Year 1

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?

Happy New Year! We have come back from the Christmas holidays ready to learn and have been listening to and reading a range of stories which provoke different responses. Our new key text/class story is ‘I Can Be Anything’ by Diane Dillon.

In the story, a little girl dreams about what she wants to be when she grows up. She hears a voice of self-doubt speaking to her, saying she won’t be able to meet her goals. She overcomes this and stays confident.

After reading this, Lions and Panthers have written what they want to be when they grow up!

Our grammar focus this week has been:

• How words can combine to make sentences.
• Joining words and joining clauses using ‘and’ and ‘because’.
• Sequencing sentences to form short narratives.
• Using capital letters for names.
• Separating words with spaces.
• Introduction to capital letters, full stops, question marks and exclamation marks to demarcate sentences.
• Capital letters for names and for the personal pronoun I.

How to help at home:

• Encourage your child with their weekly handwriting formation homework. The more the children practice handwriting, the faster they will get at writing which will help with their flow. Ensuring the formation is correct to stop bad habits forming.
• Read a range of stories at home and upload your child reading their favourite story aloud on ‘Seesaw’. We can then play these to the class for our story at the end of the day! 🙂
• Perhaps sign up to school to be a ‘Secret Reader’ and read a story to your child’s class!

Recently in Maths, Year One have been developing their understanding of comparison.

We already understand the language of more, fewer, greater, smaller and less so have been starting to use this Maths language more fluently and confidently within our learning.

We have been working out the difference in a range of contexts, firstly practically and then by investigating pictograms.

We have also been building on the understanding of what ‘equal’ means and writing some balanced number equations in our books.

We recapped how a weighing scale works and remembered how we explored them in Child Initiated Learning in Reception.

Our key sentence for this week was:

How you can help at home:

• Make your own pictogram by investigating family member’s favourite colours or something of your choice.
• Strengthen your child’s one to one correspondence counting by lining items up to count them practically.
• Identify how many more and how many less a group has. i.e. There are 3 more santa cookies than rudolph cookies. There are 3 less rudolph cookies than santa cookies!

Have a nice weekend!

In English we have been continuing our learning about reports. After learning a report about gruffalos, we then worked together in our classes to write a report about an alien. Lions chose to write about an aliens called blobs and panthers chose to write about zappers.

This week we have been working hard to invent our own aliens and write a report about them,

First we drew a picture of our aliens and gave them a name.

Then we planned out our ideas using a text map. We practised hard telling our report lots of times so that we knew it really well.

Finally we worked hard to write down our reports. Look at some of our lovely writing,

How to support at home: 

• Visit the library and find out about an animal of your choosing. Can you use the information you found out to write a report about your animal.
• Practise writing sentences with a capital letter and full stop. You could write about a day out that you have been on.
• Remember to do your handwriting homework so that your handwriting keeps getting better and better.

On Monday and Tuesday, 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 there holding our partners hand to make sure we kept each other safe.  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 Miss Bates were both very proud.

When we got to Reveley Lodge, we recapped what we have 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 they used a dolly tub and dolly stall, and 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!

One excuse we came up with was that our grown up’s had had to use the money to buy bread so we could eat. 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.

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.

In Year 1 we have continued to learn about the 5 senses.

This week, we explored our sense of smell. We discovered that the parts inside our noses are called nostrils and that a smell is also referred to as a scent. Using our sense of smell, we tried to identify and describe various scents. It was fascinating to learn that not everyone liked the same smells! Through this activity, we enjoyed sharing our opinions and learning how unique our senses are.

We have also been learning about the sense of touch. We learnt that our sense of touch comes from our skin and that because our body is covered in skin, we can touch and feel with lots of different body parts. We thought it was great that our sense of touch can help to keep us safe, particularly if we touch something that is very hot. We enjoyed using our sense of touch to investigate what was inside different feely bags. First we felt what was inside the bags whilst wearing gloves, then we tried again without the gloves. We thought it was definitely easier to guess the objects when we could feel them with our skin.

When learning about the sense of hearing, we found out that the word noisy is used when lots of sounds can be heard at the same time. We learnt that some people can’t hear very well or not at all and that the words hearing impaired and deaf are used to describe these impairments. We enjoyed listening for loud and quiet sounds around the school and also used the musical instruments to experiment with making sounds louder and quieter.

How to help at home:

• Visit the library and look for some non-fiction books that you think will interest you.
• Find out how animals use their senses e.g. bats, snakes.
• Find out how people with impairments in their senses live their lives.

We have made good progress so far in Year One with addition, counting forwards and backwards and understanding ‘fewer’ and ‘less’.

Now we have moved onto exploring subtraction by taking away. We have modelled working out the answers by crossing out counters on a tens frame.  The children are able to identify how many are left each time.

We have been working hard as Subtraction Fact Finder Detectives! Deciding which number sentences are True or False. Our Next Step has been to rewrite an incorrect number sentence.

To provide variation and interest, we are combining pictorial representations, part part whole models, bar models and number sentences.  Our little mathematicians are becoming very confident when seeing a variety of problems, showing increased fluency and resilience and using green pen to edit if they have made a mistake! Well done!

How you can help at home:

• Make up a number sentence to go with a picture.
• Play subtraction games whilst eating dinner together. I.e. I had 7 strawberries and then I ate 5, how many do I have now?

As part of our continued work as an Inclusive School we frequently refer to  the difference between equality and equity.

Equality means that everyone has the same chances or gets the same treatment. Everyone is treated equally.

Equity means that everyone has the same chances – just like equality – but equity also means considering different people’s situations so that they really are treated fairly.

If 3 children of different heights went to watch a sporting event but found that they couldn’t see over the fence, what could we do to give them a fair chance of watching the event?

If they all got the same number of boxes to stand on (equality), it would not be fair as one child can still not see over the fence.

If they all got the number of boxes that they needed to stand on to be able to see over the fence, they would all have the same chance of seeing the sporting event with their own individual situations and needs being taken into account. Now that really is fair!

We talk to the children about many of the resources and strategies we have at Merry Hill to ensure everyone is included in the classrooms, outside on the playground and at lunch times.  Some of the things we came up with included:

• our mindfulness areas in the classroom
• writing slopes and pencil grips
• fiddle toys and our fiddle boxes
• visual timetables
• scaffolds and prompts to help us achieve something we find tricky
• having a special place in the line, e.g. line leader
• adaptations at lunch time, such as having a different tray or a designated place to sit
• visiting the sensory room and using the resources in our class sensory bags
• prompts in our learning tool kits to help us remember phonic sounds and harder to read and spell words etc.

• Have conversations that celebrate individuals and their differences
• You can listen to the story “Who Are You? by Smriti Halls being read online https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xp0LEY3YQ4
• Visit the library and see if you can find other books to enjoy that celebrate inclusion
• Encourage your child to recognise what they need to help them be successful at an activity

In English we are learning about reports.

When we came into school on Tuesday morning, we were quite shocked because our classrooms had been messed up! It looked like there had been an intruder! We used our detective skills to look for clues as to who it could have been.

We found purple prickles, brown fur, a mouse and some debris from the forest. We decided it had to have been a Gruffalo!

This week we have been working hard to learn a report about gruffalos. We made a text map to support our learning and added actions too. Have a look on Seesaw to see us telling the Gruffalo report.

To help us remember our text map we have been learning and using Makaton signs. Here is a link to the Makaton Gruffalo song if you would like to give it a go at home, too!

Then we thought carefully about sentences. We remembered that a sentence needs a ‘who’ and a ‘what’ in order for it to make sense. We read some phrases written by our teachers and decided whether it was a sentence or not. Then we worked hard to turn the non – sentences into sentences.

The children really enjoyed learning the Gruffalo report so we stayed with the theme during Fiddly Fingers and Mini Explorers. Here are some pictures of us developing our fine motor skills and creating a Gruffalo in the forest with natural materials.

How to support at home  

• Visit the library and look for information books about something that interests you.
• Make a fact file about something you know lots about.
• Write some sentences and phrases for your adult – can they tell you which ones are sentences and which ones aren’t?

This half term we have been doing weekly Art lessons in Lions and Panthers. In Week 1, we introduced our art sketchbooks and their purpose, how to use them to gather ideas and plan a final piece. After designing our title pages, we sat down and discussed the key questions: What is art? Why do we do art? What did you do in reception? We are going to be drawing a shoe to record our progress over the year. At the end of the year we will draw another shoe and see how much better we have got at drawing.

In Week 2, we introduced our focus artist called Piet Mondrian.  He is most known for his paintings of brightly coloured squares, rectangles and bold black lines. We learnt that he likes Primary colours: red, blue and yellow and that primary colours cannot be made by mixing.

In Week 3, we used the 2D shapes in our maths areas to experiment in our sketchbooks like Piet Mondrian, going around the shapes with a pencil and colouring them in.

In Week 4, we recapped Primary colours briefly before moving onto learning about Secondary colours. Secondary colours are made when you mix red, blue and yellow together, such as orange, green and purple.

In Week 5, we  learnt what a design using our word of the  day song. We learnt ‘a design is when you plan what you are going to make’.  The children used pencil to do their designs.

This was our success Criteria:

• A4 sketchbook page
• Masking tape lines- straight lines
• Using primary colours- blue, red and yellow
• Shapes- triangles and squares

In Week 6, we created our final piece by copying our design from the week before!

How to help your child with Art at home:

• Create your own Mondrian style picture and experiment with paints. Can you mix paints to make brown or a new colour which no one else knows?!
• Read the book ‘Mixed’ which is a beautiful story about primary colours and secondary colours which also touches on the value of difference and blended families.

• Watch the video of Austin’s butterfly on Youtube and discuss that when we are doing Art and want to improve our ideas, we might make different versions of the same thing and keep changing details.  Austin’s butterfly went from strength to strength every time he tried to change it and improve his idea.

In Year 1 we have been enjoying our science lessons. We have learnt what science is and have been keen to learn more about ourselves and the seasons.

We learnt that science is:

When learning about our senses we found out that living things, like humans, have 5 senses. We identified the body parts that link to each sense and we are enjoying learning more about each sense.

Whilst thinking about sight we were interested to look at each others’ eyes and find out what colour they are. We learnt how sight helps to keep us safe, and how it helps us in everyday life. We thought about what it would be like if we couldn’t see, and how it might make some things a bit more tricky. We learnt that people who can’t see sometimes have a special dog called a guide dog to help them.

We experimented with our sight by throwing bean bags in to buckets. First we did it using our eyes as normal, then we challenged ourselves to do it with 1 eye covered up then both eyes covered up. We noticed that it was much more difficult to do when we couldn’t see at all.

We have been continuing our learning about senses during our English lessons. We learnt a senses poem about the dining hall and have been working together in our classes to plan a senses poem about the forest. We particularly enjoyed tasting hot chocolate to help us come up with some ideas for the taste part of our new poem!

How to support at home

• Visit the library and look for books about the 5 senses
• Learn a favourite poem by heart and practise saying it with fluency and expression
• Think of different ways you could test your senses
• Choose a new place e.g. the kitchen, think about the different things you can see, hear, smell, touch and taste. Use your ideas to write your own poem.

This half term in Maths, we have been focusing on our number skills.

We have been working hard to perfect our number formation using our number rhymes to help us.

We have been practising representing numbers in different ways.

Then we used the language ‘more’ and ‘fewer’ to compare amounts and have practised identifying 1 more and 1 less. We used bead strings, dice and counters to help us. The most exciting lesson was where we rolled dice, subitised the value on their face and then entered the numbers we rolled into a Purple Mash pictogram. Much fun was had. The children discussed which table rolled the most threes, the fewest ones and so on. “We rolled fewer sixes!”

This week we have been practising regrouping numbers in to 2 parts and showing on a part part whole model.

How to help at home 

• Practise reading numbers when out and about e.g. door numbers, on drain covers.
• When eating dinner compare the amounts of different types of food on everyone’s plates e.g. who has more pasta? How do you know?
• Count how many crisps (or other snack) you have – practise identifying 1 less each time you eat one.
• Use your toys to represent numbers in different ways. Can you split them in to 2 parts and record on a part part whole model?
• Play Numbots to help improve your number fluency skills.