Year 1

Published on 6th June

As part of our Best of British topic year 1 have been learning about the Queen. They found about her life, creating a timeline of key events in her reign, and shared their learning with the school in an assembly (which included some excitable 'corgis', a tour of the royal residences and a day at the races!) However, their favourite activity was creating portraits of Her Majesty. Children used their art skills to draw the Queen in her sparkly crown and royal outfits, and of course with her much-loved corgis!

Published on 6th May

Year 1 are busy growing vegetables as part of their science topic on plants.

So far we have planted potatoes, onions, beans and radishes with more things planned. We are also growing flowers for the bees and butterflies as well. Children take it in turns to weed and water them to make sure they grow healthily. We are looking forward to watching it all grow.

Published on 8th February

In this lesson, the children were exploring the properties of materials and applying previous learning about the distinction between an object (e.g. spoon) and the material it is made from (e.g. metal). The warm up activity was a game where we had to think about the way that an instrument made out of two different materials (plastic and metal) made a particular sound and why those materials had been chosen. Would other materials work as well? Some of the children were blindfolded and sat in the centre of a circle. Taking turns, another child then had to try to move the tambourine and take it to back to their place without being heard. The blindfolded child had to point if they heard a noise.

Published on 8th February

The children had great fun making air- drying clay pinch pots and then decorating them using twigs and the types of patterns our prehistoric ancestors may have used. The children had already thought about their designs and produced excellent plans which then supported their clay work. The children loved the feel of the cool smooth clay and one pupil declared his pot to be 'The best thing I've ever made in my whole life'. Lots of wonderful topic vocabulary was used and generated with the pupils having lengthy discussions about what a Stone Age/bronze Age pot might have been used for (not cornflakes!) and why we only find fragments of them in archaeological digs.

Published on 8th February

This was a fantastic and practical maths lesson inspired by content from the NRICH website in which the children enjoyed squashing 3D shapes into playdough to see what 2D shapes the 'footprints' were. They were most surprised by shapes such as a square based pyramid which produced more than one 2D shape in its footprints! The lesson was accessible to all of the class, and they impressed me by used lots of mathematical language and were able to describe the faces of shapes by using correct names for 2D shapes.

Published on 15th December

As part of our science learning year 1 have been exploring the changing seasons. We put on our boots and explored our school grounds for signs of the changing seasons. We picked up leaves, squelched in the mud, used fallen branches, sticks and leaves to make a large autumn tree and made autumn mobiles with some of the items that we found.

Published on 1st December

In this lesson the children were expanding their knowledge of the weather and how it can change in the different seasons of the year. They learned lots of new vocabulary - 'foggy' being a firm favourite, and they also started an investigation into whether or not a pine cone can predict the weather!

Published on 10th June

To celebrate the end of our Best of British topic, year 1 travelled back in time to the realm of lords, ladies and medieval knights. Dressed for the occasion, the children spent the morning preparing for a banquet. They made “trenchers” (medieval bread used as plates) ready to cook on the fire later, created pennants to carry to the feast, and practised their fighting and jousting skills.