle Bells!
Yesterday, Reception and Year 1 had fun decorating biscuits with spots to sell after school to raise money for children in need! They decorated them so well, it took real will power not to eat them- children AND teachers!!
Have a lovely weekend ?
9th November 2018
Year 1 have worked so hard this week and my goodness we have got a lot done!
In maths we have continued to learn about shape and have introduced the children to a pentagon! The children have been using their problem solving skills and mathematical language brilliantly to talk about different 2D shapes.
In Literacy we have been practising using the conjunction ‘and’ in our writing to join words and sentences together. We have written some fabulous dinosaur facts and the children’s cursive handwriting is really improving.
In our afternoons, as well as WOW assembly and Christmas play practise, we have learned about the Hindu celebration Diwali, where we made Rangoli patterns using pastels. We learned the reason why people wear Poppies and why this is such a special time; we also painted some Poppies using water colours for the first time! We have been busy making some dinosaur masks with Mr Barrowcliffe which we will be decorating after we have finished painting them. Finally, we have had lots of lovely science this week- exploring materials and doing a class experiment to find out the best materials to use for an umbrella and continuing our exploration of magnets.
Looking forward to another fun-filled week with Year 1.
5th November 2018
‘This is Year 1’ Parent information event
Thank you to all who were able to make our ‘This is Year 1’ parent information event last Friday. For those of you who were unable to attend, I have uploaded the powerpoint; please click the link below to view. I have also popped any hand-outs from the event into children’s book bags.
We briefly touched on homework during the afternoon- ongoing handwriting practise and ongoing maths homework- ‘ongoing’ meaning that it is not handed in but to practise as and when you can with your child(ren) at home. The handwriting and maths ongoing homework has been put in your child’s orange homework folder. Any questions, please pop in and see me after school.
2nd November 2018
What a short but lovely first week back. Thank you so much for all your half term updates on our Padlet! I absolutely loved seeing what you had been up to- they were fab pictures.
As always, we have had a busy few days in Year 1.
We have been learning about shape in Maths- focusing on 2D shapes and their properties. We will continue this learning next week also.
In Literacy we have been practising our sentence writing; using capital letters and full stops to write facts about dinosaurs.
We have finished making our 3D junk model dinosaurs and have now started to design some dinosaur masks!
In science we have continued our learning of materials and have been finding out about their properties.
Please note, all children have changed their books this week, however reading stickers will start next week.
Looking forward to a full week next week. Have a lovely weekend ?
19th October 2018
What a fabulous final week of the autumn term we have had in year 1.
This week we started using our bows in violin lessons- very fun and exciting! We had a joint trip to forest explorers where we built houses for the three little pigs, we’ve now carefully painted our clay dinosaurs using our ‘cool concentration’ class power.
In science we have begun to explore materials that are magnetic and in RE we’ve written some class prayers upon reflection of the story of The Lost Son.
Today we have started to make our junk model dinosaurs and we are definitely building on our teamwork skills- listening to others ideas as well as our own and working on something together. We have done our first Big Write of Year 1; I am super proud of every one of you- fantastic progress in your writing! AND, Year 1 and Reception have started learning the songs for our Christmas play…shhhhh.
In Literacy we have worked hard on writing sentences using all the key punctuation- capital letters, finger spaces and full stops (as well as composing our own sentences). Composition has been our focus for the week and yesterday we ended the week with our Big Write- a piece of writing that is completely independent.
In Maths we have been exploring our number bonds to 10; finding different ways of making 10 with a range of resources. The children have then recorded what they found out as addition number sentences. In our maths meetings, we have been recapping last week’s learning of adding two 1-digit numbers.
What a week! Busy but productive!
A little note…
Well done to the whole of Year 1 for completing their first set of homework/spellings. Due to our return from half term being mid-week, the second set will not be due in until Monday 5th November. This also applies to our little spelling quiz; it will also be on this date.
Have a wonderful half term and I’ll look forward to seeing what you are getting up to on our class padlet! ?
12th October 2018
What a fabulous week we have had in year 1!
In Literacy, we have been focusing on knowing when to use a full stop, consolidating our knowledge of the digraphs sh, ch and th. In reading, we have been practising the skill of visualising; making pictures in our head of what we have heard in a story. The children loved doing this- see if they can do it when they listen to a bedtime story!
The whole class has WOW’ed me this week in maths. We have been adding two 1-digit numbers by putting the biggest number in our head and using our fingers to count on. They have all made amazing progress and showed their class power ‘Marshall’ who tells us “Don’t give up”. Some of us were even able to solve some empty box number sentences.
This week we have also been making dinosaur models using different techniques with clay. They are looking fab and we cannot wait to paint them next week! We have also explored our new k-nex toys and made some cool models.
In forest explorers we collected lots of natural objects to make our own tree art on the play ground. It was a little tricky as it was windy but the children made some beautiful art work.
A huge well done to our little Harvest performers- you were all brilliant!
I cannot believe I’m saying this but we look forward to our final week of the first autumn term in Year 1. Where is the time going?!
9th October 2018
Year 1 homework is out!
Phonics homework (orange folder)
Phonics homework will be set every Tuesday. Homework will need to be handed in every Monday in order to be marked and new homework set for the following day (Tuesday).
Phonics homework will be related to classroom learning; both practise and consolidation and also activities that will support children in preparation for the Year 1 Phonics screening check in June 2019.
Spellings
Spelling lists will be set every Monday. The children will do a spelling test the following Monday and be given a new list. Please help your child to practise these lists using a ‘look, cover, write, check’ approach; you could even get them to write some little flash cards of the words, you can hide them around the house and they have to hunt for them, read them and then write them!
Thank you for your continued support 🙂
5th October 2018
This week in Year 1 we have been focusing on using finger spaces in our writing. We have been trying to say our sentences over in our heads to help us remember what we are writing and also re-reading our work. We have also been practising writing and recognising the capitals- G, H, I and J. We have been muddling J and G but we’re getting there.
In maths we have been doing adding and learning new skills to answer quick fire questions like our number bonds and ‘1 more than’ questions. Next week we will continue to explore addition.
We have been making moving mechanisms to create some dinosaur themed moving pictures. These look absolutely brilliant and the children loved it!
We have started some science learning about everyday materials; naming and identify them. We went on a materials hunt to explore what different objects are made out of. Next week we will be doing some investigations of materials and exploring their properties and why certain materials are used to make particular objects.
In RE we have continued to look at the story ‘The Lost Son’ and talking about forgiveness. We have also been thinking about the different ways Christians show their love for God.
We’re looking forward to next week, celebrating Harvest with you!
28th September 2018
Another brilliant week filled with a big birthday, ‘big school’ trips and a big whole class violin lesson!
Please can I take this opportunity to thank you all for your kind birthday wishes, cards and gifts. It was totally unexpected and the children made the day truly special ?
In maths, we having been looking closely at our tens numbers; ordering them forwards and backwards and solving missing number problems in sequences. The children found this very tricky but have made amazing progress throughout the week.
In Literacy we have been focusing on using capital letters at the start of a sentence. The children have been ‘tiny teachers’ and marking work with lots of mistakes in (no capital letters!) which they had to cross out and put in the correct capital. We have focused on learning the capital letters (how to write and say them) A, B, C, D, E and F. If you could continue this practise at home it would be fab! Some children even proved their learning by writing their own sentences using capital letters.
Year 1 had their first whole class violin lesson and they were AMAZING. There were lots of concentration faces from both the children and teachers! Lots to remember for next week but more importantly, lots of fun.
The same afternoon we had an excellent science assembly from some students from Sir Thomas Rich’s school. We found out exactly what science is all about and had some fun interactive activities during the assembly.
On Wednesday morning, we got mini buses to Sir Thomas Rich’s and had a morning filled with pond dipping, bug hunting and exploring animal skeletons and bones in their science lab. A big thank you to the parents who came to help on the trip ?
In between all the above we have had a PE session on the field with reception as well as a joint trip to forest explorers AND we got messy using charcoal for the first time and have drawn some beautiful pictures of fossils.
Who knew you could cram so much learning into one week! Well done Year 1 and re-charge those batteries for the same again next week!
21st September 2018
Despite the rain, another wonderful week in Year 1.
The children have deepened their understanding of number bonds to 5’s in maths this week and have applied their knowledge and used their reasoning skills to solve simple word problems. We are also working hard on being able to explain what we know with lots of use of talk partners.
We have been talking about how to keep our classroom a safe and fair place to be. We reflected on our school values and our behaviour and have made some bright and colourful posters to display in our classroom as our Year 1 school rules.
In Literacy we have been practising digraphs ch, sh, th, ng, ai and using them to spell words correctly. We have also focused on thinking of our own sentences and the skills needed to remember what we are writing. In these 3 weeks, it is amazing how the children’s confidence has grown in their writing.
Looking forward to next week as we are off to Sir Thomas Rich’s School on Wednesday morning for some science fun with the Year 13’s! We are going to be doing some pond dipping and exploring animal skeletons in their labs.
Bring on next week.
Happy weekend ?
14th September 2018
What a wonderful second week in year 1 we have had!
This week we have had to do a bit of maths detective work and help Mrs Gough with her maths homework. Poor Mrs Gough didn’t know her number bonds to 5 so the whizzy year 1’s have helped teach her how to work them out!
In Literacy we have been focusing on sentence writing- remembering to use capital letters, finger spaces and full stops. In phonics we have focused on the digraphs- ch, sh and th and practising spelling and reading words with these in.
We had another wonderful assembly from Mr Rae. Jacob was his special helper this week and did a fantastic job. Well done Jacob!
We have had a super fun first PE session with our wonderful sports coaches. A warm welcome to our new coach- Gemma and welcoming Kieran back.
Amongst all of this, we have been painting our self portraits and learning the story of The Lost Son in RE. We have made story boxes for this and are writing the hidden meanings behind each of our pictures.
Looking forward to a thrilling third week in Year 1! Have a lovely weekend ?
7th September 2018
Welcome back to Year 1!
What a lovely first week back we have had in Year 1. The children have settled really well into their new classroom and have loved exploring all their new toys, having their own drawer (very exciting) and catching up with all their teachers. It has been a joy to hear about what fabulous summer holidays they have all had.
This week we have been becoming familiar with our new classroom and begun to introduce our new routine. We have looked a little at our new Maths and Literacy books as well as doing a bit of PE, painting and circle time.
Our topic this term is ‘Jurassic Class’. We will be finding out about dinosaurs, amongst other exciting things. For more information about what learning will be covered this term, please take a look at the ‘Curriculum Map’ link above.
If you have any books that will enhance our learning this term (dinosaurs or from what you see updated on our class page), please clearly name them and we would love to borrow them in class; they will be looked after well. Thank you in advance.
Our class page will be updated weekly so please check regularly to see what we have been up to in class, key dates, requests, homework updates etc.
I just wanted to update you on a few things to ensure you and your child(ren) are prepared for Year:
My PPA will be on a Friday morning and covered by our sports coaches. Our PE sessions are therefore Friday morning and a Wednesday afternoon. We also have a music session every Tuesday afternoon with Caroline Lumsden.
A few little reminders…
– PE kits to be in school ASAP
– Water bottles for in class (water only)
– Uniform and PE kits to be clearly labelled
– Book bags- children will have more books living in their book bags this year. Please ensure drinks are not put in book bags.
Reading- It is important that you read with your child(ren) as often as possible. Every day is ideal however a minimum of 3 times per week is expected. Please use your child’s reading record to record any reading; please note you can read other books from home, bed time stories and do not feel you need to write a comment every time you read with your chid(ren). Please note the importance of questioning your child(ren) when reading to check their comprehension skills and understanding of the text.
We have a reading reward system this year! If a child has read and their reading record is signed 3 times every week, each half term, those children will receive a small prize. If a child reads 3 times in a week, they will be awarded a sticker in their reading record to record this. In school your child will read at least once a week with an adult as well as having explicit reading lessons. Your child will change their book once a week on a given day (children will not change books on the same day).
More information will be posted on here about homework towards the end of this term. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to pop in and see me. ?