Whiteley Year one

Friday 10th January Welcome back to school.  We hope that you enjoyed the Christmas break together. This week as part of our History learning, we have been finding out about The Great Fire of London.  We placed the fire on our class timeline and discussed pictures and paintings of the Fire.  We composed questions and talked about where, when and why the fire started . This week, we started to visit the computer suite in Key Stage 2. Each week half of the class will do an activity in the suite.  This week we have been learning how to use a mouse to control the computer in order to use the programme "Paint" - a tricky skill to master! Reading This week we will be asking you to do the "second" read of your child's phonic reading book at home.  They will do the "first" read as a group in school.  We will then do the "third" read with your child at school next week so that we can focus on developing your child's understanding of the text inclu...

 Friday 13th December In R.E. this week we have been learning how light is used in different celebrations.  We have learnt about the importance of light to Christians in the celebration of Advent. This week in Science, we have been learning about materials, their properties and why they are chosen for purposes. Lots of the children have found it quite challenging to identify which materials objects are made from and to explain why that material was chosen using property words.  It would be great if you could reinforce the language below at home.     plastic, metal, wood, paper, fabric, rock flexible/stiff, hard/soft, rough/smooth, absorbent/waterproof, magnetic/non-magnetic, see-through. In Art, we are learning the technique of weaving and looking at the work of the textile artist Lanny Mackenzie.  We will be creating our own piece of weaving next week based on our sketches of a Christmas object e.g. Santa. Phonics In Phonics we have learnt the alternative ...

 Friday 6th December Art This week we completed our paintings in the style of Barbara Rae.  We were really impressed with the children's creativity. English In English we wrote descriptions of Arctic settings using adjectives. We tried hard to extend our sentences with "and". Maths In Maths this week we have been working with numbers to 50 to find the number that is one more and one less than a given number.  We have been recording one more and one less as addition and subtraction number sentences. It would be great if you could start to practise counting forwards to 50 and backwards from 50 to zero with your child making sure they use "ty" and "teen" correctly when pronouncing their numbers. Thank you! Phonics In Phonics we have learnt the alternative graphemes for ur.   ir (girl),  er  (ladder) and  ear  (learn).  Please can we again ask that you make sure you read the allocated Bug Club  book  this week with your child to p...

  Friday 29th November Special Request We will be starting our weaving unit of Art in a few weeks time.  If you have any ribbons (paper or fabric), fabric or Christmas paper that you would be able to donate, we would be very grateful. Art This week we have continued to be inspired by the work of the artist Barbara Rae. We have created our own paintings in the style of the artist.  We created a background for our painting using a wash of dark and light colours and sketched an Arctic animal to go on the foreground. Computing In Computing we have been using the App "I can animate" to create our own simple animations using Arctic animals.   English We have read the story of "Iris and Isaac" by Catherine Rayner. We discussed the adjectives used to describe the different Arctic settings.  Next week we will be using adjectives to describe our own Arctic settings. Geography In Geography this week we learnt about hot and cold places in the world.  We identified the ...

  Friday 22nd November Resilience Now the weather is getting colder please can you ensure that your child brings labelled gloves and a hat to school each day.  Please can you help your child to learn to put their own gloves on and teach your child to put their gloves in their coat pockets to keep them safe when they are not being used.  Thank you! Geography This week at school we have started our Geography unit of work.  We learnt the names of the seven continents and five oceans and plotted a route to travel from the United Kingdom to Antarctica.  You might like to sing the  Seven continents song  with your child by clicking on this link! Phonics In Phonics we have learnt the alternative graphemes for oo (spoon) and oo (book). ew (blew), ue (blue), u_e (flute), oul (should) and u (push).  Please can we again ask that you make sure you read the allocated Bug Club  book  this week with your child to practise the new digraphs and new...

                                                                        Friday 15th November This week at school we have been learning how and why Hindus celebrate the festival of Diwali.  We have discussed the concept of good and evil through the story of Rama and Sita.  We made Divas out of clay to hold tea lights.  These are lit at Diwali time to light Rama and Sita's way home. Phonics In phonics we have learnt the alternative graphemes for oa (s oa p). (oe (t oe ), o-e (r o p e ), o (c o ld), ow (rainb ow ).  Please can we ask that you make sure that you read the allocated Bug Club  book  this week with your child to practise the new digraphs and new tricky words ' who ' and ' again '.  This makes such a difference to how your child reme...