Year 1 have been communicating with Queen Elizabeth II this week! She sent them a video to tell them that her jewels had been stolen. We wrote a list of questions to help her guards find the criminal and they managed to track down clues that led them to the notorious thief, Emily Bandit! We wrote and recorded news reports about the incident!
Year 1 have been measuring time and using the correct vocabulary. We held races and decided who came first and last. Two children recorded the time in seconds on a stop watch and we found the difference between the runner’s times to find out how many seconds faster the winner was. We counted on from the smallest number up to the biggest number to find the difference.
Mrs Toms
Year 1 have been learning about the Naughty Bus! This bus is so naughty that is caused trouble in our school! Take a look at what the bus has been up to!
Hi all,
We had a busy day at the country park looking for different minibeasts and plants. We really enjoyed ourselves and, as always, our children were a credit to both their schools and family.
We hope you enjoy our pictures.
Hi all! Chestnut class have been busy outside for outdoor learning!
We started the day with PE outside and had a 5-a-side football match. Then we had maths and learned about quarters using natural objects and drawings on the floor. After lunch, we wrote about a diary of a spider and acted out our day outside as a spider. Then we drew trees from observation using charcoal pieces. Chestnut Class finished the day with their pebble treat of extra Golden Time. Well done to everybody who worked hard in Chestnut Class to earn pebbles for their jar. We are building up to our next treat of a water fight on the field when the weather is much, much warmer! Good luck Chestnut Class!
Check our other posts for more about Outdoor Learning Day as they appear!
Hi again!
Today we walked down to the pond and collected some tadpoles!
Usually we are able to collect hundreds of them to keep in the classroom but due to the colder weather, we could only collect about 15 between the two classes!
We are keeping them safe and we may even feed them some boiled cabbage when they get a bit bigger. They may eat each other, as this is what happens in the wild. The children think this is disgusting!
We watched this video that you may wish to share with your children again about how tadpoles develop into frogs.
Can you spot the tadpoles in the round bowl? There is one to the bottom left corner if you look closely! They love to hide and swim around! Look at all the delicious algae and leaves they have to eat!
Pretty soon, we will be receiving our caterpillars in the post!
Mrs Toms xx
Hi all,
We are currently learning about an exciting book called ‘Diary of a Spider’.
Before we start the diary, we have been researching some facts about spiders that your children may have told you!
Did you know:
Female tarantulas can live for 20 years……
A spider has special oil on its body to stop it from sticking to the web
The wolf spider carries the spiderlings on its back
Spiders eat the silk from their unused webs and recycle it- turning it into more silk!
Spiders always have 8 legs but can have up to 12 eyes depending on the species.
We researched these amazing facts through websites & Youtube videos. If you would like to watch them with your child at home, please click the links below!
Once we had researched the facts, we wrote them in neat in our own words on our own spiders. Then we attached the head, cut out some eyes and fangs and stuck on 8 legs, 4 per side.
We think they look amazing and the children worked hard to remember lots of facts!
We have had some amazing homework so far!
Lots of children decorated lovely t-shirts in their homework books so well done to everyone!
We wanted you to see these spectacular t-shirts, decorated by hand! We hope your children will wear them after!
Good work, Year 1!
Mrs Toms xx
Hi all!
Thank you so much to all the parents that came. 19/46 parents attended either our morning or afternoon session- thank you for staying for the duration despite it being a Friday!! The children were impeccably behaved during the meetings as well so thank you again!
To those who could not make it, please read the previous blog post (27th April) for ideas of how to support your child through videos, games etc. We are just a phone call, an email or a chat away so please let us know how we can help you more!! (Mrs Tom’s email is kgill@elmparkprimary.co.uk & Miss Munro’s email is amunro@elmparkprimary.co.uk).
All the links discussed in the meeting are available on the blog. Just remember not to teach your child the words already covered in the past test papers as they will not appear in the 2017 checks 🙂
Click to download the powerpoint now! If you have any problems downloading the presentation, please see us for a paper copy or a direct email.
Have a wonderful bank holiday. Year 1 are marvellous!
CLICK BELOW FOR THE POWERPOINT!!
Hi all,
Following the phonics meeting on Friday 28th April, here are some links to games that you may want to play and more information about the screening test, as well as the video shown during the meetings. Mrs Toms will be discussing this information during the meeting. This is designed for you to have all the information you need in one place.
These are the sounds the children are taught in school. Please don’t be discouraged if you do not know any of the sounds! Lots of adults need to practise saying the sounds themselves before teaching a child. A quick Google search or look onto Youtube videos listed below will have you knowing the sounds in no time, ready to support your child.
Link to the official DfE video on administering the check: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPJ_ZEBh1B
Although this video is for teachers to ensure they administer the test correctly, it is useful for you to see how the children are to break down the words into sounds and put them back together to read the word. As you can see, if the children do not use the correct sounds or blend them back together correctly, they will be incorrect for that word.
Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rbMOQTjdgY
We LOVE Mr Thorne videos in Year 1! Check out some of Geraldine the Giraffe’s videos where she finds items around the house with each sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjKq8s8154s&t=116s
Singing is the best way to help your child remember ANYTHING! These short songs are perfect for daily listening.
Although we do not use the term ‘Magic E’ to describe a split digraph e.g. a-e as in ape or i-e as in kite, this video is excellent for demonstrating how the ‘e’ at the end is silent but gives the vowel in the middle of the word a different sound.
Games & Books
http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/freeIndex.htm
There is a free section on the website, or you can pay a small fee (roughly £10) for a yearly subscription. Any games here are excellent. Please ensure you are clicking on phase 2 and 3 if your children are beginning to learn their sounds and click phases 4 and 5 for children who are more confident with their sounds and just need a little extra reading boost. Phase 6 focuses on plurals and spellings rules and is perfect for teaching alternative pronunciations.
http://www.ictgames.com/literacy.html
This website is free to use throughout (it also has some excellent maths games!). There are great sentence building games and sound games. Have a look!
ABCYA offers free to use games on a computer but will require a subscription on a tablet. Check Grade 1 for emerging readers, Grade 2 for more confident and Grade 3 and beyond for secure readers. The e-books on this website are easy for children to sound out independently.
https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/reading-owl/find-a-book/library-page
There are lots of free e-books to read on this website! Have a little look around.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z38t6fr
Unfortunately, Deep Sea Phonics has been archived, but this handy page about compound words e.g. star & fish = starfish is available still.
http://www.iboard.co.uk/activities/path/phonics_phase-5-letters-and-sounds
The TES iboard is great but is a subscription website used by many teachers and schools around the UK. However, you can get a 1 month subscription trial for free. Just be sure to cancel any subscriptions after this time to avoid being charged if you are asked for payment.
Apps (Charged & Free)
If you wish to purchase any apps, please please please do your research. They can be very costly but can tend to have American or Australian pronunciations and the words are sometimes not as difficult as they need to be for the English curriculum.
Mr Thorne has a vast range of phonics apps available so have a browse!
What you can do:
Don’t forget that reading everything and anything and discussing words with your child is the most effective way for them to learn! You do not need to do anything special or out of the ordinary- point out words wherever you go, have competitions to find as many sounds as you can or have a race to spell as many words as possible with particular sounds.
We hope you find the meetings informative. If you are unable to attend the meeting, please speak to Mrs Toms & Miss Munro after school any day. The powerpoint from the meetings will also be posted after the meetings have taken place so you have all the information in one place.
Thank you again for your continued support, whether you could attend the meetings or not. If you are interested, your children will be interested too! We couldn’t do it without you!
Mrs Toms