Home Classes Welcome to year 1- ash and willow classes

Welcome to Year 1- Ash and Willow Classes

Teachers:

Mrs Downes

Teacher: Ash Class

Hello there! I started teaching in 2000 and have been lucky enough to teach in several different schools over the years, both London and East Sussex. I have a degree in Applied Biology and my favourite subject to teach is Science. I am married and have two wonderful (and sometimes not wonderful boys) aged 13 and 10. We enjoy spending time on walks, especially in woods and any place with water. I LOVE to read, especially curled up on the sofa with a cup of tea. I also LOVE cooking and sharing food with family and friends. My favourite food is anything Thai. I also LOVE anything whimsical and creative, so I have recently started to make fairy doors in my spare time.

Mrs Thompsett

Teacher: Willow Class

TAs:

Miss Kinloch

TA:

Miss Howell

TA:

Miss Ball

TA:

In Year 1, we work hard to become good learners, ready to tackle the National Curriculum. We continue to have opportunities to play and engage in practical activities, whilst learning to read, write and apply number facts with increasing fluency, independence and confidence.

Our topics are all based around books, chosen to excite the children in cross curricular lessons and ignite a passion for reading.

TERM 1

Our Wonderful World

Our topic started with reading Elmer and making a year group display.

In RE we learnt the Christian creation story through drama, storytelling and songs. We linked our knowledge of the Christian creation story with our English writing to make booklets about God’s Creations.

We explored our school grounds in Outdoor Learning to find out about Autumn. We foraged for blackberries, apples and pears. We also tasted other autumn berries so that we could select the fruits for our own fruit crumble.

We enjoyed celebrating Harvest Festival and wrote prayers to say thank you.

In Science, we learnt about everyday materials and matched them and sorted them into groups.

In Art, we learnt about the painter Mondrian and named the primary colours and drew straight lines. Then we painted our own wonderful in the style of Mondrian.

TERM 2

Childhood

Our topic started with reading ‘Wilfrid Gordon Mcdonald Partridge’ by Fox Mem – a little boy helps an old lady recover her memories from childhood. We worked together to create a display of the story.

In History, we learnt about childhood in the past by naming artefacts, studying old photographs and identifying similarities and differences.

In Geography, we looked at maps, atlases, globes and aerial photos. We worked in teams to create our own towns using wooden blocks and car mats. We located places on a map using the key and positional language. Then we went outside and followed directions given to us by our partner.

In Music, we read the story of The Nutcracker and listened to music from the Nutcracker Suite. We interpreted the music through movement and found the pulse. Then we explored rhythms using phrases from the story and playing them on our claves. We also composed our own music using Purple Mash, experimenting with playing it at different speeds.

In Science, we learnt the names of our body parts by drawing around each other and labelling our pictures.

In Art, we explored portraits. We looked in mirrors and sketched a self-portrait. We had fun experimenting with collage and colour. Next, we created our own abstract collage self-portraits. Finally, we invited our parents into school for our Y1 Funny Faces Art Gallery.

We very much look forward to what’s in store for term 3!

TERM 3

Time to Explore

How ridiculous, a tortoise out in Winter! Just like Shelley the tortoise in our story, the children have had fun exploring this term.

During our outdoor learning session, we enjoyed looking for signs of Winter, going on a scavenger hunt and enjoying a camp fire with hot chocolate to warm us up.

In D&T, the children explored building structures from boxes and decorated them to make a new home for Shelley the tortoise.

In Science, the children tested different materials to put on Shelley’s sledge so that it would slide across the icy pond.

The children have also been exploring characters, setting and plot in our class texts ‘Ridiculous’ by Michael Coleman and ‘Lost and Found’ by Oliver Jeffers.

What fun can be had in term 4?