Year 1

This week in Year 1 we have been learning about 3D shapes. A 3D shape is a solid shape. They are made from surfaces that can be flat or curved.

We looked at five shapes; cube, cuboid, cylinder, cone and sphere – and we used stem sentences to describe the properties of each shape.

We then sorted the shapes and talked about the fact that although the shapes within a group (e.g. cuboid) may be different sizes, the shapes were still the same as they had the same properties.

Finally, we took our 3D shapes on a tour of the school to see if we could find objects to match the shapes.

How to help at home:

• Encourage your child to use the stem sentences (see photos above) to describe a cube, cuboid, cone, sphere and cylinder.
• Go on a shape hunt around your home to look for objects that are the same as the 3D shapes.
• Encourage your child to take photos of the objects they find and upload them on to Seesaw.

This half term, our little explorers have been diving into the fascinating world of the United Kingdom!

We began by learning that the UK is made up of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The children enjoyed discovering each country’s capital city and recognising their unique flags.

This week, we have taken a closer look at England. Our young geographers have been using atlases, maps and Google Earth to locate and learn about different places across the country. They were excited to discover England’s highest mountain, longest river and a range of famous landmarks. It has been a wonderful journey of exploration! Some children were especially enthusiastic to spot places they have visited themselves, including the Lake District and the River Thames.

Over the next few weeks, we will be exploring Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales in more detail. We are looking forward to hearing about any personal experiences the children may already have of these countries and discovering even more important landmarks together.

How to help at home: 

• Spend some time looking at maps and atlases – can your child find some of the places they have visited on them?
• Use Google Earth – can you find your house? Merry Hill School? Other significant places?
• As you walk/ drive around, look out for human (built by humans) and physical (naturally occurring) features.

Over the past few weeks, our English unit has been ‘Stop! That’s Not My Story!’  During this unit, we have been reading traditional tales and learning about their features.

We then used what we had learned and created our own stories. We thought carefully about who the main characters might be; where they would like to visit and what they would see. We also considered what we would do as the hero of our traditional tale.

We used some of our lessons to write our ideas into sentences in our books. Before we wrote our sentences, we talked about how important it is to say the sentence first. This is so that we can be really clear about what our sentence will say and the words we will need to write.

We also reminded ourselves of some important rules for writing a sentence: use a capital letter at the start; use finger spaces between words; use a full stop at the end.

When we had written the first draft of our stories in our books, we then copied them neatly onto paper so that we could create our own story books! Our final task was to share our fantastic stories with the Reception children!

This week in Maths we have been learning about the teen numbers.

We have been thinking about each number as 10 and some more. For example, 11 is 10 and 1 more.

We have been using ‘Base 10’ equipment to show the tens and ones within these numbers.

We also looked at the numbers written as a number and as words. We noticed these patterns:

• The numbers 13 – 19 all end with the word teen, and that teen is quite similar to the word ten.
• 12 and 20 both have a 2 in them.
• 10, 11, and 12 all start with the a 1 but they don’t have the word teen in them.
  • When we say 14, 16, 17, 18 and 19 we say the amount more than 10 e.g.  19 is 9 more than 10 so we say nine in nineteen.

Here is some of the learning we have been doing this week:

How to support at home: 

• Practise counting forwards and backwards to 20 – make sure you say the teen numbers correctly i.e. nineteen instead of ninety
• Use your toys to represent tens and ones e.g. Lego. Practise exchanging 10 ones for 1 ten and vice versa.
• Look out for numbers in the environment, can you spot any teen numbers? How many more than 10 is each number that you find?

Over the past few weeks, our English unit in Year One has been based on traditional tales. We began by looking at and talking about some of the traditional tales that we know – ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, ‘Cinderella’, ‘The Three Little Pigs’ etc. We then listed some of the features that we often find in traditional tales:-

• They often include repeated phrases
• They may include animals that behave like humans (e.g. they can talk)
• The names of the characters often tell the reader more about their appearance or traits – e.g. The Big Bad Wolf
• They usually include happy endings

We read the story of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ by Marc Barnett and Jon Klassen – which you can find by following this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9Pf1wYzh_Q

In groups, we then made stick puppets of the characters and retold the story, which we filmed and uploaded to Seesaw – we hope you have had a chance to see them! We talked about the characters and wrote some sentences to describe them.

Our next task was to have a go at writing our own story boards based on The Three Billy Goats Gruff.

We then shared the story of ‘The Princess and the Pea’ by Rachel Isadora, which you can see by following this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0d0SGoeiTI

We retold the story using stick puppets and then we looked closely at the pictures in the story. We learnt that the illustrations in a book can help the reader to understand what is in the writer’s mind. We wrote some sentences to explain what we could see in the pictures.

How to help at home:-

• Watch the stories of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ and ‘The Princess and the Pea’ using the links above.
• Share some other traditional tales with your child. Can they find the features of a traditional tale listed above?
• Encourage your child to look closely at the illustrations and talk about what they can see.
• Encourage your child to create their own traditional tale.

On Tuesday and Thursday, Year One came in to school very excited for their trip to Reveley Lodge. We helped each other to put on the high-vis jackets and listened carefully to which group we were going to be in and then we were off!

We walked all the way, keeping safe as we looked and listened carefully when we crossed the roads. We proudly represented Merry Hill School in front of members of the public and said lots of “Thank you’s” to people, dog-walkers and cars who stopped so that we could go on our long journey. Miss Honnor and Mrs  Gavriel were both very proud.

When we arrived at Reveley Lodge, we recapped what we’d learnt so far in History this term. We remembered that ‘History is learning about the past’, that ‘significant means a person or a thing that is important’ and that Queen Victoria is significant because she made a change to schooling which has lasted all this time. Queen Victoria made schools free for everyone so children did not have to go to work anymore.

The adults at Reveley Lodge told us a bit about the house and what it would have been like to live there, then we got dressed up to look like Victorians. The girls wore smocks and the boys had waistcoats.

In the stables, we learnt how the laundry would have been done before electricity was invented. We were interested to find out how they used a dolly tub, a dolly stool and a posser to wash the clothes. We watched how they turned a bar of soap into soap powder by shaving it! We thought this was very exciting! We saw the mangle they would have used to get the clothes dry enough to hang out on the line and were very pleased to be allowed to have a turn to test out these artefacts.

We also spent some time in a pretend Victorian classroom. We already knew that when Queen Victoria first became queen, the children had to pay to go to school but we were very excited to hold and see the coins that they would have paid with! Unfortunately… some of us had forgotten our coins so had to explain to the school inspector why!

We had a go at writing on a slate board with a slate pen and the inspector came to visit whilst we were there and checked we were using our right hands. She looked in the attendance book and the punishment book. Some children had broken the rules and pretended to have the cane! We heard it swishing through the air and imagined what it would have been like for the poor Victorian children who really were hit in the past.

Our last task in the school room was to improve our posture and deportment (the way we stand and walk). To do this, we were given a book and we had to balance it on our heads as we walked around the room. We really enjoyed this and had a lot of fun seeing who could balance the book on their head for the longest time!

Finally we had some afternoon tea. The adults taught us how to hold the tea cups correctly and how to put just enough jam on the bread for one mouthful. We also enjoyed the Victoria sponge cake. We had a great time at Reveley Lodge and learnt so much. We want to say an enormous thank you to our fantastic LSAs and parent helpers who helped to make the trip possible.

How to support at home 

• Visit Reveley Lodge with your family – show them some of the things you now know about
• Look out for old houses and buildings when walking – what do you think they were like in the past?
• Talk to grandparents about their lives growing up – what was the same? different?
• Visit the library – look in the History section to find out more about life in the past.

 Last term, our Year 2 children were captivated with their learning about The Great Fire of London. 🔥 This term, they took their history knowledge a step further by designing and creating their own Tudor houses in D&T!

Using what they’ve learned about structures, they carefully crafted models that were strong, stiff and stable 💪—and the results were fantastic. Their creativity shone through every beam and window frame!

At Merry Hill Infant School, we’re proud to make meaningful cross-curricular links that deepen understanding and spark imagination. By linking History with Design & Technology, pupils explore the past while building practical, real-world skills. 🌟

What can you do at home?

1. Build a Mini Tudor House

Use a cereal box, paper strips and glue to create your own Tudor-style front. Add a thatched roof using shredded paper or card. Talk about why Tudor houses looked the way they did!

2. Test Strong Structures

Challenge your child to build the tallest tower they can using only paper and tape. Then discuss what made it strong—or wobbly! This mirrors our in-class focus on strength, stiffness and stability.

3. Recreate the Great Fire Timeline

Make a simple illustrated timeline showing how the fire spread across London. This helps children connect their D&T work with the historical events that inspired it.

We have had a busy and exciting start to our new History topic about the Victorians. In our first lesson, we looked closely at old and modern photographs to see how schools have changed over time. We noticed that Victorian children wrote on slate boards with slate pencils instead of using whiteboard pens, and we were surprised to see how plain their classrooms were. The children sat in neat rows, and there were hardly any displays on the walls—very different from our bright and colourful classrooms today!

In our second lesson, we explored whether all children went to school in Victorian times. We found out that children from rich families might have been taught at home by a tutor, while many children from poor families didn’t go to school at all because it cost money. Instead, lots of them had to go out to work to earn money for their families, often doing tough and sometimes dangerous jobs.

This week, we learnt all about Queen Victoria and why she is an important historical figure. We were pleased to discover that during her long reign, school eventually became free and compulsory for all children. This helped make education fairer and gave every child the chance to learn.

We are now really looking forward to our trip to Reveley Lodge next week, where we will be learning even more about life in Victorian times and experiencing it for ourselves.

How to Help at Home:

Talk with your child about how school life has changed, look at old photos together, read Victorian-themed stories, or have a go at writing on a “slate” using a small whiteboard. These small activities can help deepen their understanding and spark further curiosity.

Over the past few weeks, Year 1’s English lessons have been focused on ‘writing to inform’. This means that our writing shows that we are telling someone about something. Our lessons have been based on the book ‘Gruffalo Crumble and Other Recipes‘ by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.

We began by reading the story of ‘The Gruffalo’ and talked about the main characters: the Gruffalo, the mouse, the fox, the snake and the owl. The Gruffalo wanted to have a party with the woodland animals so that they can all be friends. Our first job was to write an invitation to the animals  from the Gruffalo.

We then shared the purpose of our writing unit, which was to write recipes for the Gruffalo’s party. We talked about how a recipe gives someone instructions to tell them what they need to do to make a particular type of food. The first recipe we looked at was ‘Terrible Tusks’. As we were reading the recipe, we talked about what makes a good recipe – a title; pictures/illustrations to help the reader see what they need to do; labels and captions; numbered instructions; simple and clear sentences; a list of what the reader will need and a photo to show the reader what the food should look like. We also looked at the recipe for ‘Fox’s Sandwiches’.

Our final task was to go into the forest to make a delicious mud pie for a Gruffalo party! We also wrote a recipe for the mud pie and tried to make sure we included as many features of what makes a good recipe as we could.

How you can help at home:

• Help your child to find a recipe for something they enjoy eating. Look at the criteria above for what makes a good recipe. How many of the criteria can they find in the recipe?
• Encourage your child to write and follow a recipe of their own e.g. how to make a cheese sandwich. We would love to see photos of the finished products on Seesaw!

ChatGPT said: