Robins 2024 - 2025

Welcome to Robins Class

We are a Year 1 class who are taught by Miss Wright, supported by Mrs Lister.

This is what we will be learning about in the Summer term:

Maths:

Multiplication and Division: Count in 2s; Count in 10s; Count in 5s; Recognise equal groups; Add equal groups; Make arrays; Make doubles; Make equal groups – grouping; Make equal groups – sharing.

Fractions: Recognise a half of an object or a shape; Find a half of an object or a shape; Recognise a half of a quantity; Find a half of a quantity; Recognise a quarter of an object or shape; Find a quarter of an object or shape; Recognise a quarter of a quantity; Find a quarter of a quantity.

Position and Direction: Describe turns; Describe position – left and right; Describe position – forwards and backwards; Describe position; above and below; Ordinal numbers.

Place Value (within 100): Count from 50-100; Partition into tens and ones; The number line to 100; 1 more and 1 less; Compare numbers with the same number of tens; Compare any two numbers.

Money: Unitising; Recognise coins; Recognise notes; Count in coins.

Time: Before and after; Days of the week; Months of the year; Hours, minutes and seconds; Tell the time to the hour; Tell the time to the half hour.

English:

Our first book is The Secret of Black Rock by Joe Todd-Stanton. The book follows the adventures of Erin, a curious girl who wants to explore Black Rock, a scary place in the sea. She discovers it’s a living rock filled with sea creatures. Erin helps the village see it’s not dangerous but special. Together, they protect it. A story of bravery, kindness, and nature. The children will have opportunities to reinforce the Year 1 English objectives with a particular focus on plurals; using the prefix un-; using the suffix -ing; combine words to make sentences; join words and clauses using ‘and/because’; sequence sentences to form a return story/postcard; capital letters for names, and the personal pronoun I; full stops, finger spaces and question marks.

In the second part of the term, we will explore The Last Wolf by Mini Grey. In The Last Wolf, Little Red goes into the woods to catch a wolf but finds something surprising. She meets the last wolf, last lynx, and last bear. They tell her how the forest has changed. Little Red learns to care for nature and decides to help protect the wild. In this unit our focus will be on plurals; adding the suffix -ed to verbs; combine words to make sentences; join words and clauses using ‘and, because, so but’; sequence sentences to create a hunting story/recipe and apply our knowledge of punctuation accurately. 

Throughout Year 1, your child will take part in daily Read Write Inc phonic sessions. In the summer term, the children will be reviewing set 3 and set 2 sounds. Please see the weekly recap for updates on the sounds learnt. 

Science:

Seasonal Changes (Spring and Summer)

The children will learn about the changes that can be seen between spring and summer, as well as across all four seasons. They will go on a nature walk to observe some of these changes. They will learn about what weather is and the weather that is associated with each season. They will observe and collect data about the weather. Included in our learning we will work scientifically, develop our enquiry skills by using simple equipment, make observations and collect data.

Plants

The children will learn to name the basic parts of a plant, including seeds. They will have the opportunity to plant their own seeds and to make observations of how they grow over time. The children will also learn to identify, name and describe a variety of garden and wild plants as well as evergreen and deciduous trees. In their final lesson, the children will use all of their knowledge gained throughout the topic to identify, compare and classify plants.

History:

Significant Explorers

The children will explore why some people are considered to be significant before going on to learn about some significant explorers. The children learn about the explorations of Ibn Battuta, an explorer who lived around 700 years ago and about Matthew Henson, a famous polar explorer who may have been the first man to step foot on the North Pole. They compare Matthew Henson’s polar exploration to a much more recent exploration by Felicity Aston, the first person to walk across Antarctica alone on skis using her own power. Learning about Neil Armstrong, the space explorer, looks, not only at his achievements, but asks the children to explore if it is right that Neil Armstrong should be remembered more than the others involved in the Apollo 11 mission. Finally, the children investigate how we remember significant people and how values may change over time in relation to this.

Geography:

Our Country

We will explore the UK by looking at individual countries, capital cities, human and physical features. The children will name the four countries of the UK, capital cities and surrounding seas. They will begin to know the differences between town and country locations, use a range of maps (world, country, street maps, aerial views and plans) to locate places and landmarks, produce a journey line. In a study of our capital city, the children will describe human and physical features of the city of London, use internet mapping programmes to observe aerial views and will compare the capital cities of London and Brasilia.

Computing:

Programming Toys

In this unit about programming toys, the children will be introduced to the principles of programming through unplugged tasks and the use of Bee-Bots. They will be introduced to algorithms as a set of step-by-step instructions given to a device, will learn how to debug simple algorithms and how to use logical reasoning to predict how a program will behave.

Scratch Junior

The children will begin to explore the basics of coding. We will look at algorithms and how to create precise instructions for visual working programs. The class will explore how to create, debug and use logical reasoning.

Art:

Colour Chaos

This unit will teach the class about choosing, using and mixing their own colours to create quality artwork that shows progression in skills. The children will have the opportunity to explore the life and work of six key abstract artists and, working primarily in paint, to create pieces in a range of abstract styles.

Design and Technology:

Moving Pictures

Moving pictures gives the children opportunities to develop their understanding of mechanisms. The children will listen to and role play different Traditional Tales and then learn how sections of the stories can be made into a moving picture. Following instructions on how to make different types of mechanisms, such as levers, wheels and sliders, the children are given experience and information to draw on when developing their own ideas. They sketch a design based on their ideas and then create their moving picture centred on the story of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff.’ The children will then evaluate their finished product.

Religious Education:

Judaism: Shabbat

Looking to be able to answer the question ‘Is Shabbat important to Jewish children?’, the children will learn to understand what Jewish children do during Shabbat and why it is important to them.

Judaism:  Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur

The question ‘Are Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur important to Jewish children?’ is posed to the children who will then learn about and begin to understand what Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur mean to Jewish children.

Music:

Story time: Exploring sounds

The children will be able to identify the contrasts of fast and slow, loud and quiet and will be able to lead a performance.

Travel: Performance

The children will learn to develop performance skills and to sing songs about travel.

P.S.H.E.:

Living in the Wider World - Diverse Britain:

This unit is inspired by the idea that individuals can have a positive impact on groups and communities to which they belong. It aims to enable the children to identify that they belong to various groups and communities and ways in which they contribute positively to these. In this unit, the children learn about community, being good neighbours and looking after the environment. They will also learn about Britain, what it means to be British, about diversity and the importance of celebrating and being respectful of our differences.

Health and Wellbeing - It’s My Body:

This unit explores choices that the children can make about looking after their bodies. The lessons look at key areas where the children can make safer choices: their body, sleep and exercise, diet, cleanliness and substances. The children will learn facts about each of these areas and learn strategies to manage them. The message of choice and consent runs through the unit and the children are encouraged to get help from trusted adults when necessary.

Physical Education:

Outdoor PE (Monday): Athletics: Sports Day    Multi-Skills: Running and Jumping

Indoor (Wednesday): Traditional Tales; Yoga – Salute to the Sun.

On these days, the children will need to come to school dressed in their P.E. uniform: navy shorts and light blue t-shirt; navy tracksuit and light blue t-shirt. No logos or football kits. Trainers should be plain black or plain white. All long hair should be tied back and earrings should be removed.

Homework:

Weekly Recaps

A weekly recap will be out every Friday on Class Dojo. These weekly recaps will focus on the following: Read Write Inc sounds taught, common exception words discussed in class and new vocabulary learnt. There will also be two cheeky challenges based around our English and Maths work. Sometimes, there will be a chilli challenge for the children to complete.

In addition to the weekly recaps, your child can access maths games via NumBots to help improve their mathematical fluency. During this term, the children will begin to explore counting in multiples of 2, 5 and 10. If you could continue to encourage the children to practise these at home it would be much appreciated.

BBC Supermovers (https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/supermovers) is an engaging way to help.

Reading

Reading remains the most important aspect of home learning. At Weston, we expect children to read at least four times a week. This can include reading both at home and at school. To make recording this straightforward, children only need to write the book title and author once in their reading diary and then simply note the page number they’ve reached each time they read. To support this routine, children should bring their reading diary to school every day. For completing their reading four times a week, they will earn a five Reading Dojos. Please send books in for changing on Tuesdays.