As part of our ‘Change’ topic, we have started to investigate plant growth sequence and what plants need to stay healthy. Yesterday, we all planted our own bean seed, but we are all growing them under different conditions.

Some of our seeds will have water and light.
Some will have water but NO light.
Some will have light but NO water.
Some will have NO water and NO light.

Which conditions is your bean seed growing under?
Which bean seeds do you predict will grow and be the healthiest?

Don’t forget to keep practising our Learn Its at home!

6 + 6 = 12
7 + 7 = 14
8 + 8 = 16
9 + 9 = 18

Year 1 have decided to rewrite the story of The Magic Paintbrush and change it to…
The Magic Crayons!

Can you answer these questions about your new story?

Who is your new main character?
Who gives the magic crayons to the main character?
Who is the bad character?
What does the main character draw with the magic crayons?
What does the bad character want the main character to draw?
What does the main character draw to scare the bad character away?

I can’t wait to hear your ideas!

We’ve only been back at school for a week and a half but we’ve so much in Year 1 already! We’ve made paper sunflowers, we’ve created marble chalk pictures, we’ve made a weather plate, we’ve started a new class novel, we’ve made our very own class map… can you think of anything else? What has been your favourite thing so far?

Mrs Snowden’s favourite thing so far has been reading ‘The Magic Paintbrush’ with you all. If you had a magic paintbrush like Shen, what would you paint and why? Leave a comment to let me know!

We have also been learning how to form plurals by adding ‘s’ and ‘es’. Which of these words would need ‘s’ adding and which would need ‘es’ adding?

paintbrush
melon
box
ladder
fan

Don’t forget to keep practising our new Learn Its at home.

6 + 6 = 12
7 + 7 = 14
8 + 8 =16
9 + 9 = 18

Can you leave a comment telling me another way that we can say all these Learn Its?

WOW! What a fantastic time Year 1 had at Weston Park Museum. When we got off the minibus, Joy showed us the toy exhibit they have at the museum and then we got to make our own. Joy used a special word for this. She said we were ‘curators’ and that were were’curating’ our own display. What were the different toys we put in our display?

After that, we made our own naughts and crosses toy out of clay and got to have a look around the museum. We had the best time!

Wow! What a fantastic week we have had in Year 1. We made our Teddy Bear Fruit Salads and Mrs Snowden was so impressed with how carefully and sensibly we worked.

Leave a comment to tell everyone what ingredients you used in your fruit salad. Did you like the way your fruit salad looked? Did you like the way your fruit salad tasted? Would you do anything different to improve it next time?

We used a special technique with our fingers when chopping up fruit to go in our fruit salad. Can you remember what it was called?

In Literacy this week, we have been reading a poem called ‘Cats Sleep Anywhere’. The funny cats in the poem slept in all sorts of places like shoes, on top of pianos and in drawers. What other crazy places might you find cats fast asleep in?

We are feeling a bit full in Year 1 this week! It seems as though all we have done is eat.

Mrs Smith’s nurture group have been learning all about where food comes from and have made ‘Gruffalo crumble’ and ‘owls on toast’. Everything tasted so yummy! Which was your favourite and why?

Mrs Snowden’s group have been fruit tasting to decide which fruits we want to use in our fruit salad that we are going to make. We tried apples, bananas, grapes, strawberries, orange and orange juice. What was your favourite? Were there any fruits that you didn’t like the taste of? Everybody’s designs looked fabulous. We can’t wait to make them and share them with our teddy bears next week.

In maths we have been learning about ‘lots of’. If there were 3 bowls and each bowl needed to have 2 strawberries in it, how many strawberries would you need altogether? Can you finish the sentence?

3 lots of 2 strawberries =

This week has been British Science week and Year 1 have been helping the three little pigs on their journey to build a new house! After their houses made of straw and sticks got blown down by the Big Bad Wolf, they were wondering if there were any other materials that would be resistant to his huffing and puffing!

Seeing as Year 1 are now experts on materials, we decided to help them out.

We used bricks made from 4 different materials to build 4 walls. We had plastic bricks, paper bricks, wood bricks and foam bricks. Then, we used a timer to see how long they would stand up before being blown down by the Big Bad Wold (a hairdryer with a wolfy face!).

Can you remember how long each wall stood up for?
Which material would be the best for the three little pigs to build their next house from?
Why would it be the best?

In English this week, we have been learning about all the times that we need to use a capital letter. We need to use a capital letter at the start of a sentence, for names and for the word ‘I’. Can you add capital letters into these sentences in the right place?

dougal went on trip to atlantis.
in one day i am going on a trip to neverland.

Can you set a challenge for someone else?

We also enjoyed lots of activities for World Book Day in Year 1. We read a story called ‘The Pirates Next Door’ and then made our very own treasure maps to go with the story. We then wrote clues in a message in a bottle to help other people find the treasure on our maps.

Our Learn Its at the moment are…

4 + 3 = 7
5 + 3 = 8
6 + 3 = 9
7 + 3 = 10
8 + 3 = 11
9 + 3 = 12

Don’t forget to keep practising them at home.

We’ve had a very busy week in Year 1!

In English we have been reading ‘Dougal’s Deep Sea Diary.’ In the book, a man called Dougal goes on a very exciting underwater adventure. He swims with mermaids in Atlantis, he sees some sharks and he even finds a sunken treasure chest! If you were Dougal, what other exciting things might you get up to under the sea?

We have also been learning about how we can change words by adding ‘ing’ or ‘ed’ to the end (a suffix).  Can you add ‘ing’ and ‘ed’ to these words and then use one of them in a sentence?

play
cook
help

From sharks to… crocodiles in maths?! Well, not real crocodiles, but we thought the two symbols we have been learning about looked a little bit like a crocodile’s HUGE open mouth. Crocodiles are very greedy and so they always like to eat the biggest number. Are these number sentences correct?

4 > 12
14 > 11
10 < 15

If you really want to impress me, you could have a go at writing your own in the comments!

In science this week, we investigated which material would be best to make an umbrella out of for Ted. We put Ted into a cup and covered the cup with four different materials. We then poured a cup of water on top to see which materials would keep Ted dry. We tried fabric, metal, plastic and paper. The materials that kept Ted dry were metal and plastic.

If you did this experiment at home., which other materials would you like to test?

In English, we have been writing our own version of ‘One Snowy Night’ called ‘One Hot Day’. In our story, Percy the Park Keeper worked hard to find lots of ways to keep his animals friends nice and cool. Some of the ways we came up with were…

• Have an ice-cream.
• Go in a swimming pool.
• Put a sun hat on.
• Find some shade underneath a tree.
• Put some sun cream on.

Can you think of any other ways that the animals could stay cool?

I look forward to hearing your ideas. Have a wonderful half term Year 1!