Class 1 Newsletter – Spring Term
Class One Newsletter-January 2018
Happy New Year to you all, we hope you had a lovely Christmas. We would like to say a very big ‘thank you’ for all of our lovely presents and cards that we received at the end of term, it was extremely kind of you. Thank you for your support at the end of term with the nativity play. The children did extremely well, we are sure you were all as proud of them as we were.
The children have all settled back into their routines well. We have an exciting and busy term ahead.
| English | In English we will be developing our skills by reading and writing traditional tales. We will be learning how to plan and write stories with a beginning, middle and end. We will be concentrating on using appropriate describing words to make our writing more exciting. We will also spend time looking at and creating instructions as our non-fiction text.
We will continue to develop our phonic skills, looking at how different sounds are written in different ways, whilst practicing and applying our existing knowledge within our writing. We will begin to learn how to join our writing, focusing on how to lead in and out of letters. We will continue to read in class as often as we can. This will be through group guided reading sessions, reading one to one with an adult or reading with our friend in five. |
| Maths | In Maths we are continuing to develop our confidence with numbers, practicing adding and subtraction with numbers to 20 and beyond. We will be becoming more familiar with using a number line to add and subtract numbers.
We will be carrying on with our counting in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s, to support simple multiplication and division. We will be learning to tell the time on analogue clocks and show the time by correctly placing the hands on a clock face. We will start to use directional and positional language. |
| Science | In Science we are identifying and naming a variety of everyday materials, including wood, plastic, glass, metal, water and rock. We will begin to look at why certain materials are used to make specific objects. We will be designing and completing simple experiments to test materials and will record our results in different ways. |
| Topic
(History/ Geography) |
In our topic about the weather we will be identifying seasonal and daily weather patterns in the United Kingdom, identifying the location of hot and cold areas of the world in relation to the Equator and the North and South Poles
We will be completing simple fieldwork, using observational skills. We will also be using simple compass directions (North, South, East and West). During the second half of the Spring term our topic will be oceans and seas. |
| Music | In Music, with Mrs Ford, we will be developing our skills to play musical instruments in different ways. We will learn how to record our music by using digital media. |
| Art | In Art we will spend time thinking about colour mixing with paint. We will be learning our primary colours and how to mix these correctly to make other colours.
We will then go onto looking at the work of Hokusai especially the Great Wave. |
| DT | Our DT will be linked to our topic of the weather. We will be making rain gauges and wind streamers. |
| PE | On Fridays, in gymnastics, we will be learning how to balance using the apparatus and different ways of moving both on the floor and at a height.
Mr Dyce will continue teaching class 1 games on a Wednesday afternoon. |
| Computing | As well as continuing to become more independent on the computers, we will be looking at simple programming through algorithms. |
| RE | This term we will be thinking about special symbols and objects. We will begin by thinking about objects that are special to us, we will then look at symbols and objects in Christianity and Judaism. |
| PSHE | We will be concentrating on keeping safe. |
Homework: Thank you all for encouraging your children to read regularly at home, please continue with this as often as you can, it does make a noticeable difference. Please try to remind the children that they must put their book on the side at the beginning of the day in order to get it changed before going home. Remember to write in their record book so that I know how they are getting on.
We will be continuing to send home a weekly sound to be learnt as a part of the children’s phonics work. We will also be sending home spellings on a Friday, which need to be learnt in preparation for a test on Wednesday. These will be simple and familiar words to begin with and will become more challenging as the children progress.
Bags: We have noticed that quite a few children are bringing in large rucksacks. If children wish to bring a rucksack to school it must be small enough to fit on their peg. However, the school book bags are ideal as they fit in their tray and don’t take up lots of room.
Show and tell: This will still be on a Monday. Please try to monitor what your child is bringing into school. This should be something they have achieved or done and can talk about to the class, as opposed to a toy. Encourage your child to put their show and tell in my tray on a Monday morning so that I am aware of what it is they would like to share with the class.
Trading: We have noticed a few children are bringing in toys from home and ‘trading’ these with other children. We do not allow this in school as it causes arguments amongst the class.
If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to approach us at the end of the school day.
We look forward to working with you over this term.
Miss Hagger, Mrs Lawless and Mrs Martin
If you have internet access at home, these are really useful websites to support your child’s learning;
www.letters-and-sounds.com www.twinkl.co.uk https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/
