Year 1 Spring Term 1

Date: 9th Feb 2024 @ 1:39pm

It might have been a short half term, but we have certainly packed a lot in, and the children deserve a well-earned rest!

In maths they have been counting in 1s, 2s, 5s, 10s and 100s, learning about the place value of two-digit numbers, adding and subtracting using number tracks and number lines, odd and even numbers, naming and drawing 2D shapes on dotty paper, reading o’clock times and drawing hands on clocks to show o’clock times, and finding half of amounts and shapes.  In phonics and reading, everybody is working hard every day in our different groups, and we have been doing some writing about castles to practise our sentence skills.

Our big castles topic has got off to a great start and the children are loving all the lessons that support this topic.  We started with geography, learning about the town of Skipton and why it was a good place for a castle.  In history so far, the children have learned about the first castles, the parts of a medieval castle, what life was like inside a medieval castle (ask them about the toilets!) and how to attack and defend a medieval castle.  In science, we learned all about materials and their properties, which linked very nicely to why castles had to be made from stone rather than the original wood.  The children also worked in groups to make their own model castles using junk materials, so of course they had to choose the most suitable materials to make each part.  These castles look brilliant and showed us they remember all about the parts of castle they had learned in history!

Art this half term has been a big project all about making their own coats of arms, and this has involved a different key art skill for each section.  They look fantastic!

In PE, we have been busy learning about running, jumping, throwing, defending and shooting (balls and beanbags) – all key games skills – as well as continuing with our daily running.

On top of all of this, we have also fitted in PSHE lessons about medicines, E-safety lessons for Safer Internet week, RE lessons with Mrs Gilligan and computing lessons all about algorithms.  Phew! Let’s have a break …