Welcome to Life at KPS for Year 1

Mrs Sandhu 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.

March 2021

DT

In DT, we have been learning how to sew using a running stitch. This has been challenging for many of us but has taught us great perseverance! We have used our prior skills of tying knot to secure the yarn after threading the needle. We have begun drawing our initial and final designs and have worked hard to label all of the different components that we would like to use when we make our design. We have done a fantastic job to design a puppet that we could realistically make with the given materials. We can’t wait to get on and sew our little pig puppets together!

English

In English, we have been reading a modern tale called ‘The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig’. The children have had the opportunity to write a book talk where they wrote about their likes, dislikes, patterns in the story and some also wrote questions relating to the story. We wrote SVO sentences to describe the characters actions, e.g. The big bad wolf blew the straw house down! We have also been writing 1A sentences – using an adjective to describe.

The children enjoyed role-playing each character, especially the big bad wolf! They used their imaginations to think like each character and used hand puppets to assist in the role play.

Food Technology

Since coming back to school this term, the whole school has been lucky enough to do some cookery in the new food technology room! In Year 1, we made some healthy sandwiches using as many areas as possible from the Eatwell Plate. After reading the story of ‘The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch’ during our zoom sessions, we really wanted to make some delicious sandwiches for ourselves! We also had the chance to make some scrumptious chocolate nest cakes to celebrate the coming of spring. We have had great fun learning some new skills in the kitchen.

Gardening

We have been busy gardening this month! We had the opportunity to learn with Mrs Morgan, who taught us how to plant basil, methi (fenugreek), lemon grass and dill seeds in planters.

We have kept the planters in class as the weather is too cold for them to be outside, but they will be going out soon! We water the seeds every day and ensure they get enough sunlight so they can grow tall. We also looked at different ways to use our herbs in cooking sauces, chutneys and meals.

We are undergoing an investigation where we planted four seeds and kept them different environments, the first seed has sunlight and water, the second seed has water but no sunlight, the third seed has sunlight but no water and the fourth seed has no sunlight or water. We will observe the seeds to see which grow.

Maths

In maths, we have been identifying some of the areas that we need to revise. We learnt how to tell the time to o’clock and half past during our online learning, however many of us needed to recap these skills. Each morning in our Maths Meetings we have been revisiting our previous lessons to help us consolidate this learning. For example, we might play a guess the shape, guess the 2-digit number or guess the coin game. Each day we use our place value chart to do a countdown or count up to a special day or event.

Music

Being back at school has made a huge difference to our class music lessons

The children have enjoyed playing rhythms and pulse together as a whole group. They have learnt lyrics to a song about growing plants, which links in with their gardening. We are still not able to sing in a classroom due to Covid-19 restrictions but we have sung outside in a spread-out group. In addition, the children have played rhythm and pulse playground games which is particularly good for their well-being.

PE

This term, children have been taking 3 PE lessons a week!  The children have taken part in fitness lessons, team building and sports/games.

The aim in our lessons this term has been to brush up on motor skills and get our fitness back up to scratch!  Children have been pushing themselves to increase their stamina and strength after being away from their normal school life for such a long time.  We have been going on daily walks, doing shuttle runs and lots of sprinting games.

We hope that the children will keep their fitness training going over the holidays so we can continue with many more sports and games when they return.

PSHE

In PSHE, we have been learning all about families. In one of our Jigsaw lessons, we were given a photo of an animal and we had to find our family by roaring, meowing, mooing, croaking or barking. This was a really fun activity as we really got creative with our noises! In our floor book we have been drawing and labelling our families and identifying different relations – not every family looks the same! We have also learnt how to keep each other safe, specifically relating to the coronavirus. The safety of our friends and family is really important, so we created hand prints out of paint and wrote ideas for how we could keep ourselves and others safe.