Write away!

The children have really settled in to the swing of things now and have got used to the new routines. Many children have really risen to the challenge of being independent but there are just a few who need some gentle reminders. It would be a huge help to all staff, if you could encourage your child to come into school on their own from now on, as we do seem to getting a bit of traffic jam at the moment in the area! Also, as the weather is now getting cooler, the children do need a coat in school every day for the playground.

Literacy

This week, we are focussing on writing, based on the work we have been covering on Stories with a familiar setting. The children have read lots of stories, but they will be asked to write a story based on an experience of when they couldn’t get to sleep...(maybe a bit early to start talking Christmas!)

They have been talking about the ‘Story Mountain’ and have been looking at sequencing the main ideas in a story:

1. The beginning
2. Something happens
3. The exciting bit
4. Events to sort it out
5. The ending

There are even some actions to go with these headings, so see if they can remember them when you are next reading your bedtime story!

BY the end of the week, the children:

Must be able to write three simple sentences to retell events based on personal experience.
Should be able to use an opener to begin each sentence.
Could write a story based on personal experience using openers and more adventurous vocabulary

Homework

The children have been working really hard on their spelling homework and we can see that some of it is being transferred into their independent writing. Just as a reminder, we do assess the children’s ability to remember the spelling patterns from their homework on a Monday morning. A couple of children handed their homework in early, so had forgotten them. Little and often is the key! Try to do 5 minutes each day, rather than a 40 minute session on a Sunday.

You should also find a coloured sheet of paper in their homework book this week, with the letter formations on. It would be helpful if you could support your child by ensuring that all writing in homework books, uses the same formation as we teach in school. Many thanks for your support with this.

High Frequency words

The children have been assessed on their high frequency words last week and the lists in the front of their diaries have been updated. The children are required to spell these words on three separate occasions, before it is ticked as being known. This is to ensure that they are truly embedded and not simply learned for the ‘test’. A big thank you to the parents who have been working with their children at home on their words . There are lots of links on previous blog posts, for you to support your child.

http://www.longman.co.uk/books/contents.htm some lovely online books for you to share at home with your child
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/starship/english/games/story_plant/small_no_sound/standard2.shtml I put this link on a couple of weeks ago and it proved so popular, I have included it again! We would love to read some of the stories that come out of this site!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/magickey/adventures/patch.shtml click on the game to practice ordering a sentence.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/magickey/adventures/index.shtml choose any of these ‘adventures’ to help with lots of areas of literacy
http://www.lancsngfl.ac.uk/curriculum/literacy/lit_site/html/fiction/bigbooks/groovyg/index2.html a lovely book, which does read the text for you. We will run the risk of spoiling your fun and say that we discover there are red apples in a 'groovy garden', which some animals like the look of. Make a note of the animals when they appear as you can't click back to them. However when said animals come to eat the apples, they find there are none left. What could have happened? Over to you...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/stories/colour/ourhouse.shtml Print out the pictures and write your own story about being at home.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/jackanory/create/picture_story.shtml ooh, remember 5 o’clock in front of the television, before your tea for Jackanory?? Well, here is the son of Jackanory – Jackanory Junior! There are some lovely stories to share on here, but why not have a go at creating your own picture story?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/drilldown/stories/2/2/1/ As we are looking at stories with familiar settings, these links give you some great ideas for writing about everyday life.
http://demo.iboard.co.uk/screens/thread_home.htm?thread_id=16 for those children working on writing their own sentences, a good place to start is this site, using a wordbank to help.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/literacy/phonics/index.shtml There are lots of fabulous games to practice both Literacy and Numeracy. There is also a sheet that can be downloaded, to check how much your child has retained!
http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/ngfl/english/caerphilly/adjectives/index.htm This is a really good site to illustrate to the children just how important adjectives are when writing an interesting story.
http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/ngfl/english/caerphilly/larry_the_lion/index.htm another site which uses ‘Larry the Lion’ (wasn’t he Larry the Lamb??) to help the children learn describing words.
http://www.crickweb.co.uk/assets/resources/flash.php?&file=aroundyourhome play a quiz and see if you can match objects around your home to their description
http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-writing-storymaker.htm choose any type of story to help you get started on your writing
http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-stories-short.htm fancy reading some short stories? There are some lovely ones here, all with follow up activities to support comprehension
http://vpups.com/ I came across this site, and although it is aimed at older children I think it would make a lovely activity to share at home with your child. Maybe they could print some of their characters off and bring them into school to show? http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/jeather/writingfun/writingfun.html a really useful site, which even shows some examples for you to share with your child. Click on Narrative this week and then select numbers 1 or 2 at the bottom of the screen for examples.

Numeracy

This week’s focus will be on number, particularly looking at number pairs to total 10. We will also be working on finding missing numbers in a number sentence.

Why not try the following activity to help with ‘number bonds’:

Have 10 red counters and 10 blue counters. Choose 4 red counters and place them on the table. Ask your child to choose some blue counters to make 10 counters all together. Then, write down the number sentence underneath 4 + 6 = 10. You could then repeat this for all the pairs to 10. See if your child is able to spot the patterns when they see the numbers written down.

By the end of the week, the children:

Must: be able to know addition and subtraction facts to 6.
Should: be able to know addition and subtraction facts to 10.
Could: be able to know addition and subtraction facts to 10 and can relate the number bonds to corresponding facts, for example 16+4=20

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/assets/resources/flash.php?&file=fmach the doubling machine! Enter a number into the boxes and try to guess the number that the machine will give out!
http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/games/magic-gopher-central.swf How do they do it?? I promise you, you will keep trying this one, just to see if you can beat the gopher!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/laac/numbers/ch3.shtml some of these activities are quite simple, but the missing number questions are a really good place to start for this week’s activities
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/numbertime/games/test.shtml the children are used to using jumping frogs, but how will they feel about the Toad?!
http://www.freewebtown.com/weddell/mw/add_sub/9%20and%2011.swf can you fill in the gaps in the 100 square?
http://www.ictgames.com/submarinenopad2.html add 10 to the target number
http://nwlg.org/pages/resources/ma_num/swf/y2d2a3.html a good site to help children understand mathematical vocabulary
http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/add/add.html you will need to sit with your child for this, but once they see the pattern, it should become easier
http://www.ictgames.com/safecracker.html use Z and X and the arrow keys, to move the numbers to make the number sentence correct and crack the safe!
http://www.ictgames.com/flight_for_fuel.html add three or more numbers together to make a total
http://www.ictgames.com/funkymum20.html%20%20number%20bonds%20to%2020
http://www.interactivestuff.org/sums4fun/colquiz.html add the numbers to colour the pictures
http://www.wmnet.org.uk/resources/gordon/Hit%20the%20button%20v9.swf choose ‘Number Bonds’, then bonds to 10 or 20 and select Digit. This is really good on the interactive whiteboard – it might be a good idea to remind your children that your monitor at home is NOT interactive and therefore they should remember to use the mouse when they are at home!
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/maths/num%20machine/num%20menu.html click on the number machine you want to work with
http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/working_with_coins/eng/Introduction/default.htm see if your child can see any number bond patterns when adding these coins together
http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks1/maths/guess_my_number_10/index.htm try to guess the number up to ten by following the instructions on the screen
http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/maths/guess_my_number_100/index.htm the same as the above site, but this site goes up to 100

Science

The children move on in our Ourselves topic this week, to investigating the human life cycle and looking at other animals.

They will learn that humans are animals; name the body parts of various animals; and learn about the differences between humans and other animals.

The really interesting part of this week, is when the children have to predict how they will look when they are older. A good way of doing this is to look at photographs of their grandparents, and compare their facial features and bodies with their own.

We would love the children to bring in a photograph of themselves as a baby, so we can look at how they have changed so far. I promise that this treasured photograph will be returned unscathed!

http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/thezone/animals/life/produce.htm you may have to sit with your child for this site, but there are some lovely diagrams on here to illustrate life cycles.
http://www.zephyrus.co.uk/lifeofthefrog.html life cycle of a frog – some lovely animations!
http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/games/skeleton4.html labelling a frog life cycle and skeletons
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/5_6/ourselves.shtml labelling parts of the human body and animals
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/wild/pets/ even I was fascinated by this site! It shows all the information any budding vet would want to know!

Here I Am

We conclude our topic of Myself, with a class celebration of the work we have done so far. The children will write and draw their favourite part of the topic and write a special thank you prayer. We will also be singing our favourite ‘fuzzy-wuzzy’ bear song, which I will attempt to record to put on our whiteboard!

Topic

We will be having a fun-filled week of art work...glitter – glue – clay – paper – more glitter – feathers – even more glitter...the children will be given the task of making our classroom and the area more aesthetically pleasing! They will be looking at the work of famous artists and, trying to emulate them, develop their artistic skills by using different media.

Some of the following websites are lovely and will fuel the children’s ideas for when we start with gusto on Monday. If you fancy an afternoon out, then the Lowry is very child-friendly and has lots of hands-on activities for them to try while you walk around the exhibits! http://www.thelowry.com/galleryinformation/default.aspx

http://www.museumnetworkuk.org/landscapes/themes/themesindex.htm looking at Landscapes - if you click on the materials section on the site, it shows how artists select the different materials they use to create landscape pictures
http://www.sanford-artedventures.com/play/landscape1/index.html I love this! The cartoon character guides you through various artists’ interpretations of landscapes. There is even a section on how to make your very own canvas painting!
http://www.museumeducation.bedford.gov.uk/bedfordbytes/nature/making_patterns.htm a lovely site to make patterns in nature to make a personalised piece of artwork. Maybe some of the children could print them off at home and bring them in to show!

Think that's all for this week...mmm....will we fit it all in?

Year 1 Team x

Are we sitting comfortably...?

Hi!

Welcome to the fourth week in Year 1! It feels like the children have been here for much longer, as they are really into the swing of their new learning and have been showing some real talents. I have high hopes and expectations from these children!

Notices

A big thank you to everyone who donated food for our Harvest Festival. This will all be displayed during our Harvest Mass Celebration on Tuesday morning at 9.10am in the hall. It will then be taken to St Joseph’s Welfare Centre, where it will be distributed to very appreciative families.

Labelling

Again, we have a plea. Could you please check every item of your child’s uniform and ensure that any labels with your child’s name on, are still intact and legible. Many thanks.

High Frequency Words

Your child’s high frequency words are essential to the development of their reading skills. Just 5 minutes practice each day, will have a huge impact on their learning, and will ensure that they are truly embedded. We will be testing the children on them this week and the list at the front will be updated.

Homework

Many thanks to everyone for handing their homework in on time last week. The children also had their spelling ‘test’ on Monday and many got full marks. In order to help your child with this, please could we ask that you keep your homework books in the folders, and only return them on MONDAY MORNING. This is so that they have the time to review their spellings over the weekend. Many thanks in anticipation of your support with this.

Literacy

Well, I may have been a little over ambitious about just how much we would cover in literacy last week, or is it that we went off at a tangent, due the fantastic response from the children? By popular request (and because we had so much fun) we will be continuing with our dramas, so that the children are really confident about the story that they are going to write.

When talking through our stories this week, the children will be ‘up-levelling’ their sentences in 4 different ways:

Vocabulary – how many interesting words can they use?

Connectives – make a sentence longer by joining 2 shorter ones together – because, and, so

Openers – how many different ways can they think of to start a sentence?

Punctuation – could they use an exclamation mark or question mark at the end of their sentence?

VCOP for short!

Have a go with this sentence: · I walk to school.

Mmm, we can improve this by adding vocabulary to extend the sentence :

I walked quickly to school this morning.

Then, let’s extend it even more by adding a connective:

I walked quickly to school this morning SO I was not late for the register.

Getting better! Now, how can we change the opening?

Let’s begin our sentence with an ‘ing’ word – the action (verb) in the sentence:

Walking quickly to school this morning so that I was not late for the register...

Oh – when we remember our Think it, Say it, Write it rule, the sentence doesn’t ‘sound’ right. We need to add another ‘bit’ on the end, so...

Walking quickly to school this morning so that I was not late for the register I suddenly remembered I had forgotten my packed lunch, so had to return home anyway.

Much better, but I haven’t got any punctuation!

Walking quickly to school this morning so that I was not late for the register, I suddenly remembered I had forgotten my packed lunch, so had to return home anyway!

By the end of the week, the children:

MUST be able to say 3 simple sentences about their chosen topic
SHOULD be able to write 3 sentences, changing one word, about their chosen topic
COULD be able to write at least 3 extended sentences, including a connective, about their chosen topic

http://www.sparklebox2.co.uk/literacy/writing/vcop.html a resource we use in school, but if you would like your own colour copy of this to print off at home, then it can be downloaded from this site. Get the children to cut this out and assemble it into an actual pyramid! You may recognise some of the other resources which we regularly send home, as this is a huge favourite of ours!
http://www.kelsall.cheshire.sch.uk/Parents/Parent%20Handouts/VCOP%20Mat.pdf a mat version of the VCOP pyramid http://www.sutton.lincs.sch.uk/pages/playground/zone/story/start.html ideas for writing your own stories – great to use as opening paragraphs
http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/writing_a_story_opening hints on writing a story opening http://www.midlandit.co.uk/education/writingtips.htm story writing tips http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/kids/writing/storymaker/storymaker.asp create your own story
http://www.eduplace.com/tales/index.html this is great! Enter the information requested and the programme generates a story start.

Numeracy

This week, we move onto measuring lengths, using non-standards units. This means we will be asking the children to measure the length of objects using cubes. They will then be asked to compare and order length, from the longest to the shortest and vice versa.

Challenge

Can the children put themselves in height order AND check they are right by measuring themselves in CUBES? Can they use the tape measure or metre stick to measure themselves in STANDARD MEASURES? (centimetres.)

By the end of the week, the children,

MUST be able to compare two lengths and say which is longer or shorter
SHOULD be able to measure a range of objects using non-standard units
COULD be able to measure objects in non-standard units and order them

These websites are great, but there is no substitute for using a ruler and measuring lots of objects around the house. Try encouraging your child to use the vocabulary ‘longer than’ or ‘shorter than’. Also, ask them if they can estimate whether objects are longer than a metre or shorter than a metre. Could they order them for shortest to longest?

These are some of the words that you child will encounter this week while investigating Length.

length, width, height, depth, long, short, tall, high, low, wide, narrow, deep, shallow, thick, thin, longer, shorter, taller, higher,longest, shortest, tallest, highest, further, furthest, near, close, metre (m), centimetre (cm), ruler, metre stick, tape measure

http://www.edukate.net/special_files/ruler.swf use this site to practice measuring the ‘red bar’. If you can though, measuring objects around the house is a much more practical way of measuring in centimetres.
http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/maths/measures/index.htm click on Reading Length.
http://www.crickweb.co.uk/assets/resources/flash.php?&file=ntrack ordering numbers on a number track. Can your child recognise the numbers? Are they able to order them? Can they locate the missing number?http://www.freewebtown.com/weddell/mw/ruler/ruler_cm_easy.swf measure the length of the lines using the on screen ruler
http://www.freewebtown.com/weddell/mw/ruler/ruler_cm.swf move the ruler to the line to measure it in centimetres
http://www.numeracyworld.com/addition%20worksheets.html I have been really pleased with the number of children who have been printing off some of the activities from the websites on the blog, so this is should be a big help! It has lots of printable sheets for you to print off and practice at home for all areas of numeracy. Some are more difficult than others, but have a look through for the topic we are covering this week for some extra practice.

Science

This week, we are ‘looking at’ the senses of sight and touch.

By the end of the week, the children will know:

That eyes are for seeing
That the sense of touch tells us what something feels like
How to record their observations using a chart

The children will also be linking this topic with their numeracy this week, by measuring their heights this week in our Doctor’s surgery role play area.

http://www.exploratorium.edu/science_explorer/index.html This is a great site, with lots of science experiments that can be done at home, with everyday items in your kitchen cupboard. Try the ones for sight, such as the pin hole camera!
http://www.kids-science-experiments.com/cat_senses.html some great experiments all linked to the senses. If you get to try one, please do let us know!
http://www.naturegrid.org.uk/infant/spring/bksp.html a lovely book to read with the children about the senses. Try the thinking questions at the side!

History

We are also beginning a unit of work on Famous people this week. In preparation for this, the children will be asked to talk about their favourite famous person.

Have a look through the weekend newspapers to help them choose their person. Try asking these questions:

Who is their favourite person?
Why are they famous?
What is the best thing they have done?

Challenge
If they could be this person for one day, what would THEY do?
Ooo, I can’t wait for this discussion!

Think that's all for this week!

Year 1 team x

Five great senses...let us begin!

Welcome to this week’s blog.

The children have made a great start to their learning in Year 1 and we know that we can certainly challenge these children this year with the curriculum. Mmm...might have go on a shopping spree to buy lots more GREEN clothes!!! (Ask your child what it means when one of us wears green!!)

Domestics

Thank you to all the children who are remembering to put their diaries in the box as they come into school each morning. As they are very grown up Year 1’s this year, they are ready to be more independent, particularly with their organisational skills. We have a little rhyme to help us remember where things go in our room – diary, water, snack and BAG. Some of the children have been singing this to the tune of Frere Jacques to help them remember. Give it a try and see if we can get 100% of the children remembering!

This Friday is a NON UNIFORM DAY. For this, we ask the children to bring in a donation for our Harvest Festival. The donations are very gratefully received by St Joseph’s Welfare Centre and are distributed to those more needy than ourselves. Could we request that donations are either tins or packets for distribution. Many thanks in anticipation of your support.
Our Harvest Festival Mass is on Tuesday 30th October at 9.10am in the school hall. Parents are most welcome to join us, but please remember space is at a premium in the hall.

PE

Each week for this half term, the children are following a Multi-skills programme, which a number of older children in the school have had in the past. They are thoroughly enjoying it, but getting changed just can’t happen quickly enough for them – definitely a case of more haste , less speed I think! So a plea...try to spend just a couple of minutes over the weekend practising fastening buttons and turning jumpers back from inside out. We will still help the children with ties and top buttons, but why not get your child to have a go at doing their tie this year? It was a challenge for both my daughters, but after practice, they do get there eventually – honest!

Staff

This week, Mrs Walker is going on holiday!! Well, not exactly! She is accompanying our Year 6 children on their residential to the Conway Centre. You will be missed by us all Mrs Walker and come back without too many bruises!! On Thursday, I shall be on a course, so the class will be taken by a supply teacher. Of course Miss Knight will still be here, so any messages may be passed on through her on this day.

So, what are we learning this week?

Literacy

We will be continuing with the second week of Stories with a Familiar setting, but this week sees our chance to be actors!

The children have been making bear masks to help with their retelling of the story and they will be completed this week. They will given pride of place on a display in the Key Stage 1 area, complete with writing about the story. We’ll let you know when it’s up, so you can pop in and see their work.

This week, the children will be given props, costumes, a digital camera and computers to help make up their own story about when they, or a made up character, couldn’t sleep. I can’t wait!
By the end of week, the children:

MUST be able to retell stories, ordering events using story language
SHOULD be able to explore familiar themes and characters through improvisation and role-play
COULD be able to create short simple texts on paper and on screen that combine words with images

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/starship/english/storyplant.shtml grow your very own story from the story plant

http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/learn_y4/main.asp?lesson_path=year_4/writing_stories/&lesson_file=lesson.swf&language=eng this will be useful for yourselves as well as some great sequencing activities for beginnings, middles and ends of stories.

http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/cap_letters_stops/eng/Introduction/default.htm how to use capital letters and full stops. This has some lovely activities to help click and drag them to the correct place.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/starship/english/penguinsonice.shtml Can you make the penguins take a bow? Remember to ask your child to choose the right piece of punctuation for the end of the sentence. Can they sing you the penguin song??

Numeracy

This week we will be focussing on addition. The children have remembered the rhyme taught last year of:

Count, Count, Together, COUNT.

This year, we move on to being able to recognise how these sums can be written down and making some of our own up. The children will be using the = and + symbols and learning lots of different words which mean the same as addition.

How many of these does your child already know:

+, add, more, plus make, sum, total altogether score double, near double one more, two more... ten more how many more to make...? how many more is... than...? how much more is...?
What is the total of...?

By the end of the week, the children:

MUST be able to able to add 1 more to a given number to 20.

SHOULD be able to recognise that addition can be done in any order.

COULD be able to add 3 numbers by putting the largest number first.

http://www.ictgames.com/funny_fingers_v2.html visual aid to help add numbers to 10
http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/add/add.html drag the number to the correct place on the board to make the number sentence correct
http://www.eduplace.com/kids/mw/swfs/rockhopper_grade2.html get the frog to jump across the rocks which total the number on the large rock. (It makes sense when you see it!)
http://www.ictgames.com/safecracker.html turn the safe numbers to make an addition sum which opens the safe

Challenge

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/numbertime/games/dartboard.shtml use this site to practice DOUBLING the numbers on the dartboard. You can double a number, by adding it to itself – so double 5 is the same as 5 + 5.
http://www.mathsonline.co.uk/nonmembers/gamesroom/bugs/bugrace3.html ooh I loved this one! Type 1 as the low number and 10 as the highest number to practise adding numbers to 20.

Science

We had great fun last week, learning about the different parts of the body and labelling them. The children showed great scissor skills in cutting them out, which will help to develop their handwriting skills too.
We began to learn a song to help us remember the senses and we will learn a new verse each week to help us. It goes something like this...(to the tune of Frere Jacques)

Ears, eyes, nose x2
Tongue and skin x 2
Five great senses x 2
Let us begin x 2
Ears for hearing …
Catch the sound
Listen carefully
Sounds all around
Eyes for seeing
When it’s light
Looking carefully
Colours all around
Nose for smelling
Good or bad?
Smelling carefully
Scents all around
Tongue for tasting
Sweet or sour?
Tasting carefully
Flavours all around
Skin for feeling
Hot or cold?
Feeling carefully
Textures all around

This week, we move onto being able to identify which sense we are using at any one time. We are encouraging the children to use the name of the SENSE they are using and not the part of the body, so they need to be able to say the can SMELL the toast burning in the staffroom at breaktime! (Ooo may have just given away the extent of my culinary expertise there!!)

BY the end of the week, the children:

MUST be able to identify the parts of the body related to the senses
SHOULD be able to name the 5 senses
COULD be able to say which sense they have used in relation to a task

http://www.firstschoolyears.com/science/ourselves/ourselves.htm lots of ideas and resources for you to print at home to support our topic of Ourselves.

The links from last week will help support your child in this area of learning this week.

Here I Am

This week we move on to the Relate part of our topic, and the children will learn to appreciate that our senses are a gift from God. We will be looking at David’s song of praise and writing our own litany of thanks to god for our senses. During our assemblies this week, we will also be learning a song which thanks God for ‘making me me!)

Dear God,
You know all about me.
You know when I am running round,
You know when I am sitting still.
You know when I am sleeping,
You know when I am waking.
You know when I am talking,
You know when I am listening.
Great and wonderful Creator God,
I thank you and I praise you
for creating wonderful me!

Homework

You will have received your child’s first set of homework this week. I have had some very positive feedback so far and the children have loved doing it. We ask that homework is signed by a parent each week and also, if there have been any issues with the completion of the work, that you write a short comment. This helps us tremendously in school, and also help us to ensure that your child’s homework both suitably supports and challenges them.

Here’s to a good week!
Year 1 team xx

Heads, Shoulders, Knees and smells!

First of all, thank you to all the parents who attended the Induction meeting on Tuesday evening. We hope that you found it informative and was able to answer most of the questions that you may have at the beginning of the academic year.

If you were unable to attend or have any further questions, please feel free to speak to any member of the team, who will be more than happy to help.

This week, we will be starting formal curriculum, after a successful induction period. The children are now fully in the swing of their new routines and are ready and raring to go on their learning journey this year.

Literacy

We begin the year, with a great topic for the children – Stories with Familiar Settings. This creates lots of speaking and listening activities, as the stories we will be looking at, are all situations that the children will have found themselves in.

We will be reading a lovely story called ‘Peace at last’ with the children and they will be expected to be able to talk about who the main characters are and identify the setting of the story (where it all takes place.) They should be able to use all the strategies they have been taught from last year, including using the pictures and the actual text to help them.The children will also become budding actors and actresses, as they will have to act out the story – but with a twist! They will be presented with a problem that Mr Bear will have to solve before he can get a good night’s sleep! By talking through a familiar story and changing one element at a time, the children will get lots of ideas to use in their own stories, when we come to write them next week.

We will be using this week’s literacy to introduce ‘Thinker’s Keys’ to the children. They will be encouraged to look at things from a different point of view. You could try some of these at home...

Read the story of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ as a bedtime (or bathtime) story. Try asking your child the following questions during the story:

The Prince is crying! Can you think of 5 reasons for that?

You’ve made it to the castle to rescue the princess, but the drawbridge is up! Could you think of 3 ways to get into the castle without being discovered?

Some of the ideas that the children come up with are truly amazing! Go on, give it a go! We’d love to hear some of the things they came up with, so let us know through the diaries.

By the end of week, the children:

MUST be able to identify a character and a familiar setting.

SHOULD be able to do the above plus sequence the main events from the story.

COULD do the above plus use evidence from the text and illustrations to explain their answers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/starship/english/storyplant.shtml grow your very own story from the story plant

http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/learn_y4/main.asp?lesson_path=year_4/writing_stories/&lesson_file=lesson.swf&language=eng this will be useful for yourselves as well as some great sequencing activities for beginnings, middles and ends of stories.

http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/cap_letters_stops/eng/Introduction/default.htm how to use capital letters and full stops. This has some lovely activities to help click and drag them to the correct place.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/starship/english/penguinsonice.shtml Can you make the penguins take a bow? Remember to ask your child to choose the right piece of punctuation for the end of the sentence. Can they sing you the penguin song??

The links from last week's blog will be useful for developing high frequency words recognition and spelling.

Numeracy

We begin this week with a recap of the number work from last week. The children were great at one, two and ten more than a given number, but some still need a little practice at counting backwards when doing one, two and ten less.

Encourage them to look for the patterns, particularly when adding and subtracting 10.11, 21, 31, 41, 51 etc . Are they able to spot the number that changes? Can they explain why?This will lead into the number work we will be covering this week.

We will be look at what the actual numbers mean in a two or three digit number.

A good activity to try at home, is to get two dice and roll them separately. The first number represents the number of tens, and the second represents the numbers on 1’s. So, if you roll a 3 and a 4, encourage your child to tell you:“ That’s 3 tens and 4 ones (units), so the number is 34.

Try getting them to write the number down on paper too.You could extend this, by asking them if they can tell you what 10 more/less is.

The second half of the week, we will be looking at 2D and 3D shapes. The children will be describing the number of faces and edges in the shapes and should be able to sort them according to their properties.Try to encourage your child to look for examples of the shapes in the house and when you are out and about. When the identify shapes such as cubes, cuboids, spheres and pyramids, extend the questioning and ask them how many sides the shape has; how many edges it has.

Another great activity to try, is to cut up lots of different shapes from coloured paper, and ask your child to make pictures, just by using these shapes. Maybe you could draw the shapes onto paper yourself and ask them to cut out the shapes, developing their scissor skills.

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/assets/resources/flash.php?&file=washindex For those children working or ordering numbers to 20

http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/ngfl/ngfl-flash/place_value/place_value.html a great way of explaining place value. Select Level 1 for Year 1 children and for a challenge, why not have a go at level 2? Even more of a challenge is Level 3, when it asks you to order 1000's!http://www.ictgames.com/dinoplacevalue.html can you 'partition' the numbers into tens and units?http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/maths/bgfn/number.cfm Choose how many tens and how many units make up the target number. If you click on 'check' it will even mark it for you!

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/assets/resources/flash.php?&file=Toolkit The children are used to using a 100 square in school, so this will be a big help at home, particularly when doing numeracy homework.

http://www.ictgames.com/football2.html kick the ball that shows 10 less than a given number

http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/ngfl/maths/maerdy_2d/e_index.html guess the name of the 2D shape by listening to the properties

http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/build_it/eng/Introduction/default.htm what can you build using these shapes and blocks? Encourge the children to describe the properties of the 3D shapes too!

http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/maths/mathsE3.htm you will need to be selective from these ideas, but there are lots of sheets, activities and powerpoints for you to use at home to support your child with both 2D and 3D shapes. Be aware, that some of them are for Key Stage 2, but give them a go if you fancy a challenge!http://www.crickweb.co.uk/assets/resources/flash.php?&file=MatchingPairs3Dshape why not try a memory game with 3D shapes. Some of these shapes are quite difficult to name, but you could ask your child to describe the properties them - how many faces/edges do they each have? Remember to click on start a new game to begin the activity.

Topic

We begin our science topic this week, all about Ourselves. We already have a great display in our classroom, completed by our budding Picassos!

The children will learn:

to name a variety of external body parts;
about their sense of smell and to explore various samples;
that their ears help them to hear sounds.

...and it wouldn’t be us if we didn’t include some food sampling in the week would it? Do we really eat with our eyes? Does it matter if you can’t smell the food you are eating? Does it affect the taste?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/5_6/ourselves.shtml good old Science clips! By far the best resource on the internet for science. The quiz at the end of each section is a great way to assess your child’s understanding.
http://www.ehc.com/VBody.asp this is a very detailed website, but this group are certainly very inquisitive! I would suggest that you have a look at this website first, and then sit with your child as you click through some of the animations.
http://www.ictgames.com/bodyrunner.html click on the parts of the body to see and understand their function
http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/our_bodies/eng/Introduction/default.htm click and drag the names of the parts of the body

Challenge...

http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/interactives/systems.html for those aspiring doctors out there, why not have a go at putting the internal body parts in the right place? Mmm...it took me a few attempts!
http://www.childrensuniversity.manchester.ac.uk/interactives/interactive_fs.asp?swfpath=science/bodyandmedicine/skeleton.swf find out all about your skeleton

Here I Am

Our new topic is, very appropriately, Myself. This topic encourages the children to look at themselves and appreciate how important they are in their community.

The children will:

Recognise that they have five senses
Reflect on their senses and how they use them
Respect the value of their senses

University

You thought you had years before your child went to university? Well, they actually had their very first university session on Friday! This term, the children will be attending Spanish university, taken by Professors Latham and Higgins. As you remember from last year, the children are really developing their language skills and are in fact, correcting me with my Spanish grammar!
Over the course of the year, they will attend a variety of other universities, including ICT, Multiskills, Art and Craft and Drama. The children will get to graduate from each of these universities, and will gain a diploma certificate! It has proved extremely popular last year and I know the children are glad they can take part this year!

Diaries

Your child’s high frequency words will should have been stuck in the diaries on Friday, so you are able to support their learning at home. The words highlighted in pink, are the words which your child needs to review, as they may have forgotten them over the holidays. It is important that these diaries do come into school every day, as we have messages, information and targets that we need to pass onto you. The children all know where they need to put their diaries each morning when they come into school, but just a little reminder from yourselves, would really encourage that independence even more. Also, we do love to read your comments, so please do write in the diary when you have read with your child every week. We are aiming for a 100% response rate this year, so your efforts to help us achieve this targets are appreciated. From many years experience, children who are heard to read regularly at home, make rapid progress.

School council

We held our school council elections last week and we now have two representatives who were elected by their classmates. This is very responsible role and one which the children really seem to have taken to already. They have some fantastic ideas, which they are eager to present at their first council meeting. Well done to all children concerned – you will be fantastic!

Homework

On Wednesday, your child will bring home the very first set of homework for the year. They will receive a homework book, containing their weekly spellings and a piece of maths homework. We would ask that these are returned next MONDAY morning, in the folder that they came home in. I know some of you may be keen to complete all the homework in one go and return it as soon as possible, but it would be helpful for all staff it was brought in all together on Monday, to help with storage. As discussed at the induction meeting, we will test whether or not your child has understood the spelling pattern by choosing three or four of the words and asking them to write them in a sentence, which will be dictated to them. If you have any questions regarding homework, please do see any of the team.

I think that is all for this week, but keep an eye on the diaries, as we do include some information in those too!

Have a great week!
Year 1 team x

Here we go!!!!!!!!!!!!

8th September 2008

Thank you!!!

What a great start to the new school year we had last week! The children came in brilliantly last Wednesday and were ready and raring to go in Year One. It has already been very evident that you have been working with your children over the holidays, so we should certainly be reaching for the stars this year.

Also, a huge thank you, for ensuring that EVERYTHING has been labelled. It has made such a difference and saved a huge amount of time, sorting out whose jumper belongs to who! This ultimately means that we can devote all of our time, to supporting your children's learning.

Staffing

We welcome Miss Knight to our team this year. Many of you will already have met her, as she will be seeing the children out of our classroom door each evening. We also have Mrs Walker with us each morning, with whom many of the children are already familiar.

Please feel free to pass any messages onto any member of the team, either on the playground, or through the diary. Reading books are changed on Tuesdays and Fridays each week, so if you need a reply in the diaries, they will be replied to on these days.

First Aid and Medication

Mrs Walker has asked me to inform you that unfortunately we can only administer prescribed medicines to children in school. This means that all medication brought in, MUST contain a precription label either on the bottle, box, or inhaler. It is also necessary to complete a medication form each time a different medication needs to be administered. These forms may be obtained from Mrs Walker or the school office. Many thanks for your understanding with this.

Induction Meeting

We have our Induction meeting this Tuesday 9th September at 3.15pm in my room. In this meeting, you will be given lots of information on what your child will be learning this year, how we will support them and how you can support their learning at home. You will have the opportunity to ask any questions, as well as the chance to 'sign-up' to help out in school - reading, art work, talks you can offer...we would love it and be very grateful!

Induction

For the first two weeks of school, there are lots of new routines to get used to, so we shall be following what is known as the 'Induction Process'. This may mean that your child comes home and says that they 'haven't done anything' today! Please be assured, that this is most definitely NOT the case! Lots of the information that we will be gathering over the next fortnight, will be through observations, discussions and assessments of your child. This time is invaluable for both us and your child, as we can ensure that the curriculum that we will be covering, will be tailored to match your child's needs exactly.

Literacy

We will be completing our assessments this week of the children, so that we can ensure that they are equally supported and challenged by the formal activities which will begin next week.

Included in those assessments will be the testing of the High Frequency words. As last year, once these are completed, they will be stuck into the front of your child’s diary, so that you are able to support them at home.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/hfwords/index.shtml a great site, where you have to match the shape of the HFW to its spelling

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/cvc/index.shtml choose any of these activities to help with CVC words (cat, hat, mat etc)

http://www.ictgames.com/dinosaurwordsrepeat.html you need to turn the volume up for this one! Click on the dinosaur egg to hear the word and then click on the written word that matches it.

http://www.ictgames.com/lcwc.html I love this one! You can either choose from the lists of prepared words, or you can type in the words that your child is working on. You need to click on start to begin ‘look, say, cover, write, check’.

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/assets/resources/flash.php?&file=stickyl drag and drop the letters on the green letter rack at the top of the page and then click on the ‘Send’ button to send it to the word bank.

http://www.ictgames.com/wordreader.html listen to the word and then click on the matching flower

http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/games/airport_xray.html this may bring back memories of your holidays (doesn’t it seem a long time ago?!) Scan the suitcase to find the high frequency words.

Numeracy

As with literacy, we shall be assessing just how much the children have been able to recall from last year, so that we can ‘hit the ground running’ with more formal numeracy sessions.

This week, we will be assessing the children’s knowledge of number – can they match the correct number of objects to the digit? Do they know the number names? Are they able to form the number correctly? Can they count in 1’s, 2’s, 5’s and 10’s? Can they order numbers correctly, both forwards and backwards?

A good way of practising ordering numbers (and a good way for children to check for themselves if they have got it right!) is to completed traditional ‘dot-to-dot’ puzzles. Tesco or Asda have lots of books of these ready-made for you!

Perhaps when you are putting the shopping away this weekend, you could ask your child to group things together – If I have 6 tins, how many more will I need to make 8? 10? Also, why not get your child to pair up all the socks for the family? This is a really good way of encouraging them to count in twos.

http://www.wmnet.org.uk/wmnet/custom/files_uploaded/uploaded_resources/850/calcbalancev3.swf click on the number names in the middle of the scale to match the number name to the digit. This will be a really useful site to bookmark, as we will be using it regularly throughout the year.

http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/ngfl/ngfl-flash/numbers_eng/numbers_e.html this site is useful for practicing the formation of each of the numbers. The first slide is VERY fast, so click on the green arrow on the bottom right-hand side to practice the numbers individually.

http://www.numbernut.com/basic/activities/number_mem20_1-10words.shtml play a memory game and match the number names to the digits at the same time!

http://www.sums.co.uk/playground/n2a/playground.htm click on the ‘continue’ button to start the activity. This activity looks at the number names up to 100, so give it a go if you fancy a challenge!

http://www.primaryonline.co.uk/sitetour/pol/blastoff1.html a lovely game in which you have to launch 5 spaceships! Remember that the number name won’t always match a spaceship, so you have to click on ‘next’ until you get a match. This game is most suitable for Year 1, as it covers numbers up to 20.

http://www.ictgames.com/postletter.html fancy a challenge? Listen to the number and post the letter in the correct letterbox.

We look forward to meeting you all at the Induction meeting on Tuesday, where you will be able to ask any questions you may have.

Take care and have a great week,

Year 1 team xx