Owls
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.
Owls PE Days
Monday and Wednesday
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/
Summer Term
Summer 2
Sponsored Bounce
To start our final half-term in Year 1 we took part in our PTA Sponsored Bounce event. We had a great time bouncing for 1 whole minute! Thank you to all those members of our school family who sponsored us!
Life on the Farm
Our focus text in our English lessons is Farmer Duck by Martin Waddell. We were so interested in what it was like to be a real life farmer that we thought of lots of questions we would like to know the answers to. Who better to answer them than our local farmer, Farmer Charles! He came in to school to chat with us and shared lots of information that helped to answer all of our questions.
Summer 1
Castles, Knights and Dragons
This half-term the children loved learning all about the history of castles. To bring our learning to life, we visited Tamworth Castle for a day of hands-on history.
Jack and the Beanstalk
Our writing focus this half-term has been linked to descriptive sentences. We have been working hard to develop our vocabulary and use expanded noun phrases to describe what we could see around the Giant's castle in the story. To help us we created our own setting shoeboxes to bring the setting above the clouds to life.
PSHE and RE
The children have immersed themselves in the religion of Judaism, learning about Abraham, Moses and the ten commandments. They have also identified different symbols and the meanings of them.
As well as learning about Judaism, the children have reflected on the relationships they have and the importance of trust.
Marvellous Measuring
In our maths lessons we have been developing our measuring skills. We used non - standard units such as cubes and straws before moving on to using a ruler and measuring accurately in cm's.
Spring Term
Spring 2
Dragon sighting in Hartshill!
This half-term we have been exploring the text Tell me a Dragon. Whilst we were learning all about different dragons from the story, we discovered some mysterious dragon footprints in the classroom and a map! We followed the directions on the map and were led to a glittering nest filled with gems and dragon eggs on our school field! We decided we should inform the local news of this event, so we wrote a recount of what happened using time conjunctions!
Musical Conversations
We have been learning how to read a musical score linked to telephone conversations. Owls have loved creating pieces of music using a variety of tuned and untuned instruments.
Plants, plants and more plants
In Science, Owls have been learning all about wild plants and garden plants. We explored the local area around the school grounds and went up to Hartshill Hayes where we found lots of bluebells.
Spring 1
Toys
What a fantastic start to the half-term we have had in Owls. We were very lucky to have a visit from Tommy Tophat, who visited us to share his knowledge of old toys. We explored lots of old toys, played parlour games with our friends and looked closely at the toys children would have been given in the past.
Dogger
To start our topic, we were able to bring our own toys into school. Unfortunately, they disappeared! We made our own lost posters to help find them. Thankfully, after a full search of school we found them!
Our class text this half-term is Dogger by Shirley Hughes. Just like us, Dave lost his favourite toy as well! We thought about what adjectives Dave could use to describe Dogger and sorted them into ones that we thought would be best.
Materials
Our Science topic is 'Everday Materials' and we have been exploring objects and the materials they are made from. We described the materials that toys were made from in our messy 'Toy Shop' and sorted them into different groups according to the properties of the materials.
Autumn Term
Autumn 2
Wrapped Up!
Our topic this half term is linked to the artist William Morris, and we are working hard to develop our skills with printing. Our aim is to make a personalised piece of wrapping paper to sell at our school Christmas Fair!
REAL GYM
In our PE lessons we are developing our skills by balancing on the floor, on low apparatus and big apparatus. We have worked hard to learn the different shapes of straddle, pike, tuck and have even created our own straight shapes. The Owls showed amazing teamwork to get out the PE mats and safely work with apparatus.
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 class Olympics to learn about races and experience the feelings of winning and losing. To bring the story to life, we had two very special visitors - Coco and Tommy! A 'hare' and a tortoise!
Autumn 1
What a fabulous start to the year we are having in Owls Class! The children have settled into Year 1 life brilliantly and have been working hard in all areas of the curriculum.
Art Week
To get started in Year 1 we had a fantastic art week. We used the story Footpath Flowers to inspire us to create line drawings of plants and our school building, as well as developing a knowledge of colour mixing and sketching techniques. Our final pieces will form part of a whole school project that will be on display in the hall.
My World and Me
Our topic this half-term is all about ourselves and where we live. We have shared pictures of our families with the other children in the class and went a walk around our local area looking for different types of houses. Who would have known there were so many different types of houses on Victoria Road!
We have identified the difference between human and physical geographical features. To bring our learning to life, we went out into the local area and found lots of examples of human and physical features in Hartshill. By using a map we found our way to Hartshill Hayes and on the route we sketched features that we saw.
Place Value
In Maths, we have been focusing on numbers to 10. We used cubes, tens frames and counters to represent different numbers. To extend our learning further, we have been comparing the numbers using the < > and = symbols. We are working hard on using sentence stems too!
Dogs by Emily Gravett
Owls Class welcomed a very special 4 legged visitor into school as part of our learning in English..... Ruby. Ruby is a 3 year old labrador who came to school with her owner, Sarah, so that we could ask lots of questions about Ruby and how she is looked after. The children found out lots of information about how to look after Ruby and used lots of amazing adjectives to describe her. After our visit from Ruby we have invented our own story all about her!
