Welcome to Life at KPS for Year 1

Miss Owoaje and Mrs Richardson warmly welcome you to Year 1.

The aim of this page is to highlight some of the fantastic learning that has been happening in Year 1, this page will be updated monthly, with photographs and information about the learning we have completed during the month.

We hope you enjoy looking through these updates and do discuss your child’s learning with them to celebrate their success. We look forward to any suggestions you may have to make your child’s learning a pleasant experience.

February 2022

Art

In Art, we have been busy developing our painting skills. Some of us are beginning to become quite masterful with our colour mixing now! In the lead up to our large collaborative piece, we have learnt about tints, tones and shades. To make the colours lighter, we added white and to make the colours darker we added black. To make the tones we added grey. Once we had secured this skill, we then progress further and learnt how to paint carefully within a square shape. The rule we had to follow was to use a tint if the square is white and use a shade if the square is grey.

Computing

For ‘Safer Internet Day’ on Tuesday 8^th February, we discussed how to keep safe online. We learnt about the right attitudes to have when playing games online and that you should not act in a different way from in real life. We should always be kind, whether online or offline. We made our own emoji paper fans and then ‘reacted’ to different scenarios. It makes us sad when people are not kind online! We learnt about passwords and how we must never share our password with anyone as it is personal. We also now know how to make a strong password, by adding numbers and symbols.

English

In English, we have begun writing our retell of ‘Handa’s Surprise’. Some of us are using the Colourful Semantics scheme to help us to structure our sentences and we are then ordering them to form the narrative. Most of us are retelling the story and focusing on using adverbs of time to show when the animals come. Some of us are innovating the story slightly by adding different animals and fruits. We are working hard to focus on remembering our capital letters and full stops. Learning a new Tier 2 word each week is really developing our vocabulary too!

Food Technology

This month in Food Technology, we have made ‘Royal Rice’! The children were very excited upon hearing this name as they thought they were cooking for the Queen! The recipe was for a rice salad which had red kidney beans inside, chopped bell peppers and coriander. The children practised their cutting skills. We made progress this month because we were cutting peppers, which are harder in texture compared with the ingredients in our fruit salad last month. We then mixed our ingredients together, along with a spoonful or salad dressing, and it was complete! Delicious!

Maths

In Maths, we have been focusing on time, including ordering the months and events in a day. We have been learning to draw and read the time to o’clock and half past on an analogue clock. We now know that when the minute hand is pointing straight up, it is o’clock and if it is pointing straight down, then it is half past. We also discussed our daily routines and learnt the times we complete a particular activity or eat breakfast in the day. For example, ‘At half past three in the afternoon, I will be on my way home.’ We have also learnt the language of clockwise and anti-clockwise and half/quarter turns.

Music

In Music, the children have been linking their learning to their topic of ‘Khalsa to Kenya’ and focusing on elements of the ‘Handa’s Surprise’ story.

The children have learnt how to follow rhythms using drums, which include whole notes half notes and rests like the chart below:

In addition, we have played musical games to learn and consolidate the difference in tempo, pitch, dynamics, duration and mood. We are started to play as a whole class and use our listening skills carefully to make a good collaborative sound!

Panjabi & Sikh Studies

In Year 1 we have been learning 2 sets of the Panjabi alphabet and their corresponding sounds. To keep us on our toes we have been using a variety of resources such as magnetic letters and flash cards. Children are learning Mukta words. For our new sets we are using flash cards and magnetic letters. Some children are writing on the white boards and recording in their books.   Another thing we have been looking at in Panjabi is the weather. We discussed our prior knowledge about the weather in Panjabi and shared it with the whole class.  In Sikh Studies, the children are learning about Chali Mukte.

Physical Education

In PE, we have been continuing with learning to play Dodgeball! We have been practicing the skills needed to play the sport by taking part in target practice games and drills designed to improve awareness. Dodgeball is a team sport in which you have to move out of the way of balls being thrown at you from the opposition team. If a ball hits your body you are out. Your team wins the game when all the players on the opposition team are out. Children will be working on quick footwork skills and teamwork to improve their game play.  These skills are transferable to many other team and individual sports and we will be discussing this further in our lessons.

PSHE

In PSHE, we have been deepening our understanding of what makes a good friend. We have been inspired by Handa from our story to be kind and give to others. We have also been reminded of our ‘Have you filled a bucket today?’ book and we have been actively writing kind notes to each other. This month we have looked more closely at qualities of friends and what a good friend does. We learnt words like ‘supportive’ and ‘loyal’. We thought about what type of friend we are and what type of friends we would like to have.

Science

In Science, we have been consolidating our understanding of the different groups that vertebrates belong to – we have been doing this through continuous provision challenges. For example, the challenge could be to sort animal photos into ‘mammals’ and ‘not mammals’. We are now learning about animal diets. We also discussed what we eat as humans.

‘I am an omnivore because I eat chicken and vegetables.’

‘I am a herbivore because I don’t eat meat.’

When we return from the half term break we will be investigating diets in more detail!