Year 1S Autumn News Letter 2018

Year 1S Newsletter

Dear Parents,

We hope you had an enjoyable summer. It is with great pleasure that we offer you and your children a very warm welcome to Year 1.

I am happy to report the children are all settling in very well.

We hope this information helps you to support your child and give them a positive start in Year 1.

Literacy:  The children will begin studying a range of books such as The Bears in the Night, The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Knock Knock Who’s There? and many more. The children will retell the stories through role play, make their own story boards and write their own stories in the style of the stories studied. 

Phonics: The children will be placed into ability sets for the school’s phonics programme, Read, Write, Inc.  The children will bring home spellings each week and tested on a Friday. If necessary your child may also bring home a letter/number formation sheet. Can you please ensure your child is starting and finishing each letter in the correct place and that the orientation is correct (bad habits are hard to undo!) Please also encourage your child to write in lower case letters as opposed to capital letters.The children will continue to work in their ability sets for the phonics programme, Read, Write, Inc. 

Reading: Please share a book with your child every day if you can. Before you start reading, look at the pictures in the book and ask your child to help you predict what the story might be about using the pictures as a clue and most importantly, ask them to give reasons for their answers and ideas. Ask them questions about the story to help develop their understanding of words and comprehension. As with maths, your child will benefit by reading words in the environment. Help them to hear and say sounds in words. Ask them to retell familiar stories. Sing nursery rhymes and recite poems with them.  Encourage your child to retell the story as if they were the narrator. Help them to use story language when retelling their story such as, 'Once upon a time' and 'they all lived happily ever after'.

Maths: This term your child will begin to recognise place value in numbers upto 20 by reading, writing, counting and comparing numbers up to 100. (Please note that counting back is a skill the children need to practise just as much as counting on.) They will recognise and create repeating patterns with objects and with shapes. They will also be asked to identify 1 more and 1 less than a given number up to 100. They will move onto recognising odd and even numbers as well as counting in twos, fives and tens. You can help your child recognise numbers and shapes by working with them to find as many numbers and shapes in the environment. Playing games such as Snakes and Ladders or Pairs will also help.  So far we have been looking at ordering numbers, number line work, writing a number sentence, greater than and less < >,  ordering smallest to greatest. We will soon be looking in more detail at addition and subtraction. 

The children will also have maths homework every Friday in their homework books to complete over the weekend. Please help and support your child with this.

R.E. 

Topics this term are:

Families: the children will be exploring the love and care shown in the family and God’s love and care for every family. You can help by talking to your child about past and present events in their own life, and in those of family members and other people s/he knows.

Belonging: the children will come to know and understand about belonging to different groups and learning that Baptism is an invitation to belong to God’s family. Again you can talk to your children about their baptism. Who was at the celebration, what special clothes they wore and who their godparents are.

Waiting: the children will come to know and understand about the times that it is necessary to wait and the use of that time. They will learn that Advent is a time of waiting to celebrate Jesus’ coming at Christmas. 

Wednesday Word

Every Wednesday your child will bring home the ‘Wednesday Word’. This is a link between home, school and parish and shares the Sunday Gospel. There are also some fun activities that you can share with your child related to the Gospel.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask. If there is anything you can send in from home (photos, books, baptism candles etc) to support your child's learning with any of our topics please feel free!

Thank you for your continued support.

The Year1 Geography topic is: Our Local area. The children will use Google Earth to locate their street and house. You can help your child by teaching them their address and asking them to describe their route to school.They will map their walk to school and talk about the occupations of the people who help them at school. An ongoing topic throughout the year will be seasons.

Year1 science topics this term are: Seasonal Changes and Animals including humans; The children will learn about different types of animals, their young and their different habitats, including animals that are carnivores, herbivores and omnivores. They will also identify, name, draw and label the basic parts of the human body and say which part of the body is associated with each sense as well as identify and name a variety of common animals and fish.  Throughout the year the children will be planting, growing and harvesting plants in our garden. They will learn to identify and name a variety of common wild and garden plants in our school garden.  They will be exploring how the days become shorter and colder as autumn and winter approach and how the landscape changes. You can continue to encourage your child to ask questions about why things happen and how things work.

P.E

Please make sure your child has their kit in for the whole term. They can leave their kit in school and take them home to wash during the holidays. As the winter months creep closer please send in tracksuit bottoms and tops. (please ensure all items of clothing are clearly marked with your child’s name.)

P.E. times:

Friday morning.

Art 

The children will be studying Vincent van Gogh and his famous painting, The Sunflowers.

Design and Technology:

The children will be learning about healthy eating and nutrition and making various tasty dishes using the vegetables and herbs harvested from our garden throughout the year.

Music:

This term the children will be developing their singing voice and learning songs and rhymes.  They will also learn how to keep and reinforce a steady beat.

General Information.

Homework.

Please make sure book bags are brought in every day so the children can put any letters and homework safely away. Please also note we will also aim to hear your child read at least once a week on a one to one basis. 

 Please continue to hear your child read daily, only 10 minutes each night, it really does make a difference! Encourage them to share books with you and read their own books too.

Reading books will be changed once a week on a Thursday.

Can I also remind you that all clothes, shoes bags need your child’s name clearly marked on.

Science Sack Every week a child is chosen to take home the class science sack. You can keep the science sack for a week and do as many activities from the sack as you like. You can help your child record their experiences and learning using drawings, writing and photographs. We just ask if you could complete the parents comments in the small book provided at the end. If your child is given the science sack then they are excused from doing any other homework during the week.

Snack money remains at £1 a week for a healthy snack and baking and art activities.

School trips: For our trip this year we hope to visit Blue Planet. Don’t worry about providing your child with a packed lunch for the trips we will do that for you. However, if you prefer to send your child with their own packed lunch please make sure it is in a disposable bag for convenience of disposal. 

Fund raising

Soon we will be starting a weekly cake sale. The proceeds from the cake sale go towards various resources. We will let you know how we are doing with the fund raising.                                                          

Volunteers needed!

• We need parent readers to come and hear the children read and if you would like to help out, please tell your child’s teacher.
• If you are available to accompany us on any future school trips then please let your child’s teacher know.
• You may be handy at dress making, carpentry, art and design or would like to help out with the football team.  

Any feedback is appreciated and if you think we may have left any relevant information out of the newsletter that you feel would be useful in our next newsletter please don’t hesitate to tell us.

If you have anything that you need to discuss with your child’s teacher at length then please make an appointment and we will be only too happy to discuss any concerns.

Finally we would like to thank you for your continued support.

Mrs L Smith

Mrs E McCombs