Year 1 – Rabbits

Our Amazing Work!

In writing, the children have been using the story book Tiddler the story telling fish by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler to inspire their writing. Our current focus in using accurate punctuation. All the children have been working hard to ensure they include finger spaces between words, capital letters and full stops.

In the outdoor year 1 classroom the children have taken part in lots of activities to develop their fine motor skills, maths, writing, phonics and art. For example, the children have been creating their own stories through drawing and Lego, re-creating stories in the water tray, practicing writing words and creating rabbits from our ‘junk’ modelling.

The children have really enjoyed learning all about computers and their parts during our weekly visits to the computer room. Some children have even designed their own computers and laptops.

2022-2023

Year 1 have started the Summer term off by looking into the traditional tail, The Three Little Pigs. The children were tasked with creating their own house, like the three little pigs, with resources only found on the floor in forest school.

During design and technology day, year 1 explored mechanisms. They learnt how to make moving pictures and objects with levers, pivots and sliders. The children then designed and made their own ‘Wild Thing’ after studying the book Where the Wild Things are by Maurice Sendak in both their writing and PE lessons.

Year 1 are currently exploring the story Where the wild things are by Maurice Sendak in both their writing lessons and PE, by creating a dance to the story. To continue the theme of wild things the children created wild thing sculptures in forest school out of clay, twigs, stones and leaves and attached their ‘wild things’ to trees, logs, fences and posts. The children thoroughly enjoyed this activity and it gave them lots of exciting ideas, which they will be able to use in their writing next week, where they will be drawing their own wild thing and describe them.

Last week (10th -19th March) was British Science Week, so year 1 took part in two fun experiments. Firstly, the children explored solids, liquids and insulation during their ice experiment to help them answer this question: What makes ice turn into a liquid quickest?

In our second experiment the children explored density in an exciting way by seeing if they could make raisins dance. They dropped raisins in still water and then in fizzy water. The children learnt that the air bubbles in the fizzy water attach themselves too the raisins causing the density (the mass) of the raisins to change, allowing them to float upwards (dancing).

During both experiments the children learnt how to safely conduct a simple experiment, predict and discuss their findings.

This week after hearing the story The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers, the whiteboard pens and glue sticks in year 1 decided to do the same. They sent a letter to the children in Rabbits class telling them that they quit because they were tired of their lids being lost, causing them to dry out. To help persuade the whiteboard pens and glue sticks to come back, the children wrote them letters, promising to take better care of them.

We have been using the story book ‘Lost and Found’ by Oliver Jeffers in English this term, which revolves around a penguin being lost. Miss Vickery brought in her own toy penguin for the class to look after reading the story to the children. However, the penguin disappeared over the weekend and left snowy flipper prints on the carpet in our classroom. To help find the penguin the year 1 children all created posters, using exclamation marks and questions marks, to encourage other adults and children around the school to look out for him. Luckily their posters worked, as Mrs Gisbourne found him near an icy puddle.

In geography the children have continued to explore the seasons and begun to learn about different types of weather and how it affects us. When out in the continuous provision this week, the children noticed that ice had formed in our water tray. We all explored the ice and discussed how it was formed.

Now the children have a good understanding of numbers 0-20 they have been finding one less and one more of any number. They have also started to compare the numbers using the words and symbols greater than (>), less than (<) and equal too (=).

Year 1 have started the Spring term off by learning all about teen numbers. The children have really enjoyed the maths continuous provision and it has greatly improved their understanding of numbers 0-20.

Children across the school took part in an art day where they all created a relief print. The children in year 1 created three-dimensional winter scenes and images, which they then painted before printing onto paper. I was so impressed with their determination and enthusiasm during this project.

Christmas Jumper Day in year 1!

Year 1 took part in the reception and key stage 1 production Christmas with the Aliens. The children performed so well and sang their hearts out! Here are their wonderful costumes.

This week the children have been learning about two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes in maths. They have loved using the outdoor provision to explore this topic.

In science and geography we have been learning about the seasons. To help consolidate our learning, the children created a seasons calendar to take home for 2023.

Year 1 have been using the computers to create digital paintings. They have been creating firework images to go with their firework poems in English.

When the children aren’t completing set work during their English and Maths lessons, they are given tasks and challenges to complete in the outside area.

Here are some examples of their work.

During PE this week the children applied their knowledge and skills of balances and travelling onto the apparatus. They explored a variety of balances, using different body parts to support them.

Year 1 have worked super hard during our DT day. They learnt and practiced lots of new skills like tying knots, plaiting, threading and cutting.

This week year 1 have been learning all about the Gunpowder Plot and how we still celebrate the Gunpowder Plot’s failure.

Year 1 had a fantastic DT day building strong and stable underwater themed dioramas. The children were influenced by the story Tiddler: the story telling fish by Julia Donaldson. All children designed and created their own diorama along with a free standing structure.

The children are beginning to add in maths using part-whole models.

In science we have been learning all about the human body. Year 1 performed a simple experiment to find out the answer to this question: ‘Are older children always taller than younger children?’ The children measured their heights and put themselves in order from the tallest to the smallest. We then asked the oldest three children in the class to step forward. We found out that being the oldest in the class doesn’t mean you will be the tallest as many younger children were taller. The children found this really interesting and learnt lots of new scientific vocabulary during this experiment.

After creating their own aerial perspective maps of their classroom, year 1 were challenged to follow an aerial perspective map of their school. The children really enjoyed following the map to find different locations all around the school.

Our geography topic ‘Let’s explore Abbey Park’ began with the children learning all about maps and aerial perspective. The children had lots of fun creating their own aerial perspective map of our classroom using maths resources.