The Captain Tom 100 Challenge
Working scientifically
Today, Year 1 have been working scientifically. As part of their ‘Growing Plants’ topic, the children began by looking closely at a variety of seeds. The first stage, in the life cycle of most plants, is a seed and these come in all shapes and sizes.
The class discussed the appearance of different fruits and asked some very good scientific questions.
I wonder whereabouts the seeds are?
If we cut the lemon in half, will we see a seed?
Why are the seeds inside?
I wonder which fruit will have the most seeds?
I think all the seeds will look very different.
Next, we sliced the fruits open and examined the insides carefully.
Each fruit has a different seed.
Next, the children examined the open pieces of fruit and sketched some close up drawings. These images concentrated on a small section or slice of the fruit and the class looked carefully at the colours and the structure.
Year 1 were very curious about this learning and they use appropriate scientific language to communicate their ideas.
PE in our new playground
Today, Year 1 had their first PE lesson in the new area at the back of the school. It was great to have so much space!
The children worked hard to develop their throwing and catching skills. To finish the session, the class worked with a partner to see if they could aim their throw and get the ball through a hoop.
Welcome to the summer term.
Welcome back!
This term is set to be a very busy one indeed. Here is a quick overview of what will be going on in school.
Writing 
The children will continue with handwriting, grammar and sentence structure learning. Below are some of the age related expectations for the end of Year One.
- To start and end sentences using capital letters to start, use a full stop to end, or question mark /exclamation mark.
- To use a capital letter for ‘I’ and for everyday proper nouns.
- To separate words using (finger) spaces.
- To combine words to make a sentence.
- To write sentences with one ‘chunk’ of meaning.
- To say what I’m going to write and then compose a sentence orally before writing it.
Maths 
The class will continue with place value and counting work.
- Count within 100, forwards and backwards, starting from any number.
- Reason about the location of numbers to 20 and compare numbers.
- Develop fluency in addition and subtraction facts within 10.
- Count forwards and backwards in multiples of 2, 5 and 10.
Science 
The children will be investigating, observing and describing how seeds and bulbs grow into mature plants. They will find out and describe how plants need water, light and suitable temperature to grow and be healthy. Below is the specific vocabulary that will be used in our science lessons. Talk about these words at home. Does your child know any of them? Can you child tell you the definitions?
- seeds
- bulbs
- temperature
- growth
- survival
- healthy
- mature
- plants
Computing Topic 
The children will be learning about computer programming. They are going to discover what an algorithm is and what it needs to work effectively. We will be creating and debugging simple programs and will use logical reasoning to predict what will happen when an algorithm is executed.
In some of our lessons, we have regular ongoing online safety messages. These are usually prompts and reminders about the important of staying safe on and offline. Asking for a person’s consent is very important and this is something we regularly rehearse.
May I take your photo?
Yes, of course you can.
Would you mind if we show your learning to the whole class?
No, I really don’t want to share it.
As well as programming, the children will be having specific lessons about the following;
Age Restrictions
• I know that some online activities have age restrictions because they have content which is not appropriate.
Digital Content
• I am beginning to understand what a digital footprint is.
Misinformation, disinformation and hoaxes
• I know that I shouldn’t believe everything I see or read online.
Fake websites and scam emails
• I know that some websites have secure markings (eg padlock symbol next to URL) that makes them more trustworthy.
Password safety
• I know that passwords are important and that I should not share them. Personal data
• I know that I’m too young to share personal information (eg full name, address, school, age) online.
Persuasion
• I know that there are adverts online which, if clicked on, may take me away from the page I’m looking at.
Online vs. offline behaviours
• I know that people should treat others respectfully when they are online.
• I know what to do if someone is mean to me or someone else online.
Impact on quality of life
• I know that being online offers lots of positives but that
there needs to be a balance between time being spent on
and offline.
Below is the vocabulary that links to the computing topic.
| algorithm | program | debug |
| computer | password | personal information |
| appropriate |
As always, please feel free to contact us with any questions or queries.
jackiefreeman@spherefederation.org
carolinetaylor@spherefederation.org
Tennis opportunities
Year 1 heroes
What a busy final day of the spring term.
For our ‘Not all heroes wear capes‘ day, we welcomed lots of NHS heroes, firefighters, police men, Leonora Cohen, Greta Thunberg, an astronaut, a footballer, Indira Gandhi (the first female prime minister of India) and Dr Andrew Pollard (the scientist who invented the AstraZeneca vaccine).
The children enjoyed sharing who they had dressed as and why they were a hero. If they gave their consent, a partner also took a photo of them.
This marked the end of our Heroes history topic. The children have shown a great understanding of what makes a hero, different heroes from the past (and present) and how they’ve made a difference to life today.
All the Year 1 staff would like to wish you a happy and healthy Easter break.
Science: plants
We’ve come to the end of the first of our plants topic and all the children planted seeds from the Innocent Big Grow project to grow at home. Keep us posted on how they grow.
We’ve had some vocabulary, and their definitions, to learn for this topic so we had a matching pairs quiz to check our final understanding.
Investigative science is also part of our learning in the shared area. Here the children can observe and sort a range of seeds. How are they different? How are they the same?
Our potato plants are starting to break through the soil. We observed them carefully.
They are growing.
They are starting to sprout.
The stems are getting taller.
Some leaves are starting to grow.
They are breaking through!
Living and Learning: making a democratic decision
It was a busy last day of the spring term. As well as our heroes day, another important event happened too – the Junior Leadership Team elections. This is the new name for our school council.
A huge well done to all the nineteen candidates from Year 1 who took a safe risk and spoke confidently in front of the class to say why they would make a good junior leader. Any one of the children would have done a great job.
Once the speeches were complete, we learnt about the voting process. All the children cast their vote and posted this in our ballot box.
Our current school councillors had an important job of taking our ballot box over to Mrs Weekes for counting. They have represented the class very well over the last year.
Once the votes had been counted, we heard it was very close and it was very tense as we waited to find out.
Finally, we heard that our new JLT members were Sophie and Charlie – well done to you both. We are confident they will represent the class well.
We want all our children to use their pupil voice to make suggestions for items to be discussed at JLT meetings so they are encouraged to use our Living and Learning box to let our new junior leaders know their views and ideas!
Heroes day tomorrow and supporting your child at home
Firstly, as part of our current History topic, ‘Heroes’, Key Stage 1 are looking forward to having our ‘Not All Heroes Wear Capes’ themed day on Thursday 1 April.
Thank you to all the parents (and children) who attended our virtual parents’ evening this week. It was great to share your child’s progress and to check they have settled back into school ok.
While there is no homework or spellings during the Easter break, here are a few things that might be useful to look at with your child.
Handwriting
Here’s a link to a video showing the cursive letter formation that we use in school and also our handwriting guide.
Lexia
Please continue to work on Lexia until your child has achieved their Level 5 certificate.
Phonics Play
For those children who have reached Level 5 in Lexia, Phonics Play is an option for practising phonics at home. The login details are username Sphere and password is Spher3.
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!
Little and often is best for these resources as well as reading at home.
Not forgetting self care, here’s a bingo game that you might want to try.
It’s been lovely to have all the children back in school for the last few weeks and we wish you all a happy and healthy Easter break. Stay safe and well!
Maths: Numbers to 20
In maths, the children have been investigating numbers to twenty. By engaging in rich discussion, the class have been able to reason and explain the ideas presented. Over the last few weeks, the children have grasped new concepts well. Have a go at these activities at home.
Today, we played a place value game using a 100 square. The children took it in turns to hide two numbers. Then, their partner had to work out which numbers were missing by using mathematical language and by looking for patterns in the 100 square.
