Autumn 1 update

Hummingbirds have made such a fantastic start to the year and we have been so impressed by their enthusiasm and thirst for learning.  Here’s a little bit about what we have been up to already in this action-packed half-term.  

In English we started the half-term off by thinking about our hopes and dreams. We talked about what we would like to achieve by the end of Year 1 but we also talked about what we would like to be when we grow up. We read the story ‘Look Up’ by Nathan Bryon which is a wonderful story about a girl, Rocket, who has big career aspirations. In the story, Rocket hears of a meteor shower and desperately to watch it with her brother and her local community. However, her brother is more interested in looking at his phone. Rocket is determined for her brother to share in the marvel of the meteor shower and to show him that there is more to life when you just look around you. We enjoyed lots of discussion about how we could encourage each other to achieve their dreams.

The first text that we looked at in English was the fantastic ‘Jasper’s Beanstalk’ by Nick Butterworth and Mike Inkpen. We really enjoyed reading about how Jasper tried to plant a bean and the patience he had to have to wait for it to grow. We used our imagination to predict what could be at the top of the beanstalk he grew and produced some great pictures and sentences to describe our ideas!

We have also enjoyed reading ‘Puffin Peter’ by Petr Horacek, a beautifully illustrated book about two puffin friends. Sadly, the friends are separated during a great storm and the book takes you on Paul’s journey to find his friend Peter. We enjoyed drawing our own story maps to retell the story to our learning partners and used our imagination to innovate what happens next in the story when the puffins find each other. There were a lot of parties predicted!

We ended this half-term with some poetry. We read the poem ‘Purple is…’ by an anonymous poet and enjoyed coming up with our own actions to animate the poem. We enjoyed exploring a variety of coloured items and discussed how they could inspire us to write our own poems. We used ambitious language and great adjectives to describe our objects and produced some fantastic poems. We published our poems using our neatest handwriting and created our own class anthology of poems that now sits proudly in our reading corner! 

In maths, we have been counting up to 20 and back and working on our number formation. We have been using objects from around the classroom to practise our counting and subitising skills and matching a given number of objects with a numeral card. We have been ordering numbers and finding out one more and one less.  We have been learning about basic addition and subtraction using concrete objects and a number line and considering how this might be written using mathematical symbols.

We have also learnt about ordinal numbers (first, second, third) and using left and right, to describe the position of objects. 

In our history topic, ‘What does it take to be a great explorer? ’, we have been investigating the qualities that are needed to possess in order to explore Antarctica or fly solo from England to Australia! We have been finding out all about the amazing lives of great explorers, such as Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Bessie Coleman, Amy Johnson, Matthew Hensen, Helen Sharman and Neil Armstrong. We really enjoyed our workshop in which we used drama and team games to find out and remember different facts about famous explorers.

During October it has been Black History Month, so we have been concentrating on this year’s important theme: Honouring Our Communuties. We have been sharing stories of black history and discussing significant black figures such as Katherine Johnson, Nelson Mandela, Malcom X and Mary Seacole. We have celebrated the achievements of black individuals and have told their stories accurately and with pride.

In art, we have been focusing on using different lines in drawing. We first developed our knowledge of the different types of lines we could use such as horizontal, vertical, wavy and broken lines and the explored using different pressures when drawing. We enjoyed drawing lines to different types of music and found it really interesting how the speed, intensity and volume of the music had an effect on our pictures. We used the different drawing techniques to create self-portraits in the style of artist Paul Klee. We coloured these portraits using shading where we used different pressure on the coloured pencils.

In PSHE, we have been using circle time with Jigsaw Jack to discuss how our behaviour affects others and how we can help others in our class to learn. We have also been thinking about how we know we are safe at school.

In RE, we have been thinking about the different things Christians believe about God. We went on a scavenger hunt to find some of the beautiful natural objects we have in our school grounds and discussed how Christians believe that everything was created by God. We have read the Christian creation story and we have examined how Christians believe God would like everyone to treat the Earth.

In Science, we started our Seasons unit, learning about the differences between the four seasons and thinking about the season we are currently in.  We talked about the changes in Autumn and we went on a leaf hunt, collecting lots of different coloured leaves.  Then we conducted an experiment to see which colours were hiding in those leaves.  It was lots of fun!  We will continue learning about the seasons as the year progresses.

We also started our Materials unit by exploring the classroom and identifying what the furniture was made from.  The children were challenged to find as many objects in the room made from: metal, plastic, rubber, wood and glass.  They found so many!  Next we looked at the different properties of the materials and identified objects that were bumpy, flat, rough, smooth, sharp and blunt. 

We conducted some experiments and talked about how to make the test fair.  First, we tested a selection of materials to see which held the most water and which was the most absorbent.  Then we tested another group of materials to see which were opaque and transparent.  Hummingbirds were great scientists and could explain what they found out using our new science vocabulary.  Ask your child what the words in bold mean and see if they can remember.

In Computing, we started our ‘Technology around us’ unit by thinking about what the word technology means.  The children went on a hunt in the classroom and found lots of examples of technology and could explain what the objects were used for.  The children have learnt the names of the different parts of a desktop or laptop computer and why they are important.

They used their mouse skills to ‘drag and drop’ in the Paintz.app programme, where they extended their skills further by digitally painting a self-portrait.  The children then practised using their typing skills to create a text box and write their name.  The children are doing really well at developing their mouse and trackpad skills, but lots of them found it quite tricky!  If you have a computer at home, please encourage them to practice using the free web-based www.paintz.app programme. 

We ended the unit by thinking about how to stay safe online, using the school rules and by thinking about what information is safe to share online. 

We hope you all have a lovely half-term and these glorious, sunny, Autumnal days continue! We hope the children have a well-deserved rest and we will see you back in school on Monday 2^nd November.

 

Mrs Garcia and Mrs Arnott