Hummingbirds (Year 1)

Welcome to Year 1

Our class is called Hummingbirds.  We are taught by Mrs Garcia (Mon-Weds), Mrs Arnott (Thurs-Fri) and supported by Mrs Jeffries and Miss Hall.

PE Days

Hummingbirds will have PE on a Tuesday and a Thursday.  Children will need to wear their PE kit to school on this day and will remain in them all day. They will not need uniform to change into.  Please ensure your child has the correct PE kit so they can participate successfully. 

Library Slot

Your child will get an opportunity to visit the school library on a Friday. Here they will have the chance to borrow a book that they are interested in: a book they will read for pleasure.  If they wish to take a book home, this will need to be returned on a Friday ready to change.

Home Learning

Every week each child will bring home their home learning book containing questions about what the children have learnt from this week. This will be handed out every Friday and should be returned the following Wednesday. Please note, home learning should not take more than 30 minutes. If your child is struggling with this, please make a note for us in their home learning book.

Give Me Ten - Children are expected to read for at least ten minutes every day and should record this in their reading record. Children should bring their reading record to school every day. We hope to see lots of children becoming Reading Champions this year! 

Maths Magicians - There are a number of key mathematical facts that children should know and remember. These are, of course, taught in school but it is essential that children practise them at home too. You can find out which facts your child is currently working on by checking their home learning book.  Children will be quizzed on their maths facts every Thursday. As they progress through the different stages of facts, children have the opportunity to earn rewards and work towards becoming Maths Magicians!

Handwriting - Using www.letterjoin.co.uk, your child can practise their handwriting at home. There are desktop and tablet login details that can be found by clicking on the phonics, spelling and writing star at the top of the page.

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 encouraged us to never give up despite what might stand in our 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 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 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, matching a given number of objects with a numeral card. We have been ordering numbers and finding 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 used ‘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 have examined how Christians believe God would like everyone to treat the Earth.

In science, we started our unit of learning about materials 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 of: 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 scientific 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, even though 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 4^th November.

Mrs Garcia and Mrs Arnott