Squirrels
Welcome to Year 1!
Please find below the information shared at our Year 1 Parent Information Session on Monday 16th September. If you were unable to attend and have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact Mrs Evans (Year 1 Team Leader) who will be more than happy to help you.
Squirrels PE Days
Wednesday and Friday
On these days, please make sure that children wear the following:
- Black tracksuit bottoms or leggings (shorts in warmer weather)
- A plain white t-shirt or their usual school polo shirt
- Their usual school jumper or cardigan
- Trainers suitable for outside
Please ensure that long hair is tied back and earrings are removed.
Little Wandle Support for Parents
Please see below for a link to the Little Wandle website which will help you support your child with saying their sounds and writing their letters. There are also some useful videos so you can see how they are taught at school and feel confident about supporting their reading at home.
https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/
Autumn 2
The Hare and the Tortoise
To start off our learning in English this half-term, we are exploring one of Aesop's fables - The Hare and the Tortoise. We have held our own Squirrels class Olympics to learn about races and experience the feelings of winning and losing. We learnt that it isn't always the fastest runner that wins the race, it is the one who, even in the face of difficulty or with little or no indication of success, perseveres until the end! To bring the story to life, we had two very special visitors - Coco and Tommy - a 'hare' and a tortoise!
Maths
In maths, we have been learning about addition and solving word problems using different aids. Some of us used the Rekenreks, some a number line and some used a 10 square and counters.
Science
We have been learning about the different seasons and why we have them. We discussed how we have to dress differently for each season and that at the moment, in Autumn, we have to wear warmer clothes with longer sleeves and trousers to keep us warm. We designed and created our own outfits using bin bags, making sure we had long sleeves and trousers.
Autumn 1
The Squirrels have settled into the new school year quickly and smoothly, and have covered many subjects in the first few weeks of term, including our topic; My World and Me! Here is a quick update on what they have been enjoying.
We're Going on a Lion Hunt
We have been reading and using a story map to retell the story of The Lion Hunt by David Axtell. It follows and builds on their learning last year in Reception of 'Were Going on a Bear Hunt'. The story starts by going through the long grass, through the swamp and the lake, as two girls decide to go and hunt a lion - they're not scared (of course)! It is a beautifully illustrated African retelling of the original story by Michael Rosen. The Squirrels also innovated the story, changing it to 'We're going on a Friend Hunt', choosing which qualities they'd like to find in a friend. They also created their own lions using different media, such as paper, wool and saltdough:
Science
In science, we are finding out about our bodies and how we use the different parts, such as our legs to skip or our arms to lift. We named, identified and labelled each body part and drew around a friend to label and secure our learning:
We are also learning about our five senses: smell, touch, sight, hearing and taste. We have learnt how we use our sense of touch and how it helps us when we shut our eyes and can't see objects:
Science
In science, we conducted an investigation to find out if our arm span, fingertip to fingertip, is the same as the length of our body from head to toe. We mostly predicted that it would not be, but after measuring each other and the experiment results came in, we discovered that most children were the same length as their arm span!
Religious Education
In RE, we have been learning that Christians believe their God created the world. We discussed how precious our creations that we make are to us and how to respect other people's creations, relating this to Christians respecting their God's creation of the world. We went outside and created designs with natural objects we found and respected each other's hard work by not touching them, just looking at them:
