Summer Term

Are Monarchs better than peasants?

We’re looking forward to an exciting and activity-filled term in Year 1. One of the highlights will be our upcoming trip to Harlaxton Manor—more details will be shared with you soon.

This term, we’re lucky to witness a historic moment: a change in monarch during our lifetime. This will be the starting point for our new history project. We’ll explore past and present monarchs of the United Kingdom, as well as learn about local figures such as dukes and the owners of stately homes and manors.

To wrap up the term, we’ll be holding a special Banquet Day, where children will take part in a lively debate to answer the big question: Are monarchs better than peasants?

Helpful information for the term

Monday - Reading books and reading records are checked and changed weekly. Children will receive a House point if they have read 4 times or more in a week. The children have PE every Monday afternoon. Please make sure your children have their PE kits in school.

Wednesday - Please, can children bring in their homework books to be marked. These will be sent out with new homework and spellings on a Friday.

Friday - Spelling tests take place every Friday.

As the British summer weather can be unpredictable, please ensure your child comes to school each day with a water bottle, a sunhat, and a waterproof jacket. Thank you for helping us keep everyone comfortable and prepared!

Please practice the first 45 and first 100 words with your child, these are the words they are expected to know by the end of Year 1.

Read write inc. Phonics QR codes to videos

Help Your Child Shine in Reading and Spelling! 

Please scan the QR codes in the PDFs above to watch Read write inc. phonics fun Set 2 and Set 3 Speed Sounds videos, along with fun Challenge videos. Each video is just 5–10 minutes long and packed with simple, effective ways to boost your child's reading and spelling skills. Watching one video a day will be very beneficial for your childs learning.

Your encouragement makes a big difference!

Thank you for being such an important part of your child’s learning journey. 

We completed the Phonics Screening Check!

Well done Year 1, Miss.Maksoud is so proud of how hard you have worked and everything you have accomplished this year. Your reading and phonics skills have grown so much and you should all be very proud of yourselves!

Science - observing the weather

In science we are observing and recording the weather during the season of spring for the week. We made our own wind socks to help us understand how strong the wind is. We also learnt to read a thermometer to know what termperature it is outside in degrees Celsius.

DT making catapults

In DT the children have been understanding the safety needed when using hot glue guns when making our catapults. We learnt about the history of catapults and watched a video of a fire ball being catapulted into another village and this hooked us into our learning.

We then designed, planned, created and tested the catapults using poms poms. We had so much fun testing out our catapults in the classroom, we then evaluated our learning.

Every Friday, we will be going to the library to choose a book that someone in our family can read to us to encourage reading for pleasure while exploring a variety of different genres and book forms.

Spring Topic Web

Welcome to the new school year! We have an exciting term ahead as we learn about endangered animals that are at risk of being extinct. We have an exciting visit to the Woodside Wildlife Park planned, where children will have the incredible opportunity to encounter a variety of endangered species. This hands-on experience will deepen their learning and help them form meaningful connections with the natural world. 

Helpful information for the term

Monday - Reading books and reading records are checked and changed weekly. Children will receive a House point if they have read 4 times or more in a week.

Wednesday - Please, can children bring in their homework books to be marked. These will be sent out with new homework and spellings on a Friday.

Thursday - The children have PE every Thursday morning. Please make sure your children have their PE kits in school.

Friday - Spelling tests take place every Friday.

Please practice the first 45 and first 100 words with your child, these are the words they are expected to know by the end of Year 1.

Below are powerpoints you can follow to practise set 2 and set 3 sounds in line with our Read write inc scheme, to help your child with their reading and writing. They contain the mnemonics we use to help the children remember and recognise the phonics sounds.

Endangered animal exhibition 

We held an exhibition with Year 2 where we got to look and discuss each others models and work from this term, it was so fun.

Year 1 Easter Service

Head over to the school videos to watch our fantastic performance of our poem Easter Joy

Geography - Exploring Sumatra

This term we have been exploring Sumatra. We looked at where Sumatra was located in the world, the physical and human features and explored the habitat of the Sunda tiger. We focussed on why Sunda tigers were endaganged and the risks to their habitat. We then had a competition and made two posters showing our amazing learning!

_{Visit to the Islamic centre and St. Wulframs church}

We visited the Islamic centre and learned how Muslim babies are welcomed. A special prayer is whispered into the baby’s right ear when they are born. They also told us about the five pillars of Islam and how these values show kindness and respect. We learned that Muslims pray five times a day, always facing a special place called the Kaaba in Mecca. It was very interesting!

World Book day!

Year 1 had a fantastic time celebrating World Book Day! We started the day with a book sale, where children chose and bought books to enjoy. They then shared and read their new books with the class, discovering exciting stories together.

We also learned about why World Book Day is important—it helps us appreciate books, stories, and the pleasure of reading. To finish our celebration, we took on a fun challenge: writing our own 10-word stories! The children came up with some brilliant and creative ideas. Have a look!

RE

Year 1 visited the church to watch Reverend Sarah perform a baptism. We took on the roles of parents and godparents as she guided us through the important steps of the ceremony using the acronym OWL—Oil, Water, and Light.

First, she anointed with oil, symbolizing strength and protection. Then, she poured water over the baby's head, representing cleansing and new life. Finally, she lit a candle, signifying the light of Christ.

This special experience helped us understand how Christians welcome new members into their community and create a deep sense of belonging.

Maths

This term, we’ve kicked off our maths learning by exploring place value within 20. To help us understand this concept, we’ve been using a fantastic new resource called Base Ten.

We’ve loved using this hands-on resource to visualise numbers—for example, seeing how 19 is made up of 1 ten and 9 ones, or how 20 is made up of 2 tens. This has helped us build on our learning from last term and make it  both fun and meaningful!

English

This term, our Talk for Writing unit is all about creating our own information and instruction texts about endangered animals and how we can help prevent their extinction. The trip to Woodside Wildlife Park was an incredible hook to spark excitement and inspire the children to become independent writers!

We’ve started by helping to text map Miss Maksoud’s information text about The Blue Whale—this was so much fun and helped us understand how to structure our own writing.

This term, we’re also focusing on using the conjunction ‘and’ to make our sentences even better. We’re working hard to include more detail in our writing.

We worked really hard as a class to write an information text on a red panda, like the one we saw at Woodside Wildlife Park. Miss Maksoud wrote an information text too, but she needed the children's help to identify the mistakes using our rubric. Afterward, we had the opportunity to apply the same process to our own information texts to make them even better.

We completed our independent information texts and they are truly amazing. As a class we wrote about bonobos, green turtles, Sunday tigers and black rhinos. We got to read these to each other and tell the class what we liked about them.

Geography

We learnt that the world is split up into 7 continents and we know them from biggest to small. It starts with Asia, Africa, North and South America, Antarctica, Europe and Australia (also known as Oceania). 

We also discovered that we live on the continent of Europe!

To help us remember the continents, we’ve been singing the 7 Continents Song. It’s super catchy, so why not play it at home and sing along together?

We received a letter from Woodside Wildlife Park about Julia the Tiger and they gave us a must do job! It was so exciting spotting Sumatra on the map and it helped that we knew it was near the equator. We then explored an atlas for the first time and talked about the different things an atlas can show us.

Science

Year 1 have been busy learning all about different animal groups, including mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fish, birds and insects. We've discovered and discussed the different characteristics that makes each group unique and how we could classify them.

To make our learning even more exciting, we received a very special (and slightly smelly!) parcel from Woodside Wildlife Park—some animal poo! Our challenge was to become wildlife detectives and uncover whether the animals were herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores. By carefully examining the poo for clues like leaves, bones, and feathers, we were able to figure out what the animals had been eating.

It was a fun (and messy!) way to learn about animal diets and the food chain. Well done, Year 1!

Woodside Wildlife Park

We had a fantastic time on our visit to Woodside Wildlife Park! We were incredibly lucky to meet the 4 white wolves that had just arrived a week before our visit. We also got to see Julia, the tiger, up close and watch the Humboldt Penguins being fed.

One of the highlights was spotting the Red Pandas exploring their enclosure—our guide told us we were very lucky, as they’re usually quite hard to see!

As part of our learning about amphibians, reptiles, mammals, fish, and birds, we had an extra special moment when we got to carefully stroke a Royal Python. It was such an exciting and memorable experience!

Christmas party!!

We had the best christmas party with Year 2. We played games, ate some treats and played pass the parcel.

_{Science winter walk}

We went for a walk to spot the signs of winter. The wind was really strong, trees had empty branches and mud was on the ground. However, we did spot Evergreen trees that are green all year round!

Pantomime

Christmas cup!

_{Hot Chocolate!!!}

Miss. Maksoud was so proud of how hard everyone worked this term so we got to make hot chocolate outside with a storm kettle. We talked about all the ingredients we would need and how Miss. Maksoud could safely light the fire to heat the storm kettle. We even added marshmallows, it was so yum!!!

R.E.

This week the Reverend visited Year 1 and 2 and showed us how the Bible is made from lots of different types of stories. We got to ask some exciting questions about Christianity and the importance of being a Reverend for the Church.

Countdown to Christmas!

For some of our afternoon we got to set up the classroom ready for Christmas. We listened to our nativity songs and all got to help Miss. Maksoud decorate our Christmas tree and reading area. We cannot wait for Christmas!

R.E.

This term we have been learning that Muslims learn about Allah through stories from the Qur'an and that Muslims are from all different parts of the world. We read the story the Kind Queen from the Qur'an; this inspired us to make kind crowns. We wrote words to describe Allah on the crowns such as "forgiving", "caring" and "kind". 

Science

We received a letter from an ear muff company that said they wanted us to find the material that is the best insulator! We predicted the temperature of the water for each material in our circle and recorded our data. Miss. Maksoud is going to send off our designs to the ear muff company.

Snow fun!

Talk for Writing - Winter poem

We have started a new area of learning in English, we are learning to write winter poems. Miss. Maksoud wrote a poem and tried to bring in a snowman but he accidentally melted! We then worked as a team to think of actions that would help us to remember the poem.

Thank you to everyone that brought in money for Children in Need. These are our Year 1 winners for crazy hair and crazy clothes. 

Thank you for the amazing work all of you have done. We were all so impressed as each person stood infront of the class and talked about their project to do with the United Kingdom. Well done everyone, you were very brave!

Today, our class created poppies to honour Remembarance Day, learning about the importance of those who served. The children's beautiful creations reflect our gratitude.

This week in our music lesson we have listened and talked about the christmas story with our friends. We have been thinking about the musical instruments we could play to the different events in the story.

During our exciting day we used our bodies to further develop our understanding of the Gunpowder plot and how this has impacted us today. In the afternoon, we made firework art and built the House of Parliament and Tower of London out of lego and cubes, it was so fun having our friends from Denton join us too!

This half term we have been learning about addition and subtraction within 10. We use part-part whole models and counters to help us represent the numbers. Today, we had a challenge to find the missing part, everyone helped Miss.Maksoud to complete this on the board. We found four different ways to write the number sentences, these are the fact families! 

During the Autumn term we have learnt about the Gunpowder plot and Guy Fawkes. We used role play, to help us understand the Gunpowder plot and how everyone involved felt. We showed James I being crowned King, and the many catholic men that were angry, leading to a dangerous plan. This caused Guy Fawkes and his men to get captured and put in prison in the Tower of London!

In Year 1, after every lunch time, we enter the classroom to calm music and practice our core breathing. This helps us to control our breathing, calm our bodies and restart our learning after lunch time. On Fridays a child helps Miss. Maksoud to lead the core breathing. 

In science, we did a floating and sinking practical! We passed objects around our circle to talk about their different properties. Some of these were hard and smooth and others were soft and flexible. We then predicted if the object was going to float or sink. 

Today, we learnt about the different seasons and went for an Autum walk to spot signs of Autumn. We were able to spot acorns on the ground, leaves changing colour and plants dying!

In science, we have been learning about everyday materials. We labelled objects in our classroom with the everyday material they are made from and went on a learning walk to spot these materials outside too. We then looked at the properties of different materials and described them in groups.

In English, we found a suitcase that belongs to a missing bear with a letter saying "PLEASE TAKE CARE OF THIS BEAR". We worked together to write a character description of this bear so the villagers can help us to find him. 

Every morning, we come in to the classroom and place our wooden name card by the colour monster we are feeling. This helps us to understand our emotions and the things we can do to calm them.

As a class, we completed the 1 mile challenge with Mrs. Harris. We ran the lap of the school field 6 times! 

Links to useful websites:

Purple Mash (login in their homework book)

https://www.purplemash.com/harlaxton

Classroom Secrets Kids - interactive resources on a range of subjects (you will need to create a free account)

kids.classroomsecrets.co.uk

Number Blocks

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/help-your-child-with-maths

Online stories

https://stories.audible.com/start-listen

Nature Detectives - lots of activities to complete outside

http://www.treetoolsforschools.org.uk/menu/?_ga=2.73059734.420977765.1584712954-758495858.1584712954

Some different activities to complete outside

https://www.scouts.org.uk/the-great-indoors/

PE Activities

https://www.nhs.uk/10-minute-shake-up/shake-ups

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/supermovers

Leader in Me

On a daily basis, the children try to demonstrate our core values within school. As we aim to practice them so often, they become good habits that we can use not only in school but also at home too. 

• Habit 1: Be Proactive (You’re in Charge)
• Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind (Have a Plan)
• Habit 3: Put First Things First (Work First, Then Play)
• Habit 4: Think Win-Win (Everyone Can Win)
• Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood(Listen Before You Talk)
• Habit 6: Synergise (Together Is Better)
• Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw (Balance Feels Best)