Welcome to Year 1

Summer 2024

This term our topic is: All things bright and beautiful

Our key question is: Why is it important to look after our world? 
 

Author visit

Today we had an entertaining visit from James Campbell, an award winning author. He wrote The Funny Life of Pets and other books. He told the children the story of The Umbrella Tree which the children helped him to retell. 

Spring Term 2024

This term our theme is: To the Edge of the World

Our key question is: What does it mean to have courage?

World Book Day

We had a great day together dressed as characters from different stories. We enjoyed an assembly and each teacher shared their favourite book. We did a book swap and lots of shared reading with Year 6. We also had a visit from Mal from the Theatre Royal who read us the latest Adventure of Scout book. 

Maths

We are looking at numbers to 50. We have been partitioning numbers to 50 into tens and ones.  

Space

We have started our topic on Space Exploration and made our own rockets. In History, we will look at the life of Neil Armstrong. In English, we will be looking at poems about Space. 

Columbus Day

We spent a day immersed in history looking at Christopher Columbus and his adventures to find new lands. 

We spent the morning making ships biscuits, sea monsters, maps and telescopes. In the afternoon we went on board the Santa Maria to explore new lands and see what wonders Columbus discovered. We tasted a variety of foods like pineapple and peppers that Columbus brought back to Europe. 

Science

In Science we have been looking at animals. We talked about what animals need then made our own pets to take home. 

Design and Technology

We have designed and made a sleigh for our class teddy. We tried different materials to see which made the sleigh go faster, decorated them then added seats, sliders and rope. When they were complete we thought about ways they could be improved.

A visit from a Jewish faith speaker

We had a visit from a Jewish faith speaker who came to help us with our RE topic- Who is Jewish and how do they live? The lady who visited us said she was blown away by the knowledge of all the Year 1 children and was very impressed with their pronunciation of Jewish words! The children could talk eloquently about the Torah, the synagogue, Challah bread and the things you can and cannot do during Shabbat. Our faith speaker also brought some Jewish objects for us to explore and we had great fun acting out the Shabbat meal. 

Pantomime

Year 1 enjoyed a trip to the pantomime of Goldilocks and the Three Bears at The Theatre Royal. It was so much fun. The children enjoyed the singing and the circus acts. 

Autumn Term 2023

This term our topic is:

From Land's End to John O'Groat

This will be an exciting journey throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. 

We will be asking

'What does it mean to be British?' 

St Andrew’s Day

On 30th November we celebrate St Andrew’s Day. In Assembly we had the story of St Andrew and sang some songs about Jesus calling Andrew. In class we looked at the story. 

Winners

Year 1 worked with Princess Yachts to decorate a tree as part of the NSPCC Festival of Trees.
We won first prize !
Well done to all the Year 1 children who decorated Santa’s pants and decorations for the tree.
The tree will be up at the Theatre Royal so go and have a look. 
Georgi, Isabel and Jesse met the Mayoress and represented the school so well. 

In January, Year 1 will visit the theatre for free.
Thank you Princess Yachts ! 

The Mossy Carpet

 Theatre Royal Plymouth 

The Mossy Carpet is created to share, encourage and celebrate the small actions we're taking for the planet. Art and Energy have created a mossy carpet made from recycled material.
Some of our Year 1 added their own pom-poms. 

Find out more: http://bit.ly/3SqEJBh

Story telling 

The University of Plymouth run a project called PCiP (Promoting Children in Plymouth).

We had the priviledge of having Yasmin from PCiP read

'Grandad's Secret Giant' by David Litchfield. 

PCiP then donated a free book to each child.

We hope you have enjoyed your new book together. 

Science

In Science we have been looking at materials. We looked at different materials used in

buildings and talked about their properties. 

Today we were challenged to make a tower as tall as we could. 

PE

In Gymnastics we have been looking at different ways of travelling. 

Here are some of our moves. 

National Poetry Day 2023

Today we celebrated National Poetry Day. The theme this year was ‘refuge’. We thought carefully about what the word refuge means and then read a poem called My Treasures by Kate Wakeling. We looked at all the rhyming words in the poem and then created our own actions to go with each line. We practised again and again until we knew the whole poem off by heart. We then performed it as a class. 

Mount Edgcumbe

Year 1 had a fantastic day at Mount Edgcumbe. We enjoyed a boat trip, explored the rock pools, adventures into the gardens and did lots of walking. The children were amazing. 

Computing

In our Computing lessons we have been learning how to log on to the Chromebooks using our own usernames and passwords. We have been using code.org to practise dragging and dropping objects on the screen with our trackpad. 

RE

This term in RE we are looking at belonging. We have started by thinking about symbols of belonging for Christians, Muslims and Jewish people. We have learnt about the Bible, Qur’an and Torah as well as thinking about crosses, prayer mats and blessings. We even had our own Shabbat meal with Challah bread, candles and wine (fruit juice!). Some children recognised some of the symbols from their own families and homes and brought in objects that reflect their religion! 

The Tiger who came to Tea by Judith Kerr

We were detectives today. We came in from play to discover a tiger had been in our classroom. We looked at the clues and wrote our own police evidence files. 

Cornish pasties

We tasted some Cornish pasties from Cornwall. Some of the children liked them. 

We have been counting forward and backward to 10 with cubes. 

We have been sorting and counting.