Whiteley Year one

 Friday 6th February Design Technology This week we have been carrying out our Design Technology unit of work, where we learnt about creating stable structures.  We explored construction kits and materials including straws, pipe cleaners, wooden sticks and elastic bands.  We learnt how to join materials to make stable, free standing shapes. English In English this week we have been learning to put words into the past tense by adding "ed", where no change is needed in the root word e.g. walk - walked. We wrote sentences about our Toby story to practise this skill. Phonics In Phonics this week we  have continued to revisit our Phase 5 graphemes to develop our confidence in reading and writing words with these sounds.  This week we have revisited  alternative graphemes  for the ee digraph .  These include ea, e_e, ey, y and ie.  You might like to play the games on Bug club which practise these sounds.  We have also allocated the books; Easy...

Friday 30th January Thank you for bringing in boxes and tubes for our modelling table outside 1J.  Please could you continue to bring these items into school.  Thank you! Science As part of our science learning this week, we investigated which materials would burn. We then applied our learning to help understand why the Great Fire of London spread so quickly. English    This week in English we started to read a fiction text about the  Great Fire of London.  We created a story map and acted out key parts of the story. Please click on the link below to hear the story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIQvKSFIs4s RE We have continued to learn about the concept of "change" and how the concept is used in Christianity.  We read and responded to stories that show how Christians believe Jesus changed people's lives. Phonics In Phonics this week we  have continued to revisit our Phase 5 graphemes to develop our confidence in reading and writing words with t...

 Friday 23rd January Art In Art we learnt about the artist Jan Griffier who painted pictures of the Great Fire of London.  We responded to his work in our sketchbooks. English and History This week in English we have written simple recounts of the events of the Great fire of London and made our own non-fiction fact books about the Great Fire. We were really proud of the way the children wrote simple sentences with straightforward subject/verb agreement. You might like to play the game below to explore what happened during the Great Fire of London. Fire of London game Dance This half term we are working on Dance in our indoor P.E. sessions. This week we created a dance using pathways based on the weather.  We worked hard to move to the rhythm of the music and worked well with our partners. Science This week in Science we identified the materials used to build the school and gave reasons based on their properties for why they were chosen. Phonics In Phonics this week we...

 Friday 16th January This half term in Year 1, we are focussing on the Whiteley Learning Value of independence. To encourage the children to think about and apply independence to their learning each class has an "Independence Iguana" . Children might be given this toy to take home if they have demonstrated independence at school e.g. through having a go at spelling words on their own or independently looking at the lunch register to make their lunch choice or cutting up their own dinner.  There are many ways in which we encourage the children to be independent at school. This week at school, we continued our learning about the Great Fire of London. In English we learnt to identify nouns and verbs and we wrote simple sentences with subject verb agreement e.g. "The fire is burning the houses." Computing 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...

 Friday 9th January Welcome back to school.  We hope that you enjoyed the Christmas break together.  Please can you ensure that your child brings named gloves and a hat to school every day as they spend a lot of time learning and playing outside. 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 . 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 including their use of inference, explanation and prediction.   It is therefore really important for your child to read their alloca...

  Friday 12th December 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. Art 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 over the next week based on our sketches of a Christmas object e.g. Santa. Phonics This week we have been consolidating our knowledge of all the sounds and tricky words we have learnt in Year R and this term. Please find a "read and roll" game enclosed in your child's bag this week to pract...