Author: Mrs Taylor

As we start the last half term of Year 1, here are a few reminders about supporting your child’s learning.

Reading books

Reading books will continue to be changed on PE days – Tuesday and Thursday. Please add a brief comment, or simply your name and a tick, in your child’s reading record book so we know your child has read at home and is ready to have a new book. Daily reading is important to develop your child’s reading fluency so children should be changing their book at least weekly if not both Tuesday and Thursday. Thank you.

Lexia

Please continue to work on Lexia until your child has achieved their Level 5 certificate and has completed the Year 1 learning.

Phonics Play

For those children who have reached Level 5 in Lexia, Phonics Play can be accessed for practising phonics at home. The login details are username Sphere and password is Spher3.

Handwriting

We are doing lots of handwriting in class. Here’s a link to a video showing the cursive letter formation that we use in school and also our handwriting guide.

Numbots

Numbots is a maths resource, based on building addition and subtraction skills, that can be accessed by children at home using their individual logins (please email if you need these resending). We now have a weekly leader board for Numbots so keep working hard to earn those coins!

Hit the button is another maths resource we use in class especially for number bonds practice and more recently for learning doubles.

Little and often is best for these resources. If you need any login information for your child, please contact us.

We have a few items of clothing, including cardigans, jumpers and PE black zip up tops with no names in the cloakroom.

Please ask if you think they might belong to your child.

Thank you.

Counting is a daily event in our maths lessons and also at other parts of the day when we have a spare minute or two.

Here are the related counting end of year 1 expectations.

Over the last two weeks, we have been focussing on counting forwards and backwards in 10s and 5s.

Seeing these numbers on a 100 square or a number line can help children to spot the pattern of these counting sequences.

Counting in 10s

The numbers all have a zero at the end.

They are all underneath each other.

There is a pattern – the numbers end in five or zero.

How can you help at home?

Regular counting with your child will help their fluency to recall these counting sequences.

Listen to the Super Movers general counting, counting in 10s and counting in 5s active songs.

Use Paint the squares to highlight the multiples of 10 and 5.

Play ping pong with your child. Choose a number to start from and take it in turns to say a number each in the sequence. The children are familiar with this game.

How will this help my child?

Counting in sequences of 10 and 5 will support your child as they move onto learning times tables from Year 2.

 

 

This half term, Year 1 are learning all about computing. Here are the age related expectations we are working on and the vocabulary and definitions that you will have been talking about for homework this week.

Firstly, we tried giving each other instructions (also known as an algorithms) to get from one place to another. We soon realised these algorithms needed to be clear and precise. For example, go forwards – but how far? Turn around – but which direction?

After trying some practical algorithms, we spent some time learning about the words to help us with position and direction including forwards, backwards, quarter turn left and quarter turn right. We started to write algorithms to help the BeeBot move from the start to the finish.

Here, the algorithm didn’t work so we had to debug it to see what had gone wrong. Once the algorithm had been corrected, we could get the BeeBot to the finish.

This rhyme has helped us to understand the meaning of algorithm and debug.

Most recently, the children were excited to use the BlueBot devices to put their algorithm and directional knowledge to the test.

We will be doing lots more practical learning with the BlueBots to test out our programming skills.

Another part of this topic is all about keeping safe online.  This forms part of the new statutory Relationships and Health Education curriculum (part of our Living and Learning curriculum) and the relevant age related expectations are listed here.

We have been using stories to help with this learning. Have a listen to these stories again at home.

Chicken Clicking

Once upon a time…online

Penguin Pig

Digiduck

Troll Stinks

Please discuss this important e-safety message with your child.