Class Updates
Spring 1 update
We are so proud of every member of Hummingbirds; they have all shown so much enthusiasm and such a positive attitude to learning this half term. Well done!
It has been a busy half term. In English, we started the term with poetry, reading Kes Gray and Jim Field’s ‘Oi Frog!’ and ‘On the Ning Nang Nong’ by Spike Milligan. We spent some time performing these poems and thinking about words that rhyme, before writing our own versions of Spike Milligan’s classic.
Next, we shared the delightful story of ‘Stanley’s Stick’ by John Hegley, about Stanley who uses his imagination to turn his stick into all sorts of fantastic things. The children enjoyed finding their own sticks, retelling the stories in their own books and finally writing their own versions of the story which are now proudly in our book corner in class.
Finally, we read our last texts this half-term, ‘Ruby’s Worry’ and ‘Ravi’s Roar’ by Tom Percival, which we used to write recounts. We loved reading these stories and thinking about how the characters felt throughout the story. As well as creating our own ‘What to do if you have a worry’ booklet, we will finish this half-term by writing about one of our own worries and thinking what we can do to make ourselves feel better.
The children have all been working so hard in phonics lessons and we would like to direct you to the Little Wandle website, where there is a special section for parents/carers: https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/
In maths, we have been learning how to double and halve numbers up to 20 using numicon, cuisenaire rods and tens frames. We investigated odd and even numbers and linked this with halving and sharing. We also enjoyed exploring the properties of 2D and 3D shapes and discussing their similarities and differences.
In history, we have been investigating the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79 and finding out about life in Pompeii at the time. We have been discussing the difference between primary and secondary evidence and looking at artefacts from this period, discussing their purpose.
In RE, we have been learning about Judaism. Our deep question was ‘Who is God to Jews?’ and we have been exploring how to answer the question in different ways. We have talked about Abraham being the father of Judaism, we have discussed how Jews believe that there is one god and that it is forbidden to have any pictures of God and we have also explored the ten commandments and how important it is to follow rules in everyday life.
In art, we have been creating our pieces for the art exhibition which were based on the theme of ‘peace’. We first created backgrounds which looked like a view of the Earth with oil pastels, then we used a black and white photo of our hands which we cut out and placed it on our background. Finally we drew and coloured pictures of doves (as a symbol of peace) and placed these in our hands. We were really pleased with the result then we brought it all together to make a lovely piece of artwork to display!
In DT we have been making moving monsters. We discussed what the best shape for a wheel was, testing different shapes to make sure! Then we made some axles to move the wheels and created and decorated our monsters, which we could then pull along. We really enjoyed testing them out!
We hope you all have a lovely half-term and that the children have a really good rest.
Mrs Arnott and Mrs Garcia
Autumn 2 Update
We can’t believe it is nearly Christmas and we are coming to the end of our first term in year 1! Hummingbirds have had a fantastic term and we are very proud of how hard they have worked and how far they have come.
In English, we started this half-term by reading ‘Gruffalo Crumble’, a recipe book based on the story by Julia Donaldson. We identified the different features of an instruction text, including bossy verbs. We made our own meals for the Gruffalo with natural objects, such as pine cones, leaves and stones. We also followed a recipe from the book and enjoyed making ‘terrible tusks’ (fruit kebabs). We finished the unit by writing our own instructions for making our own mud pie for the gruffalo, trying hard to include a title, list of ingredients, bossy verbs and sequencing words.
Then we moved onto our Traditional tales unit, sharing the texts ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen and ‘The Princess and the Pea’ by Rachel Isadora. We identified the features of a traditional tale, we ordered the different parts of the story and used story language and stick puppets to retell the story in our own words. Then we had great fun creating our own monsters to create our own traditional tale.
In Maths, we have been using the part whole model to explore the relationship between addition and subtraction. We have used this model to solve problems, where information is missing and identifying whether we need to add or subtract.
The children have worked hard to count carefully and compare two groups of objects to find the difference. We have had a number of lessons using the balance scales to show that the = symbol actually means ‘the same as’ or ‘balanced,’ rather than ‘the answer.’ The children have really impressed us with finding lots of different ways to find ‘the same as’ for a given number.
We have also worked on what the children learnt in Reception, about building numbers to 20, and how numbers ten to nineteen are made up by ten and some more. The children have played lots of matching games, matching digits, Cuisenaire rods and numbers in words to help develop their understanding. We finished the term focussing on doubling and halving, and odd and even numbers. How do we know if a number is odd or even? Can we share it out equally? Ask your child if they can explain to you how they know.
And of course, we have also been practising counting in 2s, 5s and 10s which the children are getting really good at!
In geography, we have been finding out about our local area. We explored a map of the United Kingdom, naming the different countries and the location of St Albans. We studied our school and the surrounding area on digimap and created our own simple map of the school grounds. We explored our local area on foot, noticing the street signs, road names, different types of housing, shops, church and the woods in New Greens and identifying which were human and physical features.
In art, we have been exploring primary and secondary colours and colour mixing. We have been using different tools to apply paint, producing some very creative pieces of art, including our paper plates in the same style of Clarice Cliff.
In DT, we have been considering where different foods come from, discussing a balanced diet and how fruits and vegetables are healthy. We designed and created our own healthy smoothies, tasted them and evaluated them. Yummy!!
In PSHE, we have used circle time with Jigsaw Jack to consider our similarities and differences. We have also discussed bullying and the importance of talking to a trusted adult if we feel upset or unsafe. We have written kindness pledges and created friendship tokens to encourage us all to be good friends to others at school.
In RE, we have been considering how it feels to both give and receive a gift. We have discussed the gifts given to Jesus by the wise men and their significance. We have thought about which gifts we would give to Jesus if he were born today.
In Science, we continued our learning about Materials with some fantastic experiments. We learnt about floating and sinking, by experimenting with a satsuma! Then the children made predictions as to whether a collection of objects would float or sink. They had great fun testing out their predictions! We finished our unit by making our own boats out of a choice of materials and seeing if it could support a counting bear. Hummingbirds are great scientists!
In our Seasons unit, we learnt about Autumn with a fantastic investigation into what colours hide in our leaves at this time of year.
In Computing, the children have loved using computers to recreate lots of different paintings by some famous artists such as Matisse, Mondrian and Kandinsky. We explored the different tools that Paintz.app offers and thought about which tool to use for each style of painting. The children have become really confident in using this application and they can explain which tool they used and why. At the end of the unit we created our very own digital Christmas masterpieces using a style called Pointillism and then recreated it with cotton buds and paint. The children all voted for which effect they liked best and why.
We hope you have a fantastic Christmas holiday and a well-deserved rest. We look forward to seeing you back at school on Tuesday 6th January 2026.
Mrs Garcia, Mrs Arnott, Mrs Bunton and Mrs Djafari J
Autumn 2
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 the Hope-o-potamus which encourages to never give up despite what might stand in your way. We enjoyed lots of discussion about how we could encourage each other to achieve our own dreams.
The first text that we looked at in English was the wonderful 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 instructions to help Firetips to carry out some gardening of their own!
We have also enjoyed reading ‘Puffin Peter’ by Petr Horacek, a beautifully illustrated book about two puffin friends. Sadly the friends were separated during a great storm and the book takes you on Pauls 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 come up with 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 you need 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: Reclaiming Narratives. 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. We then used our knowledge of these different lines to first draw our own individual tiles which we then put together to make a class mosaic. Then we created an underwater picture depicting the waves of the water using wavy lines. Finally we put our observation skills to the test to create some still life pictures of natural objects like shells, leaves and conkers.
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 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 a fun puzzle task and they developed their skills further using the Paintz.app programme to draw a picture of themselves. 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 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! Make sure the children have a well-deserved rest and we will see you back in school on Monday 3rd November.
Mrs Garcia and Mrs Arnott
