🌟 Year 1 Weekly News 🌟
What an absolutely stunning first half term we have had in Year One! With September brings lots of change and big emotions but with October brings little glimpses of huge progress, enthusiasm for learning and pure joy. We have been thinking a lot about what it means to be resilient and each one of our 58 Year Ones have shown us what this looks like in so many different ways. We are so proud of them and already can't wait to welcome them back through our doors after a well deserved rest!
📚 English
This week, we introduced the children to our newest unit of Instructions, focusing specifically on recipes! We have based our learning around Julia Donaldson's 'Gruffalo Crumble and Other Recipes' cookbook, which lots of our children were already familiar with! We discussed what it means to use a 'command' word. These words are normally at the beginning of an instruction and tell the reader clearly what to do, such as 'chop, cut or place.' We then worked together as a table to reconstruct a set of instructions for how to eat an apple! We had to ensure that each instruction was in the correct order using the numbers to help us.
After half term, we will be writing our own set of instructions for how to make 'Terrible Tusks' for a Gruffalo themed party! In order to support the children with their writing, we would love for you to create your own Terrible Tusks over the next week! You could use any fruit that you like - if you choose to make your own delicious dish for the Gruffalo's party, we would love to see pictures, or even better, videos, of your child giving or following instructions filled with command words! Please feel free to send these pictures or videos to admin@strathmore.herts.sch.uk as they will then be passed on to myself and Miss D, ready to be shared within the classroom!
🔢 Maths
We completed our Pre-Block Assessments this week for Addition and Subtraction within 10 which we will be starting after half term. We also continued consolidating our understanding of '5' and how this can be represented using cubes, counters and rekenreks. The children have demonstrated a fantastic grasp on the number bonds to 5 and can confidently recall how to split 5 into a variety of parts.
🔤 Phonics
This week we have continued revising Phase 4 Phonics and practised reading and spelling words containing adjacent consonants. We also introduced the children to a new grapheme - oy! They worked hard to blend and segment words including this sound, for example in boy, toy, destroy and enjoy.
Science
We ended our first half term with an absolutely beautiful Autumn Day! We began our morning with an Autumnal walk around our school grounds, where we collected a variety of Autumnal objects such as red, orange and yellow leaves, conkers, acorns, pine-cones and berries! We returned to the classroom ready to use our imaginations and we created the most amazing leaf-person pictures, painted hedgehogs, owls, fireplaces and trees, hammered nails into pumpkins and wrote pieces of descriptive writing about Autumn.
Miss D made an incredible apple and pear crumble which we ate as we were so kindly presented with a cello performance from Agnes' Mum who used to perform with an orchestra. This made us very excited for our upcoming trip to the Barbican! The children had such a special day today and we cannot wait to create even more magic for our Winter Day!
💛 Gentle Reminders
As the weather becomes colder and more unpredictable, please ensure your child comes to school each day with a coat, spare clothes and wellies. This helps them make the most of their OPAL play, whatever the weather!
📌 Important Information
🏃 PE: Monday and Wednesday
📚 Library: Tuesday
📖 Phonics Reading Book Exchange: Friday
Please ensure phonics books are returned in their plastic wallets so they can be exchanged promptly. Thank you for your continued support! 🌟