We celebrated our individuality on Anti-bullying week by wearing our odd socks. We took turns to talk about something that makes us special and appreciating our own unique talents! Some of us spoke about our skills - football, gymnastics, drawing, and others spoke about their kindness - being a good friend, sister or brother. We are all special for so many reasons, and it was lovely to take the time to celebrate it.

This half term we have been learning all about letter writing. We have read lots of books with letters included such as 'Meerkat Mail' by Emily Gravett, 'Moomin Mail' by Amanda Li and 'Dear Dinosaur' by Chae Strathie. The children have learnt about the letter structure including a greeting, questions and a recount. We have practiced using our verbs in the past tense and describing our setting and our emotions.

In Science we have been learning about seasonal changes in Autumn and Winter. The children have learnt how to measure temperature using a thermometer and we have been recording the outside temperature each day. We have practiced using a rain gauge to measure rainfall and explored which materials we would wear on a rainy day, by seeing which were most waterproof. "The wool did not let the water through!"

We were very lucky to have Father John welcome us at St Thomas' church to discuss Baptism with the class. He showed us the chrism and catechumen oils, the Pascal candle and the font and answered the children's questions. We reenacted baptism in the classroom and the children have made their own drawings to show the different parts of a baptism. 

We have been learning to create abstract digital art this term, exploring the works of Mondrian, Matisse and Kandinsky. The children have been very observant and thoughtful, linking colour combinations with emotions to plan their digital art.

Year 1 have had a really busy, fun and hard-working couple of weeks. We are working on some new phase 5 sounds in phonics: ay (play), ou (cloud), oy (toy) and ea (leaf). We are practicing these alongside revising our phase 3 sounds.

We have been working on our story openings in English using 'Once upon a time', 'Far, far away' and 'Long, long ago.' We innovated a new variation of the Elves and the Shoemaker called 'The Fairies and the Jewellery Maker' and the children had a go at writing their own opening and build up of the story.

In Maths we have been learning about partitioning. The children have deepened their understanding of the 'whole' and the 'parts' and started to use a cherry diagram to represent these. We have looked at partitioning classroom objects, as well as picture representations and then moving on to using numerals.

We continued our study of plants in Science, drawing and labeling different parts of the plant, taking a close look at the roots. Last week we set up a colourful experiment to demonstrate how roots work by absorbing water from the soil, using kitchen roll to represent our roots. This week we went on a 'tree treasure hunt' with the children identifying different trees in the ITSA and grassy area.

The children have been working on their mouse control in Computing, completing a series of drag and drop puzzles and creating their own digital art on paint.app

In RE the children have shown their thoughtful and caring attitude, writing our own class bedtime prayer and drawing the beautiful things they noticed in God's creation.

Thank you for all your effort and hard work Year 1, you have been excellent!