Trotts Hill Primary School and Nursery
Welcome to Year 1
Mrs Dent and Mrs Paice are the class teachers and Mrs Masterson is the classroom assistant, and will be supporting in class every morning and most afternoons. Miss Kelly will also be supporting the children in class every morning.
We are looking forward to welcoming the children back to school and have lots of fun learning planned. In Year 1 we will be building on all the skills developed in Reception and developing our skills further through new topics and stories.
This year we will cover a variety of skills, knowledge and understanding including the following topics:
The children will be participating in PE on Wednesdays and Fridays in Autumn 1 and 2. Their PE kits should be in school every day. Wellington boots also need to be brought into school to remain here so that the children can take part in our fantastic OPAL lunchtime playtimes.
Reading books and reading records will also need to be brought into school every day. The children will be asked to place them in the reading box when they come in. Please continue to read with your children as much as possible at home and make a note in the reading record when you do.
Spelling words will be sent home to learn on a Friday (based on the weeks Phonics lessons) and will be tested the following Friday. We thank you for all your support in helping your child to practice and learn these words. We encourage the ‘Look, Cover. Write, Check’ method.
We look forward to an exciting year ahead in Year 1.
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday - Mrs Dent
Thursday and Friday – Mrs Paice
In our geography lessons we have been looking at the weather and seasons. This week we listened to the weather forecast for the next week. We then created our own forecast comparing the weather in each of the capital cities across the UK.
In English we have been looking at explanation texts all about bugs. We have enjoyed acting out and rehearsing what we wanted to write about the life cycle of a butterfly.
This week we have been designing, making and evaluating our fruit kebabs in DT. We have learnt to peel, chop and slice different fruits. Our final products tasted delicious.
This week we have been using our understanding of repeated addition to help us to double numbers.
In RE we have been looking at Holy books from different religions and this week we shared some faith stories. We discussed the moral behind the stories and why religious believers use these to guide them in their own lives. We then designed our own covers for a Holy book.
In maths this week we have been learning to count in jumps of ten. We went outside and chose different objects to represent 10 and then used these to help us with our counting.
This week the children have enjoyed taking part in Forest school. They have linked their learning to science as they were identifying the different trees in the school.
This week the children enjoyed a fairytale day and came to school dressed as their favourite character. They had a great time asking each other questions about their characters, going out to the forest school and building houses for the Three Little Pigs and planting beans for Jack.
Year 1 had a wonderful day learning about Knebworth House.
This week in DT we looked at cutting, folding and attaching materials.
This week in DT the children focused on making knots and threading needles. They showed great determination!
Year 1 classified and sorted different animals and discussed reasons why.
In English we have been reading the Jill Murphy story 'The Last Noo Noo'. We found it funny when the main character didn't want to give up his 'noo-noo', and we made our own -'noo-noo snatchers!' Then we used adjectives to describe them.
Year have been reading the book 'Knuffle Bunny' this week. We pretended to be the main characters - Trixie and Dad, and acted out what we thought Trixie was trying to say. This will help us with our next lesson where we will be writing speech bubbles for the main characters.
Year 1 made some special Christmas decorations - we measured our height using Christmas ribbon and wrapped it around our stockings. Every Christmas we wil be able to see much taller we have grown!
We were so proud of how Year 1 performed in their Christmas show - with loud and clear voices and festive dance moves. Well done Year 1!
In RE we have been learning about prayer. This week we had a visit from Mrs Dogar who came to talk to us about Islam and the Salat prayer.
This week in our History lesson we 'celebrated our sisters' as part of Black History month. We listened to the story Coming to England by Floella Benjamin and then talked about what significant things she has done in her lifetime. We then sequenced events from her story into chronological order.
In RE this week we were looking at the Jewish festival of Sukkot. This is the Jewish harvest festival, so we made some comparisons to the Christian harvest festival. The children went outside to the forest area and created their own mini Sukkahs which we then hung pictures of our favourite fruits and vegetables in.
Year 1 have been having great fun in PE creating and learning a dinosaur dance with Mr. Sapsed. Thye have been thinking about to use travel and speed to represent the movements of dinosaurs.
Year 1 have had such a super start to the new academic year and it has been wonderful to see them all coming in with big smiles in the morning ready for their learning. It's been a busy week and we have done lots of practical Maths activities, labelled dinosaurs, learnt a dinosaur dance, been on a materials hunt around school and much more! Well done Year 1!
Over the last few weeks we have been finding out about the artwork of artist Angie Lewin in our Art lessons. We have used her work to inspire our own art work. We used rollers to create a background, printed our flower and leaf shapes, and added patterned detail in black pens. Year 1 worked really carefully and conscientiously to produce these beautiful pictures.
Year 1 have been using all their place value knowledge this week to compare 2-digit numbers, using language such as 'greater than', 'less than', 'more then', 'fewer' and 'equal'. Today they rolled dice to create 2 digit numbers, made them using base 10, or drew the tens and ones on their whiteboards, and compared them using these symbols: < > = We were really focusing on explaining our mathematical thinking, using 'because' to talk about the difference in the number of tens and the number of ones. Lots of us noticed that it's the tens number that makes the real difference finding the greater or smaller number. Perhaps you can play this game at home over the summer holiday?
In PSHE this week we talked about what it means to belong to a community, the different communities we belong to and the people who help us within those communities. We hot-seated different community figures and had to guess who we were being!
Year 1 have been learning about plants in our Science lessons, and this week we went on a nature walk around the school to see what we could find. We talked about the difference between wild plants and garden plants and used a key to identify the ones we found. We carefully drew some of the plants we saw. We also talked about how fortunate we are here at Trotts Hill School to have such beautiful outdoor spaces. Perhaps you will see some wild plants and garden plants in half term - can you find out what their names are?
This half term Year 1 have been planning and designing their own hand puppets in DT. Many of them used sewing skills for the very first time, joining the fabric using running stitch. We all agreed that perseverance and determination were very important learning behaviours when sewing! Today, the children added key features to their puppets and decorated them. The children felt that independence and enjoyment were the key PRIDE learning behaviours today. Well done Year 1, it has been lovely to see all your creativity.
This week Year 1 have been reading the story of Little Red Riding Hood. They acted out the story in small groups, thinking about how to be their character using their speech, actions, voices and facial expressions. They worked well in their groups to assign their roles, and were very convincing characters! This will really help us next week when we begin writing the story in our words.
This week when Year 1 came back to school after a long weekend, we were surprised to discover that our runner bean plants had grown! When we left them on the Friday there was not one shoot but they grew lots over the weekend. Year 1 looked closely at their plants and carefully drew the stems and leaves. The children measured them and discovered that some had grown 30cm tall! We might need to think about new homes for our plants to help them grown big and strong.
This term Year 1 are learning all about Toys from the past with Mrs Paice in their History lessons. On Wednesday we enjoyed a visit from Kate from the Stevenage Museum. Kate showed us photographs of children from the past and we talked about how they wore different clothes to children today. We investigated lots of toys from the past - some were a few years old and some were over 100 years old! Kate told us that the pull-along horse was a replica of one that children would have played with in Roman times! Year 1 asked lots of thoughtful questions about the toys and thoroughly enjoyed investigating them.
This week it was lovely to welcome Year 1 back to school and some warmer weather too! We started our new Science topic - Plants. We discussed what we already know about plants and we each planted our own runner bean seeds. We drew and described the seeds. when we looked carefully we saw that they were pink, purple, brown and speckled. We have put them next to the window and will water them every day. We are looking forward to watching them grow.
Year 1 had lots of fun on their trip to Knebworth House this week. We were given a tour of the house and looked at lots of old objects from the past, such as a shield, armour, furniture, and musical instruments. We dressed up in Tudor clothes and tried our hand at calligraphy. We even found some secret doors. In the afternoon we explored the maze and playing with toys and games such as wooden skittles and croquet. We saw some dinosaurs too, and learnt lots of facts about Knebworth House.
Year 1 have been busy again this week designing their own fruit kebabs. They planned which fruits they wanted to include and how to arrange them. Then they carefully used a variety of skills to cut, slice, chop and peel their fruit. Finally they got to eat them, and the consensus was that they were 'Yummy!'
Year 1 have been busy this week taste-testing different fruit as part of our DT topic, Making Fruit Kebabs. The children were really adventurous trying some new tastes and discovering their likes and (dislikes!) Next we will be planning which fruits to use in our own fruit kebabs.
This week Year 1 have been learning about 2 digit numbers and how to partition them into tens and ones. We used different manipulatives, PE equipment, and ourselves to represent tens and ones.
Year 1 have action mats each week and have been learning different games and movements with their bodies.
Year 1 created their own aliens using play d'oh.
Year 1 focused on their listening skills when following instructions. They had to listen out for different instructions and put the cubes down accordingly.
As part of our science topic the children have been looking at their senses. The children investigated taste and smell.
Year 1 brought in their favourite toys this week. The children discussed what their favourite toy was and why it was special. The children were looking at toys in preparation for learning their new book Knuffle Bunny.
Year 1 are currently reading The Last Noo Noo by Jill Murphy. The children created their own NooNoo catchers and described them.
Year 1 investigated different shapes. They learned about 3D shapes. The children created 3D models and then listed the shapes that they had used.
