living and learning in Great Britain Personal, Social and Emotional Development and RE We will be promoting independence from the start of term and encouraging children to put their own lunch box, book bag and water bottle where it belongs. The year one children are now expected to come into the classroom without their parents and get on with their morning task independently. The children will attend whole school assemblies daily. We will also be helping the children to develop self worth, confidence and ability through play, games and activities and encourage sharing and turn taking. We will be learning the skills needed in ‘Circle time’ and talking about our Golden rules, values and classroom routines. We will learn how to treat animals with care and sensitivity. We will look at how trees change over time and learn about seasons and appreciate our local area. Communication, Language and Literacy Foundation children will be learning and revising letter sounds, initially hearing the first sound in words and then learning to blend the sounds to read and write and begin learning to spell high frequency words such as “the” and “I”. Words in the children’s word boxes and reading books need to be practiced regularly-please sign and date their reading journal book - ideally daily. The children will be working on forming letters and numbers correctly-please do practice these at home as this will benefit your child. Letter cards will be added to their book bags as we introduce them. The cards have a rhyme to tell you how to write the letter in the Ingham School style. Year one children will continue working towards their next phase in phonics again any high frequency words to read will be in their word boxes and they will have weekly spellings to learn to be tested every Friday. We will be retelling Percy the Park Keeper stories and learning how to plan with story maps to include 5 parts to our stories – opening, build up, problem, resolution and ending (Foundation stage children will retell through role play and write a sentence with support and draw a picture to illustrate a part of the story). Our grammar is to learn about 3 types of sentence- Statement, exclamations and questions and use the correct punctuation for each, for Foundation stage it is learning to use finger spaces between words. We will be reading and year 1 writing poems and reading and writing facts linked to our Science investigations. Expressive Arts and Design: We will be drawing landscapes and using pencils and pastels to draw around the village from observation and from photographs which the children will take. The children will be experimenting with mixing secondary colours from primary colours and the year ones will investigate making different shades of colours. We will use malleable materials and collage to make animals and create habitat boxes. We will be weaving a spider’s web and a giant woodlouse for our outside area. The children will learn about Matisse and make snail prints and pictures in his style. The reception children will be learning to sing songs from memory and copy a rhythm and year one children will learn about pitch and begin to record simple compositions. Nearer to Christmas we will be making 3D cards with moving parts. Mathematics The children will be learning to recognise numbers, shapes and patterns in the environment. We will be counting objects (Year ones will estimate then count and learn to count larger numbers by grouping), matching numbers and ordering numbers 1-20 ( Year one will look for and continue number patterns). We will be learning about number sequences and identifying the number before or after a given number and year one will work on ten more ten less. We will be counting in 1s, 2s and 10s (year ones also in 5s and begin to solve multiplication problems using arrays). We will investigate capacity by pouring and counting. We will introduce tally and bar charts and the year ones will complete charts to show data handling about pets and from our mini-beast hunt. We will be learning to add and take away- foundation stage practically using objects and year ones will begin to use Deans blocks and counters to be introduced to the idea of exchange to work practically with numbers over ten. We will use money in our pet shop role play area. Mrs Peacock Autumn Term 2014 This term our topic is: Habitats- living and learning in Great Britain A warm welcome to the new families who have joined Ingham Primary School. Please follow our learning on our blog http://Firclass2014.wordpress.com and please feel free to comment. Understanding the World The children will be learning to use the computers and will access educational games to aid their learning in a fun way. The year 1 children will begin to use laptops to research facts about animals. We will have a mini-beast hunt and find out about different types of animals around the UK. Year 1 children will learn the names of the 4 countries which make up the United Kingdom and recognise and compare animals and their different habitats. We will identify the human and physical features of our village and go on a school and local area treasure hunt. The children will learn how to care for animals and particularly our pet guinea pigs. Please sign up if you would like to take them home for a weekend. Food and bedding donations will be much appreciated. Physical Development: The children will be developing throwing and catching skills, running, jumping, hopping and skipping. They will take part in games and gymnastic sessions to promote their physical well-being. Balance will be our focus in gymnastics sessions. PE lessons are on Monday and Wednesday-but please ensure PE kits are in school every day as the timetable may change. The Foundation Stage children will work on their pencil control and using simple tools. We will be refining our small motor skills using tweezers and tongs to pick up small objects.