Year 1

Purple Up Day!

In the morning we had special visitors in our assembly; Padre Nicoll and Lt Col Sawyers. Padre Nicoll reminded us about the different Armed Forces; British Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force and we learnt how they help us.  He also told us why it is called Purple Up Day – it is a combination of green from the Army, blue from the Navy and RAF and red from the Marines (part of the Navy).

We learnt that the official emblem of the military child is the dandelion because its seeds are blown far and wide by the wind but it will plant and blossom anywhere it goes. In the same way, the military child has to move around due to military postings, involving new homes and schools – which can happen as often as every 2 years!  We listened carefully and learnt all about the lives of different military families.

After this, we had great fun with Lt Col Sawyers experiencing a military themed warm- up and game, plus tug of war which was great fun!

Finall  y we finished the day making our own medals. We thought about the characteristics that can apply to military children then thought about the characteristics that applied to us all at Merry Hill; ambitious, collaborative, curious and healthy learners. We also thought about characteristics we have been working on personally. We then crafted a medal using card and tin foil.

Our teachers awarded  us our medals at the end of the day! What a fantastic day!

April is the Month of the Military Child and each year we love taking the time to celebrate our military children here at Merry Hill. Service children can face challenges with parents in the armed forces. Yet these children are also an amazing asset to families, schools and the local community. The Month of the Military Child helps us remember this and helps us celebrate their achievements.

Did you know the official flower of the military child is the dandelion because its seeds are blown far and wide by the wind but it will always plant roots and blossom wherever it lands?

The children celebrate ‘Purple Up Day’ every April; purple is a colour used to represent all military services and shows unity with each other. This day is to celebrate the wonderful contributions our military children make to our community, bringing experiences from around the world. We celebrate our military children and thank them for their service.

Purple Up Day at Merry Hill this year is on Friday 26th April –  Please can all children come to school wearing a purple accessory on this day such as a hair ribbon, socks, cardigan or t-shirt.

This week in maths we have been learning about money.

We begun the topic by identifying the different coins that we use in England and learning about the value of each coin.

Then we worked hard to find different ways to make amounts up to 10p. We had to remember to only use the available coins.

Next week we will be continuing to learn about money. We will be making amounts up to 20p using different coin combinations. We will also be comparing and ordering the values of groups of coins.

How to help at home

• Have a look at some real coins -can you order the coins from the smallest value to the largest?  How much do you have altogether? What could you buy at the shop with your coins?
• Go to the shop and buy something using coins e.g. a loaf of bread.
• Make equivalent amounts e.g. show £1 as 100p

In DT this half term we have worked hard to explore, design and make our very own animal puppet. Firstly we look our time to explore different kinds of puppets such as :

• Finger puppets
• Hand puppets
• Sock puppets
• String puppets

After that we designed our own puppet ad chose the colours of our puppet and thread. We then took two weeks to carefully sew and make our puppets come to life with the help of some lovely parents and carers.

Lion class:

Panther class:

How you can help at home:

• Can you design, make and evaluate a puppet at home using household objects?
• Can you create a story about your puppet?

This half term Year 1 have been learning and writing journey stories.

We started by learning a story called ‘The Papaya That Spoke’. We drew a story map and added actions to help us remember it. We also used puppets to retell the story. Have a look on Seesaw to see our puppet shows!

We practised using the conjunctions ‘and’ and ‘because’ to join 2 sentences together so that we could use them in our own story writing.

Then we worked together in our classes to change the characters and the setting in the story. Panthers changed the story to ‘The Banana That Spoke’ and Lions chose ‘The Watermelon That Spoke’. We worked hard to learn the new story by heart before working hard to write the new story down.

Finally this week we have been working independently to change the story ourselves. We are trying hard to keep our handwriting neat with clear ascenders (tall letters) and descenders (letters that sit below the line). We have also been thinking carefully about the punctuation we use and our spelling.

How to Support at Home

• Ask your child to tell you their new story – you could have them retell alongside the recording on Seesaw
• When reading stories at home have a go at changing the characters and settings and then retell the story with your new ideas
• Continue to complete weekly handwriting homework – remember to watch your child to check they are forming each letter correctly
• Practise spelling the words on your word mats that you have at home

This week Year 1 took a trip to Bushey Rose Gardens.

While we were walking we stopped and completed observational drawings of different landmarks which included:

Year 1 had a great day celebrating World Book Day. We all wore our pyjamas to school and brought in some of our favourite books.

We started the day altogether with an assembly. We talked about the different ways you can enjoy books and shared some of our favourite places to read. We thought it was quite funny that some people like to read on the toilet! We loved listening to some of our teachers retelling the story of ‘The Enormous Turnip’.

Back in our classes we shared our books with our friends – we told our class why we liked the books we had brought in and even had a chance to read some of them.

Whilst dressed in our pyjamas, we also did some maths and some science. Panthers enjoyed reading the story ‘Poo in the Zoo’ and then investigating some ‘poo’ to find out if it had come from an omnivore, carnivore or herbivore.

We finished the day with a ‘Surprise Reader’.

If you would like to volunteer to come in and be a Surprise Reader please do let us know.

How to help at home 

• Visit Bushey library – try looking in a different section to the part you usually look at, or choose a book you wouldn’t normally choose.
• Share your favourite book with some of your family members, maybe an auntie/ uncle, grandparent. Perhaps a younger brother/sister would like to see your favourite book.
• Make up your own story – where will your story be set? Which characters will you have in your story?

This week in Year 1 we have been learning how to subtract by counting back. We  used the taking away story of first, then and now. For example, first there was 16 birds on a tree, then 8 flew away, now there are 8 birds.

After this we practically moved counters from the first to then and finally to now when reading different equations.

We then consolidated our learning by completing missing parts of different taking away stories.

How to help at home:

• Use teddies or toys to complete your own taking away stories using the vocabulary first, then and now.
• Recall the inverse of the number bonds to 10/20 e.g 10-7=3.

Andy Goldsworthy

Over the last few weeks we have been looking at Andy Goldworthy’s sculptures. We found out that Andy Goldsworthy uses natural materials to form his sculptures. For example he uses sticks, rocks, leaves and even cow dung!

We used the natural objects found in our forest area to design and make our own sculptures. We followed our designs carefully and then created our very own sculpture.

Here is some of our beautiful artwork:

How you can help at home:

• Design and make your own sculptures using natural materials from the park.
• Can you evaluate your work by giving it two stars and a wish?

The children looked splendiferous as they entered school today! We really enjoyed becoming word detectives to find out the meaning of new words as well as celebrating the range of words we knew. Some children celebrated words in their home language, others chose words from their favourite sport and some from books, conversation and films! We had words ranging from illuminate to electric.

We particularly enjoyed taking part in the Vocabulary Parade, and finding out about our friends’ words and what they meant. By the end of the day many of us had learnt lots of new words!

We want our children and learning community to be excited about words, to celebrate new words learnt and be curious to find out the meaning of unknown words. Learning words is really important; the more words your child knows, the more it will help them at school. By working in partnership, the children here at Merry Hill will become skilled word learners. Below are some exciting ideas to try at home.

How you can help at home:

• Cooking – Cooking together involves co-operation, planning, reading, listening and lots of vocabulary – all skills you need to succeed in school, as well as being great skills for life. https://www.cookuk.co.uk/children-index

• Get crafty – Crafting and/or constructing with your child provides lots of time for talking. Try and listen more than talk, and comment more than question. This website will give you further ideas, but you can do great things with bricks or by cutting up old cereal packets.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups

• Reading and talking – Reading books to your child is a great way to develop your child’s language. Books expose children to more complex language. For children who are learning to read, hearing stories can make them more enjoyable. For confident readers talk about what you have read together to further develop their understanding.

• Get your child involved in planning parties or trips – this involves lots of talking, thinking and planning. ‘Who will be coming? What will you need to do? What food will you need? What can you do before? Who needs to do what?’ and maybe even ‘ How can we keep costs down?’

• Play word games – see the attachment within Merry Hill Matters this week

In week 2 we learnt about the difference between birds and mammals. We learnt that birds have feathers and beaks.

In week 3 we learnt about fish. We know that fish breathe under water with gills. We put animals into groups of mammals, birds and fish.

• Create a fact file about your pet or favourite animal.
• Can you go on an animal hunt and find different mammals and birds at the local park?

This half term in computing we are learning about e-books.

We started the topic off by looking at books and e-books and comparing them – what’s the same and what’s different. We noticed that e-books could make sounds and sometimes the pictures move too.

In week 1 we used Purple Mash to have a go at making some of our own pages for an e-book. We used the paint tools to add pictures, and then the keyboard to write a sentence that could go with the picture we had drawn. We saved our work so that we could go back to it in the next lesson.

In week 2 we learnt that when a picture moves on a screen this is called an animation. Animation was our word of the week.

We used the ‘My Work’ folder to find and open our work from the previous week. Then we used the tools on ‘2Create a Story’ on Purple Mash to animate the pictures in our e-books.

At the end of the lesson we made sure to save our work again so that we can continue adding to it over the next few weeks.

How to support at home: 

• Visit the Oxford Owl website using your log in, how are these books the same/ different to your phonics reading book that you bring home?
• Choose a favourite story – how would it look as an e-book? Which pictures could you make move? Could you add any sound?
• Think back to our learning about Louis Braille – how might an e-book be helpful to someone with a visual impairment?