Year 1AI: Blog items
Date: 4th Jan 2022 @ 6:42am
Happy New Year Everyone!!!
It is 2022!!! It sounds a bit strange saying this date! I hope you have all had a fantastic Christmas holiday and are raring to get back to your learning in school. The spring term in Year 1 is always a busy one with lots of new learning happening as well as making sure we know how to do the basic skills in reading, writing and maths that was covered in the Autumn term.
I am looking forward to seeing everyone on Wednesday 5th January.
Mrs Iqbal
Date: 4th Jan 2022 @ 6:36am
Look at us eating our Christmas Dinner!!! We had turkey (halal choice as well), brussel sprouts, mashed potatoes, roast potatoes, carrots and gravy.
Yum!!!
Date: 4th Jan 2022 @ 6:32am
It was Christmas Party Day where we came to school wearing our party clothes. We played games, did lots of dancing, ate some party food and also had a very special zoom visitor - SANTA!!!!
It was a fun day!
What a busy December so far!!!
Date: 12th Dec 2021 @ 6:34pm
Hi Everyone!
What a busy few weeks we have had in 1AI...
A few weeks ago I got the opportunity to speak to 1AI grown ups face to face or through a telephone conversation for our first parents' evening of this academic year. It was lovely to speak to all the parents/carers and discuss how the children had settled into life in Year 1.
Last week we had not one but four performances of the KS1 Nativity 'It's a Baby!' with Year 2. It was a busy week but the children were amazing and really shone with their performances, singing and acting skills. I still can't believe that it was put together in a week!!!
Next week we have Christmas Party Day, CC experience to finish off our materials topic, Christmas Dinner, Behaviour treat along with lots of Christmas challenges in the areas around the classroom. There could even be a possibility of a visit from the Father Christmas over zoom - Fingers crossed!!!
Date: 28th Nov 2021 @ 7:19pm
In Year 1 we continue to have provision areas which are tailored to meet the expectations of Year 1 children. These provision areas are regularly enhanced to allow for independent work to be carried out through area challenges.
This week children started to think about the next text called 'Stickmen' by Julia Donaldson. We started the week by discovering some objects and played a memory game. We then realised that these objects were from the story 'Stickman.' We read the story and decided to write some questions for Mr Stick using question words such as 'what, why, when and how.'
The area challenges this week have been:
Construction/Small - Use the resources to build the Family Tree from the story.
Loose Parts - Use the parts to make objects from the story.
Reading - Read the story 'Stickman' to order the sentences and pictures in the correct order.
Writing/Phonics - Create a word mat from the story.
Maths - Play the dice Stickman drawing game.
The children really enjoyed the construction and loose part challenges. Look at the creations they have made...
Date: 21st Nov 2021 @ 7:30am
On Friday we celebrated Children in Need Day in style! We came to school wearing our own clothes or Pudsey clothes and got ready to Keep fit in style with Joe Wicks. We joined in with the nation's PE teacher and his special fitness workout. He asked questions which we had to answer by doing one of the two exercises. We got most of the questions right and they were 20 of them!
Date: 13th Nov 2021 @ 9:06pm
This half term our topic is called 'Could the three little pigs use a better material to build their houses?' To launch this theme this week we had a building challenge. We had to work in teams and test out our learning powers to build a house that would be stable. We used cardboard boxes, paper, straws, lolly pop sticks and lots of selotape and masking tape to create our buildings. They was lots of collaboration, talking, team building and decision making. At times it became challenging but the teams persevered and each each one made a house that stood up and had a roof!
Well done 1AI!!!
Date: 8th Nov 2021 @ 6:02am
Welcome Back Everyone!!
The children have come back raring to get on with their learning and have also grown a little taller!
During this term we will be answering our topic question 'Could the three little pigs use better materials to build their houses?' We will be using the texts 'The Three Little Pigs' and 'Stickman' to support our learning in English. In our Connected Curriculum lessons we will be looking at materials and their properties in science and use design and technology skills to build and design objects. Attached are the parent overview and knowledge organisers for this half term's learning.
Date: 17th Oct 2021 @ 8:05am
Maths is one of our Key Priorities in school this year. In Year 1 we have started a project called 'Mastering Number' which allows children to use lots of concrete resources to help them to understand number bonds, odd, even numbers and concepts such as ordinal numbers and doubling and halving numbers.
We have a maths star this week who has used the ideas in our mastering number lessons and independently went to the maths area to find the number bonds for 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 using the part whole model and cubes. Well done Hussain!!! He even went to show Mrs Thewlis and Miss Wendt the photograph and explained what he did! Great Job!
Date: 10th Oct 2021 @ 7:16am
In Year 1 on Friday's we consolidate our maths learning from the week and take part in some challenges. This year we are part of a project called 'Mastering Number' which will allow us to explore number using lots of different representations (visual images) like tens frames, reknereks, dice patterns and something called a Hungarian dice pattern. Last week we explored the concept of early addition and adding two groups of objects together using part whole models and tens frames. We have also become much more confident at using the iPads to support our learning in class and have been playing some addition games. We have used the game called robot addition on the 'Topmarks' website.
Why not have a go at home by clicking on these links:
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/5-7-years/addition-and-subtraction
Date: 10th Oct 2021 @ 7:02am
On Sunday 10th October is Mental Health Awareness Day. In school on Friday 8th October to support this we took part in 'Take 10' to promote health and well-being through the love of reading. The Take 10 Challenge encourages people to read for just 10 minutes a day to improve their wellbeing and support their literacy.
We tried this in school on Friday by stopping everything and reading/look
ing at a book for 10 mins in the morning. We listened to the author Tom Percival reading a page from his new book called 'Silas and the Marvelous Misfits.' He then set us off on our take 10 minutes reading challenge. We had a very peaceful and reflective time enjoying the books in the classroom. During the day children went to the reading area and continued to read for pleasure during area time. Why not try this at home...?
Date: 3rd Oct 2021 @ 3:23pm
In the Year 1 classroom this year we have an area called 'Loose Parts.' In this area children are provided with lots of different things such as buttons, pebbles, cotton reels, plastic cogs and wooden sticks to name a few. Each week there is a new challenge that children must do by creating lots of diiferent models. To extend children's learning they are encouraged to do some independent writing by writing labels, captions or sentences. 
Over the last few weeks children have been creating characters from the story 'My mum is a Supermum.' They have also created some superhero characters and scenes from the story.
Different representations of Numbers
Date: 27th Sep 2021 @ 9:07pm
In Maths we have started our work on Place Value. This means understanding all about number by sorting objects, counting them and knowing how different numbers can be made using lots of different resources.
We explored using the different equipment in Year 1 such as Numicon, tens frames, counters and bead strings to make a number that was given to us.
Date: 27th Sep 2021 @ 9:00pm
Last week we started our ICT lessons in class. We started the lesson by beginning our work this half term all about esafety. We started the discussion about what it means to be safe online and had a chat about what personal details are with some examples. 
After that we got an opportunity to use the class IPADs and understand how to handle them correctly. In pairs we took turns to play a counting game using the website called Topmarks.
What a great start to Year 1!!!
Date: 20th Sep 2021 @ 9:39pm
What an amazing first few weeks we have had in 1AI!!!
The children have very quickly settled into the routines of Year 1 and we are working our way through understanding our new timetable. The children have been very busy exploring the areas in Year 1. We have started to think about our topic question called 'What makes me Incredible?' and we launched it by having a Superhero Day. In English we have also started to think about our new story called 'My Mum is a Supermum.' We have been looking at the main character called 'Milo' and have written some labels to describe him. Phew!
This is just the beginning! Watch the video below to get a glimpse into our first few weeks in Year 1....
Date: 14th Sep 2021 @ 10:12pm
Welcome to 1AI's blog page. I can't believe it has been a week since the children started school!
The children have been amazing and are becoming much more confident at remembering the routines of Year 1.
Keep watching this space for weekly blogs about all the fantastic things that we do in class!
Date: 18th Jul 2021 @ 10:03pm
This half term in one of our PE lessons we have been working on a dance sequence linked to our topic work and science work all about African animals. Over the last few weeks we have thought about how animals move in the African Savannah and used the space available to think of some animal movements. We then worked in a small group and put these movements together into a short dance sequence to the rhythm of 8 beats.
Date: 8th Jul 2021 @ 9:56pm
This week in our topic work we looked at different animals that can be found in Africa with a focus on animals that are in Kenya. We used some of our art skills using oil pastels to create a sunset background in an African Savannah. We used the technique of smudging to make it look like a real sunset. We then used black card to draw our animals and any other details such as trees, sunshine or the Savannah grasslands. Afterwards we cut out our shapes and glued them on to the sunset background. We were amazed by our creations and guessed each other's silhouette animal shapes!
Date: 8th Jul 2021 @ 9:49pm
In our Science work this week we have been looking at the different categories of animals such as amphibians, mammals, reptiles, birds and fish. We have identified animals in each catergory and thought about the features of each animal. After that we discussed the different parts of an animal and how they all have different things that help them to survive. Some of the parts included tusks, tails, shells, fins and tentacles. We chose an animal from one of the categories and used our observational skills to draw the animal and label the different parts of that animal using the correct vocabulary.
Date: 1st Jul 2021 @ 9:42pm
This week we managed to finish our Masai shields with Mrs McAffer. We used oil pastels to design the front of the shields. Then we sewed some wool all around the edge of the shield. This showed what the stitching would look like on a real shield.
Watch the video below where we are showing our amazing shields...
Date: 27th Jun 2021 @ 7:25am
This week we have been working with Mrs McAffer for our Art lesson. She introduced us to sketch books and what they are used for. We then used our sketch books to start to put our ideas in them all about Masai Shields. We learnt about the Masai tribe and the type of shields they have. This week we have been researching and designing some sketches of shields. Watch out for next weeks blog when we will have finished the shields!!!
Date: 20th Jun 2021 @ 4:30pm
We have been very busy in 1AI since the launch of our current CC topic question 'How do we get to the Masai Mara?' After the launch in our reading and writing sessions we have been using a non-fiction book all about Kenya. We have been learning lots of facts about Kenya and then having a go at writing the facts that we can remember or that were interesting to us.
We then collated all these facts and started to think about the features of an information text. In an information text we learnt that we needed a title, subheadings, picture/diagrams and facts as sentences.
Look at our information texts!!! We planned what sections we wanted to include in our information text and then took our time writing the information and adding pictures and diagrams. We have worked really hard and they will now go on display on our CC display in the classroom.
Date: 13th Jun 2021 @ 10:39am
Welcome back to the last half term of Year 1!!!
The children came back to school this week buzzing with excitement right from the start with the launch of our final CC Topic question - How do we get to the Masai Mara?
On Tuesday we had Africa Day where we came to school dressed in brightly coloured clothes and did a range of activities to get us started in our learning for this half term.
We....
- Made some Masai Mara tribal necklaces
- Learnt some Swahili greetings
- Learnt some African dancing
- Did some African drumming using djembe drums in class
- Created some African patterns by looking at some printed fabrics
- Created some Kenyan flags
- Used the green screen technique to dress us as someone from the Masai Mara tribe in the Kenyan Savannah
Phew!!! It was a busy day! Look at the video below with some our wonderful creations and African Savannah photos. Enjoy!!!
Date: 30th May 2021 @ 9:40am
In the final week of using the text Oliver’s Vegetables we innnovated the story by changing vegetables to fruits. We discussed different types of fruits, tasted some and thought of adjectives to describe the taste. We innovated the story by rewriting it where Oliver pulled out fruit instead of vegetables.
In CC we carried out a DT project where we designed, made and evaluated our very fruit salad. During this work we focussed on our cutting, slicing and chopping skills using a safe wooden knife. The class smelt very fruity!!
Date: 23rd May 2021 @ 11:02am
On Friday Darcey shared a very special certificate to the class. She has joined a local cheer leading sqaud and had her first sessions last week. She shared the certificate her cheer leading taecher awarded her and Darcey even showed the class some of her moves!!!
Well done Darcey!
It's great to hear what the children get up to out of school!!