Year 1-Spring Term

Happy New Year and welcome back to Year 1!

I hope that you have all enjoyed your Christmas and are ready for the next steps in your learning.

Our topic is ‘The UK and Far Away’. We will be focusing on the 4 countries of the UK and also studying places further afield.

As always, if you have any questions, queries, concerns or comments, please feel free to speak to me when I collect or bring out the children.

Happy New Year again, here’s to a positive start to 2024!

English:

Reading will be taught as a whole-class lesson, as well as through

group and individual reading. We follow the Little Wandle scheme which allows the children to enhance their reading skills during the 3 sessions each week. To assist with your child’s reading development, it is essential to read with them at home. We will be using the ‘Talk 4 Writing’ approach to develop our storytelling and writing skills.

Our first class focus text will be ‘Meerkat Mail’. We will be focusing on the children’s ability to decode the text and provide developed descriptions of the characters and settings within the story. The children will be completing various written and spoken pieces of work throughout the deconstruction of the text, including postcard and letter writing and taking on the role of the characters from the story in a ‘hot-seating’ situation. We will be focusing on our handwriting and developing our cursive letter formation. In June the children will complete their Phonics Screening. They will be given 40 real and non-sense words to decode, using their phonetic knowledge and recollection of the letters and sounds they have been taught since foundation stage.

Maths:  We will be focusing initially on numbers to 20 and consolidating our existing knowledge. Over the course of the Spring term, we will also be working on our addition and subtraction skills, embedding our existing understanding from the Autumn term. We will also be continuing to work on our place value knowledge, focusing on numbers to 50, including counting in multiples of 2s, 5s and 10s. In the measurement aspect of maths, we will be learning about height and length and also weight and volume.

Science: During the spring term, we will be focusing on different materials and their properties. We will be classifying objects and materials and aim to identify the different materials objects are made from.

History/Geography: We will be focusing predominantly on the UK and each of the 4 countries and their capital cities. We will be developing our map and key work, identifying the location of each of the countries and also learning about the key landmarks at each place. As part of our study, we will be learning about the Great Fire of London as the children have shown great interest in this.

Art/Design & Technology: This term the children will continue their learning about seasons with their printing skills and pattern skills. As a link to our focus on the Great Fire of London, they will also be creating a collaborative piece of art to represent the city at the time of the fire.

Computing: The children will be developing their typing skills to create lists and the children will continue to develop their programming skills.

Music We will be continuing to use the ‘Charanga’ music scheme to develop our voice and instrument skills. As part of our topic, we will also be listening to music from across the decades within the UK and from countries across the world.

World Religions: Over the Spring term, we will continue to expand our knowledge of Christianity. We will be discussing the topic of right and wrong and we will learn all about the Easter story.

PSHE: We will continue our learning using the Jigsaw Scheme and we will be focusing on the topics ‘Dreams and Goals and ‘Healthy me’.

Homework:

A homework sheet will be given out each Friday. It is still expected that the children complete 5 minutes’ worth of spelling practise every day, as well as daily reading.

Useful links:

y1 spellings

100 High Frequency