Welcome to Elm class

Year 1 

Welcome back to school! We hope you all had a fantastic Summer holiday! Mrs Montgomery and Mrs Hopkins can't wait to hear all of your exciting news!

Our Autumn  topic is called 'Childhood' and has a History focus.

This project teaches children about everyday life and families today, including comparisons with childhood in the 1950s, using artefacts and a range of different sources.

In Literacy our key text that we will be using is 'Traction Man' by Mini Green. We will be using this as a stimulus for write a range of genres.

We will also be continuing with our 'My Happy Mind' topic and the children will be learning to celebrate themselves by identifying character strengths and how to grow these strengths.

In science our topic is 'Everyday Materials'. This project teaches children that objects are made from materials. They identify a range of everyday materials and their sources. Children investigate the properties of materials and begin to recognise that a material's properties define its use.

W hope you all had a fantastic Summer and a 'restul' Break (if that is possible!) We cant wait to welcombe the children back and hear all about their Summer holidays. We are looking forward to a jam packed term ahead and seeing the children develop in confidence, making progress and enjoying their learning.

Phonics Screening Check

Children in Year 1 will Phonics Screening Check will take place in June. To prepare for this please practise reading frequently with your child. Your child should be secure with phase 3 as we are currently working on phase 5. To support them, go over these sounds regularly. Each new sound that we learn will be sent home each week, on a Friday in the yellow book.  Please go through them and practise reading and writing the words that are sent home. If you would like to discuss any other ways your can help your child, please let us know and we will be happy to help. 

Some fanastic sites for phonics practise are: 

https://www.youtube.com/@MrTsPhonics

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/alphablocks

Key Messages

PE - Mondays

This term we are lucky to have Onside delivering PE sessions every fortnight.  Please can children wear their PE Kits to school every Monday

Water Bottles -

Please remember to ensure your child brings in their water bottle daily. (no squash please)

Reading and Phonics

Encouraging your children to read from a young age is essential and we will send a reading book and reading diary home for you to explore together.  Please record any reading you have done with your child in the reading diary.  

In year 1, we will deliver daily phonics lessons and we will introduce the children to new sounds as well as new High Frequency Words. Can we please ask that you practise these with your child and encourage them to use them in their writing. The weekly homework will also be based around the phonics sound that we are looking at in class. 

It is essential for your child's reading and writing that both you and they are pronouncing the phonics sounds correctly. Please click and follow the links below to watch videos to hear how to correctly pronounce each sound:

Phonics Level 2 Pronunciation

Phonics Level 3 Pronunciation

Phonics Level 5 Pronunciation

Maths

This half term we will be focusing on Place Value. The children will be learning to sort and count objects, recognising numbers as words and counting forwards and back. We will also be comparing numbers and finding 1 more and 1 less.

Topic 

If you would like to support your child with our learning related to 'Childhood' then you could do the following:

Use magazines, books and family photographs to find out how humans change asthey grow. Look for people at different stages of life, including baby, toddler, child, teenager, adult and elderly. Draw a picture and write a sentence about each stage of human life.

 Ask someone in your family what you were like as a baby and look at your baby photographs. Make a list of things that can you do now that you couldn’t do then.

Speak to older members of your family to find out how their childhoods were similar to or different from yours. Ask them about a range of topics, such as toys, food, home and school. Draw pictures or write some sentences to record what they say.

Write a list of the people in your family. How many people are there? Can you remember all their names? How are they related to you?

 Make an information poster about your family. Share your poster with someone in your family for feedback.

Think of a special event from your family’s history. It could be a birthday or nother special celebration. Draw a picture to show what happened and write a sentence about it.

Each week we will send home English or Maths homework. This homework will be based on activities that we have done in class the previous week. 

Homework will go out on a Thursday and will be due in the following Tuesday.

Our Learning Through Pictures

Our Classroom Environment