Year 1 Summer Newsletter

Welcome back! We hope you have had a lovely Easter break. The children have already settled back into school brilliantly and we hope they are ready for another exciting term!

Please see below an outline of what we will cover during our last term:

In English, we will continue to work on developing confident independent reading, expanding their vocabulary and using simple sentence structure. We will be studying the books The Storm Whale, Grandad’s Island, Traction Man and enjoying some poetry. Through their lessons, the children will continue to develop their use of capital letters, full stops, question and exclamation marks, use simple conjunctions, and learn spelling rules relating to adding plurals ‘s’ and ‘es’ adding the prefix -un and other suffixes.

In Phonics, we will be consolidating all Phase 3, 4 and 5 sounds in preparation for the phonics screening check after half term. We will then continue to cover alternative pronunciations for sounds.

In Maths, we will be learning about time including using specific language, sequencing events, and telling the time to the hour and half past the hour. We will also be learning abut money, focusing of the values of notes and coins. We will be learning about measure including length, height and weight, focusing on measuring and beginning to record as well as using measure specific language. We will also be learning about statistics including sorting data and answering and asking questions about data.

In Science, we will be learning about plants. We will learn to identify and name a variety of common wild and garden plants including deciduous and evergreen trees, and identify and describe the basic structure of a variety of common flowering plants, including trees. We will also continue our work on seasons

In Geography/History in the first half term, we will be learning about Australia, which will include exploring both human and physical features of the country, different cities, animals, and weather. We will compare life in Australia with how we live in the UK. In History in the second half term, we will be learning about castles including looking at the purpose of castles, the features, exploring castles from around the world culminating in a visit to Stansted Mountfitchet Castle in the second half of the Summer term (details to follow).

In Art, we will learn about aboriginal art and explore different techniques involved. In DT, we will be looking at different Mechanisms using sliders and levers.

In Computing, we will be focusing on the topic ‘We are detectives’ where we will be learning about organising, storing and retrieving data and keeping personal information private. We will also learn about uses of information technology beyond school.

In PSHE, we will continue to learn about inclusion and belonging, sameness and difference and challenging gender stereotypes. We will also learn about staying clean and healthy including the importance of sleep, dental health, sun safety and looking after our mental health and wellbeing.

In Music, we will be looking at a variety of songs around the theme of imagination including Your Imagination by Joanna Mangona and Pete Readman, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious from Mary Poppins, Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory soundtrack, Daydream Believer by The Monkees, Rainbow Connection from The Muppet Movie and A Whole New World from Aladdin. We shall continue to develop our understanding of pulse, rhythm, and pitch and play instruments including the glockenspiel.

In RE, we will be learning about the Hindu and Christian creation stories making comparisons between the two, linking both to the environment and thinking about how we can look after our planet.

In PE, our lessons will focus on athletics including running, jumping, hopping and throwing, and net and wall games including throwing, catching and rolling a ball and striking a ball using a racket. Please ensure that your child always has all their PE kit in school. We will send PE kits home at the end of each half term.

Differentiated spellings will continue to be sent home with the children weekly. Please encourage your child to sound out but also use the letter name, where possible. There are lots of ways you can help your child to learn their spellings (little and often is the best method, especially for those who may find writing and spelling challenging). Here are a few ideas:

• Look, say, cover, write, check – look at the correctly written spelling, say the sounds out loud, cover the original spelling, make their own attempt and check the accuracy, Repeat 3 times. If possible, do this several times a week.
• Rainbow writing – write each spelling in different colours.
• Mnemonics – make up a sentence to help remember the spelling.
• Big/small/speed writing – write enormous/tiny/at speed in two minutes.
• Chalk spelling – write spellings on a chalkboard/outside on the ground
• Water and paintbrush – write your spellings outside using a paintbrush and water (watch it disappear).

Please continue to encourage your child to develop a love of reading by providing as many opportunities as possible for your child to read to you. Ideally, this should be daily. When reading, talk about the pictures, the characters and make predictions. Reading books from home is always beneficial. Please encourage the reading of both fiction and non-fiction and use their reading diaries to record their reading and provide a comment/initial where relevant as this helps us to support them further during school time.

One piece of homework will continue to be set on a Friday and will be due in the following Wednesday. Homework is set to provide further practice and to consolidate learning from the week.

Thank you for your continued support. Please do not hesitate to contact use via the school office or over the fence at the end of the day should you have any queries.

Best Wishes,

Miss Battrick and Mrs Yildiz