Our first half term topic this year is 'Marvellous Me'. This theme is a great way of starting our new journey in Year 1 and helps us to focus on what is amazing and unique about us and the importance of friendship and family.

Our core text is 'Who are you?' By Smriti Halls

English - This half term our main focus is on orally composing our sentences before writing them down, letter formation, using phonics to segment words we want to write, using finger spaces, capital letters at the beginning of a sentence and full stop at the end.  
 

In Maths our main focus areas are sorting objects, counting forwards and backwards, identifying one more and one less, comparing numbers to identify which is smaller and larger, ordering objects and numbers on a number line, addition and subtraction of objects using a part-whole method, and number bonds to 10/20.

Class 6 Learning Zones

In Year 1 our learning environments are set up with Learning Zones which use a continuous provision model to facilitate learning across the curriculum. Continuous provision refers to the resources which are always available within the classroom for the children to access to continue their learning independently.

In Year 1 we use the term 'independent learning' with the children. This learning has a different purpose to the continuous and enhanced provision provided in our Nursery and Reception classes.  Year 1 children are encouraged to consolidate their skills, knowledge and understanding through the National Curriculum subjects. 

Children are introduced to learning challenges in each Learning Zone for different areas of the National Curriculum, where they can independently apply skills which have previously been taught. 

In Science we are learning all about our bodies and body parts. We have been labelling our body parts and talking about their functions.

In Geography we are exploring our local area. We have drawn and read maps to show the immediate environment around our school and have talked about some of the human and physical features in Nelson including The Leeds and Liverpool Canal, Terraced Houses, Every Street and Pendle Hill. 

After our local walk we used photographs and Google Earth to identify the route we took. We then placed local landmarks in the correct places on a map of the streets around our school. 

We looked at one of Picasso's most famous paintings 'The Weeping Woman' and talked about how Picasso's portraits are often distorted. We then used viewfinders to explore and recreate the lines, shapes and colours we could see in different pieces of Picasso's artwork. 

Today we had a visit from the wonderful Scientist Steven Lewis Neil. We talked all about seasons, creatures and animals that we might find at Autumn time and then compared their bodies to ours to identify similarities and differences! We found some fantastic things in forest school and we were even brave enough to feel a mouse to see what bones were similar to ours! 

Today the children took part in an investigation to explore their senses. They took part in activities to test their hearing, taste, touch and their sight. We discussed which body part was associated with each sense and what it felt like to be without one of their senses.

We went outside to look for signs of Autumn and had so much fun exploring how Autumn leaves move! 

We used floating scarves to further explore the movement of the leaves and then worked together to make a list of adjectives and verbs to describe how Autumn leaves look and move.