Welcome to the summer term!
Welcome back. We hope you had a great Easter break.
This term in Reception our theme is, ‘Life on Earth’.
Our learning will include;
Mini-beasts
Children love a bug hunt! This term, we’ll be hunting for bugs and finding out all about them. As a scientist, your child will observe how various creatures develop from butterflies to frogs. Using books and ICT, they will also use their investigation skills to find out more about bugs that are all around us. Your child will also be use their imagination to create their own mini-beasts. Children will work together to design their own mini-beast hotels.
Your child will study the artist Alexander Calder and create their own representation of his butterfly work.
Amazing animals
Where does a tiger come from? In this theme, your child will find out! We’ll find out where our favourite animals originate, finding the country on the map. We’ll look at its environment and your child consider how it is different from where we live. As an artist, your child will mix colours to create an animals’ camouflage patterns. They’ll create their own landscapes for various animals using our small world resources in the classroom, and they’ll create their own scenarios and storylines for their play.
Me and my body
We want our school to be a happy and healthy place at all times. Keeping healthy is the key message in this theme. Your child will learn how important exercise is and how our body feels during and after we exercise. They’ll learn about eating healthily and why this is important; they’ll become aware of the importance of five portions of fruit and vegetables each day. Your child will try new fruit and vegetables and prepare simple healthy foods. They’ll find out how important it is to brush their teeth and what happens if we don’t. As an artist, your child will learn to draw a face and then a figure with increasing detail.
Phonics
We will continue following Little Wandle revised Letters and Sounds. The children will be learning to read longer words, compound words and words with adjacent consonants.
PE
For the rest of the term, PE will return to Wednesday and Friday.
Big Walk and Wheel
Thank you to all the families who have supported the Big Walk and Wheel over the last two weeks.
Overall, we were placed 150th in the small school category, out of 643 schools, with a daily average of 74.29% of journeys to school being active. In Northern England, we were 18th out of 107 small schools. Well done to everyone who took an active journey to help to achieve this.
Over the two week period we actively travelled 1,358 times!
It would be great for these active journeys to continue. Travelling actively (walking, park and stride – Marks and Spencers car park, scooting or biking) is a safe and healthy start to the school day.
Computing – Beebots
During our Computing topic this half term, we have been learning all about algorithms. These are sets of instructions and we can use them to program computers. We have practised writing our own algorithms as well as debugging (fixing) them. This week, we thoroughly enjoyed putting out computing knowledge of algorithms into action with the beebots. We can now write algorithms to programme a Beebot to make a shape and to navigate it through a maze with obstacles in the way. We made sure to write down our algorithm first and then debug it if it went wrong. It was great fun!
Happy Holidays!
Everyone in Year One would like to wish all your families and children a very happy holiday! The children have worked really hard this term and have made some brilliant progress and produced some outstanding work! Well done Year 1!
In your children’s bag there is some sheets of paper to help with learning at home. There is their Numbots log in, in case you have misplaced it, so that the children practise their number facts. This really does help with their fluency in calculations.
There is also the tricky words we have been learning this term in phonics. Initially, the target is to read these fluently but if your child can do this the next target is to be able to spell them.
I have also included some of the new graphemes we have learnt this year with some example words. It is really important that children can read these automatically in order to become fluent readers. I have also encouraged the children to read their ebooks, their sharing books and any other books they can get their hands on over the holidays!
Finally, there is a table of all the number facts from 0+0 to 10+10. We learnt these in a specific order so that children build on their knowledge progressively and this order is shown at the side of the table.
Thank you for all your support and have a restful and relaxing break!
The Year 1 team.
Living and Learning: First Aid
This week in Living and Learning we learnt about first aid. First of all we thought of some of the illnesses or injuries that might need first aid. Then we discussed what first aid those injuries might need, from a cold compress to calling 999. Finally, we shared our ideas as to what you should say to comfort someone who is hurt or unwell. The children did a great job!
Book Club – new author alert!
In this week’s Book Club, we looked at Authorfy’s author of the week. It was the brilliantly funny Burhana Islam who has written Mayhem Mission!
We listened to an extract about the main character being in trouble when his bedroom was a mess. Everyone found it hilarious. I think one or two had found themselves in a very familiar situation…
“He says he will ruin his sister’s wedding! I think he will wait for the vows and say something stupid,” predicted Leah.
Tanvi shared, “I think it sounds a very good book because it relates to a lot of people!”
“I want to know where it’s going to end up! It’s starting with a messy bedroom and a wedding! What on earth will happen next?” mused Sasha.
Living and Learning: First aid
Our Living and Learning focus has been first aid over the last two weeks.
The children have learnt how the emergency services can help others, what is first aid and what situations might need someone to give first aid.
Listen again to a 999 call that was made by a 6 year old when her mum collapsed. We heard the key questions that would be asked if someone needed to call 999.
What emergency service do you need? Where are you? What happened?
Then, we thought about some of the injuries and illnesses that might happen that would mean they need first aid (inside the outline of the person).
Then, we drew a line from the injury to the outside of the outline of the person, thinking about what first aid the person might need to help them recover.
Around the outer edge of the person we added some things you could say to someone to comfort them.
Computing Experts
This half term, Y6 have been programming a range of complex games on Scratch.
First, we made an animation where a sprite walked up the stairs. It sounds easy but it wasn’t!
We needed to use selection and repetition. Challenge your child to define these terms and why programmers use them.
Next, we created a quiz called Chatbot!
“It was very fun to do. We had to make a quiz that chats to you and asks you a couple of questions. You had to get them right but if not it would say, ‘Unkucky!’” said Lewis.
Finally, and most difficult, came the Times Tables Quiz game. We had to use variables. Ask your child which variables they used in their game.
“Our game has two sprites and we added sounds for when the players gets it right and a weird laugh when they get it wrong. One character is happy and the other is called potato head!” laughed Thanu.
Science
This half term, our science learning has been all about microbes and we have learnt so much! Hopefully you will have noticed how much more hygienic the children are!
It was part of a working scientifically topic and our vocabulary for this learning is below. Check the words your child knows and which they can explain to you.
Our investigations included how soap helps to get rid of harmful microbes on our hands and also what happens when someone sneezes and doesn’t catch it in their elbow or a tissue. Ask your child to explain how we did these experiments.
Below are some true/false statements for you to check your child’s understanding.
Living and Learning – First Aid
Last week, Y4 learnt what to do in case someone is suddenly ill, injured or needs help.
Basic Rules:
➤If an accident happens, it is most important that before you do anything else you must ensure that it is safe to approach and offer help.
➤If anything happens to you then you will be unable to help anyone else. This could mean one casualty then becomes two.
If it’s serious, call 999 and remember LIONEL…
➤Location. Tell them where the emergency is and where you want them to arrive.
➤Incident. Tell them what has happened.
➤Other services. Do you need more than one?
➤Number of people that are involved.
➤Extent of the injuries. What types of injuries do people have?
➤Location. Repeat again where they need to arrive.
What would you do in an emergency?