We have 16 boys and 14 girls in our class that are delightful, fun, hardworking and kind.
Miss Hulbert is our teacher and Mrs Mulholland is our teaching assistant.
Curriculum Evening
USEFUL LINKS
Summer
Charity Fundraising
Y1 completed a cycling challenge to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support and Brake Road Safety. Cycling 30 miles on the Peleton bike (kindly loaned to us by the Parrys) and scooting/cycling 89 miles around the playground. We raised an incredible £658 for Macmillan Cancer and £137 for Brake Road Safety, a total of £792! Thank you so much to the friends and family of Y1 for sponsoring us on such an energetic and worthy challenge.
The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee
In preparation for the Queen’s jubilee in Art we designed our own crowns. We have used golden mosaic paper, sequins, and gems to give our crowns some bling. We have also been using tissue paper to make Her Majesty her own card from Y1.
We watched the five competitors from the Platinum Pudding Competition to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth ll (which has linked in with our Geography topic on the UK). We designed our own puddings for Her Majesty. We listed the ingredients and the recipe and why our pudding was fit for the Queen!
Wow, what a jam-packed Jubilee themed week we have had in Y1! We started the week by making our jubilee puddings: a zesty, lemony trifle and a rich, chocolate mousse tart with raspberries and meringues. The best bit was tasting our creations and they were delicious. We think the Queen would agree too!
Our Jubilee week finished with our class assembly and the whole school afternoon celebration.
RE
As May is the month dedicated to Our Lady, we made our own prayer altars. We coloured in stain glass windows, constructed our own vases and made paper flowers to honour Mary with.
We learned about Pentecost which is the festival when Christians celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is an important event in the liturgical calendar as it is the birthday of the Christian church. We reflected on the events that happened as the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus' followers, arriving like a strong wind and looking like tongues of fire.
Next we learned about the Jewish faith. We compared a synagogue to a church and learnt that a typical synagogue contains an ark (where the scrolls of the Law are kept), an “eternal light” burning before the ark, two candelabra, pews, and a raised platform (bimah), from which scriptural passages are read and from which, often, services are conducted.
Finally, we have been thinking about Jesus as a healer. A great portion of Christ’s time was dedicated to healing the sick. He healed all kinds of people: We learned about the miracle of the paralysed man, the blind man and how Jesus calmed the storm. We finished our unit on Jesus’ miracles, we thought about the miracles that we had learnt about and reflected on the qualities Jesus must have had to perform these miracles. We also thought about some of the ways we would help others if we could perform miracles- making sure everyone had a family or enough food to eat, or making everybody healthy.
Maths
We have been making equal groups in Maths. We looked at making groups of two, three and four which helped us to make arrays. We used counters to help us make arrays and to understand the columns and rows within an array.
Next we learned how to tell the time when it is o’clock and half-past the hour. On the clock we know that the big hand (minute hand) is pointing to 12 and the smaller hand (hour hand) is pointing to the hour and that the opposite applies for half-past. The minute hand has travelled to the 6 and the hour hand is now halfway between.
We have learnt that fractions are about sharing and we are beginning to understand that fractions are a part of one object or a whole. This week we have been focusing on halves and quarters.
English
In preparation for the Platinum Jubilee in English, we have been learning all about the Queen. We learnt lots of facts about her royal life and some interesting trivia too: including her 9 foot wedding cake and the fact that she owns an elephant! We used this information to write a non-chronological report.
We started a new book in English called “The Day The Crayons Quit” which is about a little boy named Duncan and his box of crayons, whom one day decide to go on strike because they are not satisfied with how they are used. Duncan tries to find a way to solve this problem, in order to keep his crayons happy and be able to draw again. We thought of lots of adjectives to describe how each crayon felt. We watched a short clip about the crayons getting lost. We thought about all the places our crayons may go to (the beach, park the hot tub…and we wrote our own diary entry explaining how our day unfolded.
Science
This term, we have been learning about the life cycle of a simple flowering plant - germination, growth, flowering, and seed production. We have been observing our own plants. The sunflower plants are growing well; the strawberry plants haven’t really begun to grow yet… We enjoyed the sunshine and went out to identify plants and record observations in Science. We found lots of different flowers within the school grounds and were able to make sketches and label the different parts of the flower.
We were very excited when we got to hold the chicks that have recently hatched in YR. We were very careful to hold them gently and enjoyed hearing them 'cheep' as we stroked their very, fluffy feathers.
Next, we started a new unit on our body. Benjamin lay on a large piece of paper and we drew around him. We labelled the different parts of the body. We were impressed to hear that Isaac L knew how many bones were in the human body (206 if you didn’t know)
We learned about senses. We learnt that the tongue uses taste buds to tell the brain what we are tasting. We taste bitter things at the back of our tongue, sour tastes at either side and salty/sweet tastes at the front. We enjoyed a taste test where we were able to taste different foods to see where our taste receptors are.
Geography
We have been learning about human features and physical features. We have learnt that human features are made by humans and are those which humans have changed or influenced, these include: roads, bridges, walls buildings and statues. Physical features like seas, mountains and rivers are natural. They would be here even if there were no people around.
We then enjoyed a fabulous walk around Otley, spotting physical and human features and deciding how we could improve our local area.
PSHE
In PSHE, with the help of a friendly dinosaur called Pantosaurus we discussed PANTS. This is a simple and clever acronym which helps to teach children the underwear rule: privates are private; always remember your body belongs to you; no means no; talk about secrets that upset you and speak up, someone can help. We enjoyed singing ‘The Pants Song.’
ICT
We have been learning how to log on to the laptops. We used a paint program and have been learning how to make shapes and use different colours and techniques to draw pictures and how to undo and redo an action. Inspired by the abstract paintings of Piet Mondrian, we have been using the paint program to experiment with the arrangement of different sized and coloured squares.
Art
In Art we have been looking at famous landscape impressionists Renoir, Kroyer and Sorolla. We discussed the typical scenery of a landscape and used watercolours to paint our own beach scenes, focusing on the demarcation between the horizon and the sand.
We loved creating sculptures to represent Otley which were inspired by our Otley walk. Here they are!
PE
The children represented St Joseph’s amazingly at the multi skills festival at Prince Henry’s Grammar School. Teachers commented on their excellent attitudes, teamwork and skills.
Spring 2
RE
On Shrove Tuesday, we tried some delicious pancakes and discussed the reason behind this custom. We discussed the importance of Ash Wednesday and how it marks the beginning of 40 days of reflection and preparation. We wrote Lenten prayers to help us feel closer to God. We have reflected on how we prepare spiritually throughout the forty days of Lent. We thought about the three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigour during this time: prayer, fasting and almsgiving and identified the different ways that we have been doing this CAFOD Faith lunch, Toast Tuesdays etc...
In RE, we have been thinking about the fourteen stations of the cross, each of which represents an event during Christ’s Passion. We listened and prayed with Y6 as they led a very moving 14 step devotion which began with Jesus Christ's condemnation through to his body being placed in the tomb.
We really enjoyed celebrating St Patrick’s Day. We learnt about St Patrick’s life. We made shamrock cards, tried out some traditional Irish dancing (tricky but fun) and in the afternoon, continued with the green theme in our art lesson where we practised making different shades of green by mixing blue and yellow.
We celebrated our second feast day of the week St Joseph’s Day. We learned about the significance of St Joseph. We reflected on his role of being Jesus’ foster father and how much he loved and cared for his family. We wrote about these special qualities, made 3D cards, and ended our week with a beautiful mass.
Well done Year 1, leading our beautiful Mass about following Jesus.
We retold the Easter story starting with our Palm Sunday assembly. We made a beautiful wreath of the Easter Story. colouring and cutting out each part of the story from Palm Sunday to Pentecost and reading the Bible quotes.
We had lots of fun doing Easter crafts. We made beautiful chalk pastel Easter cards. We coloured in 3D nets and constructed Easter baskets. We also made chocolate Easter nests and placed them in our baskets.
English
World Book Day
Year 1’s World Book Day celebrations were enjoyed by everyone.. We talked about why we had chosen our particular word and costume and wrote about these choices. We thought of synonyms for our word too. We enjoyed lots of fun activities, a scavenger hunt, the famous world book day quiz, and a story from Mrs Riley, who came to read the beautiful book she has written and illustrated The Saltwater Fairies. She answered lots of our questions. Well done to all of Year 1 for your fabulous costumes.
World Book Day Assembly
Year one learned and recited three very long poems for our assembly. Actions were used to remember the poems. The children talked and sang about the importance of reading and thanked God for this gift.
In English, we read the book Iggy Peck, Architect. Iggy makes lots of interesting structures out of all sorts of unusual things. Thank you for all the recycling that was sent in to help create our structures. The children designed their buildings, decided which materials to use and then had a very messy afternoon creating their masterpieces. The descriptions they wrote about their buildings are wonderful.
Here are their creations.
We then wrote short stories (of only 100 words). We planned our stories thinking about characters, exciting events, and interesting endings. We learned many different techniques to edit our writing to improve our spelling and sentence structure. Ms Choma was amazed at our work!
Maths
We have been practising counting in tens and ones. We have used practical resources (base 10) to help us with this. We have been splitting two-digit numbers such as: 34 and recognising that it has 3 tens and 4 ones.
We have been thinking about one more and one less than with 2-digit numbers. We have used number squares to help us. We have also been comparing groups of objects and consolidating our understanding of comparative language: more than, greater than, less than, fewer and equals.
Science
What a jam-packed climate change week we had in Y1! We’ve had amazing presentations from Y6 which taught us how human activity is causing worldwide temperatures to rise higher and faster than any time we know of in the past…and what we can do to combat this? We completed a matching activity to help us learn about the factors that cause climate change. We learnt how more frequent and intense drought, storms, heat waves, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and warming oceans can directly harm animals, destroy the places they live, and wreak havoc on people's livelihoods and communities. We also felt the benefit of hugging tress and learned about how trees hep us.
We watched reception release their butterflies which had metamorphosed from wriggly caterpillars to beautiful Red Admirals. (Year 1 butterflies are still chrysalids we think they’ll emerge in the holidays).
PE
Year 1 had lots of fun using their gymnastic shapes and positions as well as their rolling and travelling skills on the apparatus. Using the climbing frame, low angled ladders, walking planks and gymnastics benches we practised our balancing skills and how to land appropriately.
Art
We created green finger art by only using yellow and blue. We learned how to make different shades of green by mixing different amounts. We used our found knowledge of mixing paints to paint bright and vibrant rainforest leaves. We then made animal mosaics, to place in our rainforest scenes.
History
We have been learning about significant people. We learned about the palaeontologist Mary Anning who uncovered and discovered what turned out to be the first complete Ichthyosaur fossil to be found. This was an important discovery because it challenged the way scientists had thought the natural world had developed. We made fossils from salt dough too. Next we learned about Neil Armstrong and the watched his first moon landing. We wrote brilliant facts and learned how to draw an astronaut and a space rocket. Then we learned about the difference that Florence Nightingale made to our world. We created orders of merit for individuals in our own life who we think should be recognised for their work.
Spring 1
Chinese New Year
To celebrate Chinese New Year, Y1 learned how the animals of the Chinese Zodiac decided on who would have each year named after them. We know that some of our class are goats and some are monkeys. We enjoyed making Chinese tiger lanterns and loved tasting Chinese food which some of us had never tasted before!
RE
We have been reflecting on the notion of belonging and what it feels like to belong to our family and how special that makes us feel. We reflected on our own family and who we live with at home. We thought about the important qualities of belonging within our school community. We reflected on the pastimes/roles that we share with our family and how these compare to our school and church family.
Next we learned about Baptism. We enjoyed sharing some of the symbolic items we wore or were given at our own baptism (thanks to parents for sending these into school, they were so wonderful). We reflected on why Catholics and other Christians are baptised (to welcome them into God’s family and to show that they belong to Christ). Our visit to Fr Lawrie at OLAS church was very special. We learned more about what happens during a baptism. We were allowed to explore the church and he showed us lots of interesting things like how to light the incense and which oils we were anointed with at our own baptism. He answered lots of our questions.
Our Bible story taught us how God revealed his Son’s identity to Anna and Simeon when baby Jesus was taken to the temple to be dedicated to the Lord. The children used puppets to enact this story. We learned about Candlemas. When Simeon called Jesus a ‘light’ this was the inspiration for the celebration of Candlemas (February 2nd).
Inspired by the Radiant Light series of paintings by Elizabeth Wang, Y1 produced their own artwork depicting Jesus as the Light of the World using an array of colours in soft pastels. We also wrote our own prayers with this as our premise.
English
We finished our busy week first week with a trip to The Carriageworks Theatre to see Aladdin. We had a fantastic time and thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere and production. Inspired by the pantomime Aladdin, we thought about the character of Abanazar and discussed lots of adjectives to describe him. We wrote a character description describing his personality and appearance. We then retold the story of Aladdin using lots of actions to help us memorise each part. We’ve really been focussing on our cursive handwriting too.
Next we started reading a new book called Meet The Meerkat which is all about Sunny and his adventures. Sunny has been writing letters and is hoping to visit Otley soon. We thought about all the fun things Sunny could do during his visit and have been writing a letter back to him in the Kalahari Desert. Sunny has been very busy this week and in English we wrote a travel review based on Sunny’s adventures when he went to visit his other family members in the Kalahari Desert. Then Sunny sent a meerkat all the way from Africa for the children in Year 1 to look after. They named him Marley and he has enjoyed spending time with everyone this week. Marley the Meerkat has been on all sorts of exciting adventures, visiting children’s homes. We have enjoyed seeing all the photos of his fun and frolics including birthday parties, swimming, football matches and a disco with lots of other meerkats! The children wrote wonderful recounts about his adventures.
Maths
During our time in Y1 we have been working hard to secure our understanding of addition and subtraction. We are beginning to see the relationship between the two and to understand how they are related. This half term, we have been doing lots of addition. We have been focusing on the counting on method. Instead of counting two separate numbers to find the total- we have been using tens frames and number lines to count on from the bigger number Then we worked hard to use our number bonds to ten to help us with addition. We have been using ten frames and counters to help demonstrate how much easier addition can become when you split a number into two parts. Some of us have us have found this tricky but we’ve persevered all week. Please help your child to master this concept by practising their number bonds at home.
We then looked at different techniques for subtraction. We have now started to look at different representations of subtraction when crossing 10, to help us with this we used practical resources including a rekenrek (an arithmetic rack) ten frames, part-whole models and number lines.
NSPCC Number Day
We came up with so many ideas about where money comes from and even more about what to save up for, for the future and how we may want to spend it!
French
We have begun to learn to say simple greetings in French this week. We have also learned how to ask how somebody is feeling? (Ça va?) and how to reply… (Ça va bien or Ça va mal or if they’re just ok it’s Comme ce comme ça. We enjoyed practising these expressions with one another and completed a greetings puzzle.
Science
In our plants unit, we have been investigating the trees on our school grounds and labelling the parts of the tree. We have been observing the birch tree whilst in Y1 and watching how it changes throughout the seasons. We observed the parts of real flowers using magnifying glasses and asked each other lots of questions so we could answer with scientific vocabulary.
We learned that there are many different types of plants, some you can eat, some that are planted, wild plants and even grass!
Art and DT
This half term we have designs and created our moving Humpty Dumpty Story Books using lots of different steps. We evaluated our projects and rated them with stars.
In Art, we have been mixing colours and printing our initials and numbers with pieces of Lego. We had to think carefully about how we arranged the letters on to the base (in reverse) so they would print correctly.
PSHE
We having been thinking about the different ways in which we learn and the importance of celebrating our differences. We watched a short video that helped to explain this to us. Y1, as always shared their thought-provoking and interesting insights about differences after learning about Autism and Dyslexia.
Autumn 2
Christmas
Merry Christmas from Year 1
Christmas in Year 1 was full of Christmas craft making, writing and receiving letters to and from Father Christmas, Christmas parties and of course our Christmas production, Miracle in Town. This year the children kindly made extra decorations for Miss Hulbert’s charity event for the older people who would have spent Christmas on their own. We even did Christmas dancing in PE.
Christmas Performance A Miracle in Town
Christmas Crafts
Christmas Party Day
Christmas Dinner
RE
We concluded our learning about Noah's Ark with children explaining why God put a rainbow in the sky and saying what they hope for.
Our next unit was about Mary. We started learning about the annunciation and thought about why Mary was chosen and why she trusted God. We listened to the story of The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary as recorded in the Gospel of Luke (Lk 1:39-56). We learned about the Virgin Mary’s visit to her cousin, Elizabeth. The meeting of these two women was a joyful and unique event. Both found themselves pregnant in unusual circumstances – We reflected on the importance of this special meeting.
Advent
We thought about Advent, it’s meaning and it’s symbolism: the Advent wreath- an evergreen circle which is a symbol of eternal life and the candles which recall the weeks that pass until Christmas. We made our own Advent Wreaths and wrote about how we hope to do something nice for our Advent Angels.
We enjoyed lighting our advent candles and saying prayers of peace, love, hope and joy.
Finally we have learned about Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem and the Christmas story. We thought about why they had to travel such a long way and reflected on how they must have been feeling. We retold the story very impressively!
Odd Sock Day
We used the theme of One Kind word for anti bullying day, sharing lots of kind words about each other.
Racism Red Card Day
Year 1 learned about Martin Luther King and wrote our own dreams for the world.
Maths
In Maths, we have been learning lots about Number Bonds a Number bonds and learning that they help us split numbers in useful ways. We have been using our skills to apply mastery techniques,
We have continued to look at different techniques for addition and subtraction, looking at many different representations of subtraction using ten frames, part while models and the counting on and crossing out methods.
In measurement, ,we have been measuring in centimetres (cm) and examining our class rulers and how we use them. We know that we have to begin our measuring by starting at 0. We enjoyed putting this into practice and measuring small objects around the classroom using various items such as paper clips, plastic cubes and whiteboards pens.
English
The The Truly Magic Porridge Pot inspired our writing. We used actions to help us recall the story so we could retell it in written form. We used exciting adjectives to make our sentences more interesting. Next, we wrote instructions for the perfect bowl of porridge. We thought about our ingredients, utensils and the steps required to make the porridge. We started each instruction with a bossy verb (imperative). The best bit was making and eating the porridge!
It was an exciting day when we received a letter from Father Christmas. We thought about what we would like from Father Christmas this year and what we have done to be on the good list. Father Christmas loved our letters and we each received a letter and card from him after he had read our wonderful letters.
We listened to the story of Harvey Slumfenburger’s Christmas Present. On Christmas Eve, Father Christmas has had a long night of delivering presents and his one, last present to deliver becomes a major challenge. We used actions and story mapping to help us orally rehearse a sentence and write it. We thought about all the different ways that Father Christmas travelled to get to Harvey’s house. We used our brilliant imaginations to come up with some of our own fantastic ways to travel using verbs, adverbs and adjectives.
Lastly, we wrote recounts about what our naughty elf had been up to in the classroom. He got up to all sorts of mischief and had a few good days too.
We started learning some seasonal poetry which we still hope to perform to some older people in a care home in Otley in the Spring term. They would love to hear their poetry as part of poetry together. Although we will not be together, the children will be zooming a live performance of their poetry which we are sure will brighten their day.
Science
We have been learning about materials and where they can be found. We went on a materials hunt and labelled the outdoor area according to whether it was comprised of glass, wood, plastic or metal we thought about the suitability of these materials. Next we learned about the properties of materials and how to describe them. We learned some very sophisticated scientific vocabulary: transparent, flexible, rigid and opaque. We made booklets to show our understanding of the various properties of wood, glass and wool.
The science show at Otley Courthouse was such fun!
Geography
We had our last history lesson learning about playground games that the children's grandparents played when they were at school. We had fun playing the games, trying to jump in the long skipping rope and playing with hula hoops. Thank you to grandmas and grandads who sent information into school.
We have enjoyed playing in our new travel agent provision area where we can learn about hot and cold places. We learned about the physical features of hot and cold places and the animals and plants that live their. We now know the differences between the polar regions, we know that the polar regions are at the North and South Pole and that the warmer areas and rain forests are located nearer to the equator.
Art / DT / Music
Music was very noisy this half term with children attempting to play percussion instruments to different beats and rhythms. Our children’s enthusiasm to learn the songs for our Christmas performance was so amazing.
In Art, we learned about primary colours, mixed colours and then used these colours to create firework art. Some children created their firework pictures using ICT. We learnt about the colour spectrum and primary colours. We know that we can mix the primary colours (red, yellow & blue) together to make new colours.
At the end of the term, we started our DT unit on Making a Moving Storybook. We have been learning about the mechanisms within the book and how we can make them move. We chose to make a rabbit or a car as our design piece. Next term we will make our moving story books.
PE
We enjoyed learning lots of dance for our Christmas performance.
Lots of skills were learned on our Fencing workshop.
Here we are on a very wet Santa Dash. Well done showing perseverance Year 1.
Autumn 1
RE
God’s Plan
We thought about our wonderful world- the lakes, mountains,, rivers, flowers and trees and pondered just how God had created all the beautiful things in our world. We thought about how to look after God’s creation.
We reflected on the Creation Story, we watched short clips and sang songs about how God created our wonderful world. We thought about some questions we would like to ask God if we got the chance… such as How did You put the stars in the sky?
Harvest
Year 1 lead the Harvest collective worship on Friday morning. Mrs Harvey commended Year 1 for reading their lines beautifully and their wonderful singing. We wrote Harvest prayers thanking God for all that he gives us. We thought about those who don’t have enough to eat and all those responsible for gathering the food.
Noah’s Ark
We listened to the story of Noah’s Ark and we reflected on God’s promise to Noah. God put the rainbow in the sky to demonstrate this promise of hope to mankind and to never again destroy the earth with a flood. We thought about the questions that we would like to ask Noah. We created an ark and retold the story.
We learned about St Joseph , our school saint.
Praying the Rosary
During October we learned how to pray the rosary. We were very lucky to have Year 6 and Father Lawrie help us to pray the rosary too.
History
Toys from the Past
Children brought their favourite toys into school and we compared these to old toys from the past.
We thought about well know toys and when these were introduced. Did you know the Teddy bear is said to be named after United States President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt. We placed the toys on a timeline dating back to the early 1900s and completed a sorting activity of old and new toys.
We had a fantastic morning at Ilkley Toy Museum. There were so many interesting things to see, beautiful dolls, teddies a miniature moving fairground, clockwork trains and stunning dolls houses. We completed a quiz on our way around. In the afternoon we went to Ilkley Manor where we played lots of old-fashioned games like marbles and kick the can and joined in playground games. The children were brilliant and learned lots of historical facts.
Ilkley Toy Museum
Manor House Museum
We wrote a recount in English of our exciting trip to the toy museum. We focused on writing in the past tense and included something interesting that we had learnt and our favourite part of the day.
We learned about the games children in 1940s. 1950s and 1960s used to play. We learned some clapping games, playground games and traditional board games such as snakes and ladders and noughts and crosses.
Maths
Number Formation
We started Year 1 practising our number formation. We have learnt some fabulous techniques to help us remember how to form each number. One of our favourites was: Half a heart, says I love you, add a line now I’ve made 2!
Place Value to 10
We have been counting objects to ten. We have used lots of practical resources and ten frames to help. We have also enjoyed counting with our Super Movers videos which helps us to learn maths and get our brains ready to learn. We also carried out some number investigations which involved discussing odd and even, halving and one more/less. We have ordered numbers from smallest to greatest and vice versa. We used counters to make different numbers and practised arranging them in order.
Counting Forwards and Backwards
Ordering Numbers
Odd and Even
We have been practising our reasoning with missing numbers and finding one more and one less. We have been learning how to use the greater than symbol > the less/fewer than symbol < and the = symbol. We have been using practical resources to help us find different ways of comparing numbers.
We learned about the ordinal numbers from 1-10.
We have been mastering number bonds to 5 and 10.
2D and 3D shapes
We have also been investigating 2D and 3D shapes. We discussed sides and vertices and we sorted the shapes into different groups based on whether they would roll and or stack.
English
Reading Buddies
Year 1 have had a wonderful time reading with their buddies every other Friday. We chose a book and spent time doing paired reading and being read to. We loved it so much that we made thank you pictures for our buddies.
Send for a Superhero
We enjoyed listening to our new book ‘Send For a Superhero and finding out about the two ‘baddies’ Filth and Vacuum. We shared lots of different adjectives to help us describe their looks and personality and used these to put in our sentences for our ‘Wanted’ poster. We wrote letters to our favourite Superhero asking them to come and help save the planet from the dastardly duo. We have tried to appeal to their better natures by using lots of interesting adjectives to describe how wonderful they are. We couldn’t believe who saved the day, Mr Boring Man!
We like to retell stories using or stage and puppet theatre.
Traditional Tales
We began our new unit on traditional tales. We have listened to some traditional tales and have begun to recognise some of the themes and conventions. We thought about some of the ways we could describe the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood and used some interesting adjectives We sorted words in to a sentence and then tried to improve our sentences.
Science
Seasons
We have been learning about seasonal change and the different seasons of the year. We thought about the various objects that we associate with each season. Next we learned the months of the year and which months go with each season. We have learnt that each season is three months long and the weather changes as we move into each new season. We learned a month of the year song to help us order the months and we loved it so much we can’t stop singing it!
We created a weather log to record the weather in Autumn. We have made entries for mornings and afternoons. The weather was unseasonably warm so we discussed this. We continued our unit on the weather by designing our own weather stations to measure the wind speed and direction. We also made rain catchers to measure the amount of rainfall collected on a daily basis.
PSHE
In PSHE we thought about our feelings coming back to school. Pirate Pete sent us on a treasure hunt outside in the sunshine. For each piece of treasure we found, we performed a little activity like star jumps and jumping Jacks.
Year 1 got the chance to vote this week when we elected two candidates to be on our school council. The children were introduced to the idea of participating in a democratic process
Otley hosted a three-day festival celebrating: kindness to self, kindness to others and kindness to the planet. With this in mind we have been thinking about kindness this week and the little things we can do to show kindness to our classmates.
We started to think about ourselves as leaders and learned some of the actions that remind us of the seven habits of effective leaders.
Art
We made a St Joseph mosaic for our hall board. We coloured in pictures of ourselves too, to show that we are all part of the St Joseph’s family.
Artwork this term is the formal elements of art. Children have used circles and semi circles, straight lines and curved lines. We have even changed our lines in response to music. We have also learned about the primary colours and how we can create other colours.
PE
Year one have been developing their ball skills. Children have been catching in many different ways, bouncing, rolling and throwing themselves and with partners. We have also been practising our jumping skills. Working in partners we focused on our technique of bending our knees. We used markers to measure each other’s jumps.
Music
Music has been about tempo. We practised banging a drum whilst we sang a song together. We were very impressed with the children’s timing. We listened to the Radetzsky March by Johann Strauss and used claves to tap the beat of the song. and march around the classroom.
