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Burrsville Infant Academy

Create a Joy in Learning For Every Child

Welcome to Year 1

Shared reading text

 The text we read during our Paws, Claws and Dinosaurs topic was 'The Dinosaur' by Anna Milburn and Mandy Field. This was a story about a little boy who imagined what it would be like to still have dinosaurs in our world. Over the term we learnt new vocabulary, predicted what may happen, explained the meaning and sequenced the events of the story. 

Home learning opportunities:

 Add a new character to the story and a new dinosaur. 

Create a story map of the events. 

What speech could be added to the story? How can you show this?

How do the characters feel? Draw a feeling map for each character.

 

 

 

Maths

 Lots of fantastic learning in Maths this term! We have learnt about measurement, this included weight, length capacity. During this unit we discussed the importance of standard and non-standard units.

 

Home learning opportunities:

Can you remember any examples of standard units? Or non-standard units?

Can you measure the length and height of items around your home using standard and non-standard units?

Find 5 items around the house, predict the order from longest to shortest. Now measure them, was your prediction correct?

How much juice is in your cup? More or less than someone else? Can you measure the amount using a measuring jug?

PSHE

 In PSHE this term we have been learning about how to stay healthy, and how important it is. We had a special visit from Jigsaw Joe in our lessons and shared ways he could keep himself healthy!

Home learning opportunities:

Can you remember the different ways we said to stay healthy?

How many hours sleep should we aim to have?

Why is exercise so important?

How many pieces of fruit and vegetables should you have every day?

 

 

 

Mary Anning

In our final two weeks of term, before Easter we planned to learn all about Mary Anning. If you would like to do some research to see how and why she fits into our 'Paws, Claws and Dinosaurs' topic here are some questions you could answer. 

  • Who is Mary Anning? 
  • Why is she a significant individual?
  • Where did Mary live?
  • What is she known for finding?
  • What are fossils? 

 

Useful websites to help you:

  1. National Geographic Kids
  2. BBC Teach 
  3. Activity Village 

 

Home learning opportunities:

Art: Can you create your own fossil? Can you create a painting of Mary Anning? Create and plan how to make a model of a 'fish lizard'. 

English: Write a diary entry as Mary Anning. Write a letter to Mary Anning asking her questions about her research. Create a key word mat for Mary Anning. Create a fact file about Mary Anning including any information known about dinosaurs. 

History: Sequence her key life events. How was life different compared from now and then?

Maths: How long was the fossil Mary discovered? Which units was this measured in? Can you find anything in your house the same length/more/less?

Science week

 

In March we took part in Science week. Dressed in our lab coats we felt like real life scientists!

During the week we completed lots of different experiments. We had a very exciting start - Mrs Turner made an explosion with coke and mints! On the Wednesday we had a visit from the some juniors who helped us complete different science experiments. The experiments we completed with the juniors were: aeroplane making, making eggs float, how many split pins can fit in a glass full of water and moving paper off a coke bottle without a stack of coins falling. 

Back in our classes our science experiments continued! We designed and made our own kites. We designed the kite, chose the best material to help it fly, built the kite and then the fun part was testing it! 

 

We had a lot of fun being scientists! 

Home learning opportunities:

Can you remember any of the materials we have learnt about?

What different materials can you find around your home?

Which items in your home are made from ___ ?

What properties do they have?

Why is it important certain materials have specific properties?

 

 

 

World Book Day

 

We had a special visitor on World Book Day - Kevin Price. Kevin is a real author and answered lots of our questions. Some of the questions were...

  • How long does it take to write a book?
  • How many books have you written?
  • What is your favourite book?
  • Why did you want to be an author? 

 

We listened to lots of lovely stories written by him. Lots of his stories had actions with them and we loved becoming lots of different animals and helping to act our the story. Throughout the day we also visited different classrooms and took part in lots of different world book day activities; we created front covers, sequenced stories, wrote book reviews and shared stories with the Year 6's from the Juniors. 

 

Home learning opportunities:

Can you order 5 stories from your favourite to least?

Write reasons why you like each story.

Create a new character for a story - what do they look like? What are they wearing? What type of character are they? What personality traits do they have?

Re-write the story including your new character - what do they do? Do they help with a problem? Does the story have a happy ending?

Write a book review on your least favourite story - how can it be improved? What would make it better?

Spring Term: Paws, Claws and Dinosaurs

 

Sparkling Start

 

We had a very exciting start to our new topic, Paws, Claws and Dinosaurs. We had an animal day!

We made our own binoculars and then used them when on an animal safari - we saw lots of different animals! We also became detectives and investigated different animal footprints and tried to work out who they belong to. We then also had lots of fun creating different animal arts and crafts.

 

During this topic we will learn to:

·         Describe animals, dinosaurs and settings.

·         Write a senses poem

·         Write a fantasy story

·         Learn about Mary Anning and what makes her a significant individual

·         Learn to count in 2s, 5s and 10s

·         Learn about multiplication and division

·         Learn about measurement – weight, length and capacity

·         Name everyday materials and describe their properties

Christmas Fun!

We finished the term with a lovely Christmas dinner in our brand new kitchen and had a great time watching Snow White for the Christmas pantomime at the Princes Theatre. 

Fab Finish

We have had a very busy and fun half-term learning all about the Great Fire of London. During this topic we have learnt lots of facts, wrote character descriptions, described settings, described feelings, learnt about addition and subtraction and also learnt about the equator.

We had a very exciting fab finish. We had a Great Fire of London day and had to plan and design and make our own houses for London. We also had some very special visitors! Clacton’s fire brigade came to the school and told us all about their jobs. We also got the chance to go inside the fire engine and use their fire hose.

 

The most exciting part of the visit was that one of the Firemen was called Fireman Sam! 

During our 'Fab finish' we also learnt how to write with a quill and ink! Some of us found it really tricky to write with a feather and some of us managed to write a diary entry just like Samuel Pepys!

As part of our English lesson, we were showing freeze frames of what the people may have been doing during the Great Fire of London. Some of us were throwing water on the fire, some of us were running away and we were even able to write in our dairies about the event. We also thought about how we might have felt, and we showed our feelings in our freeze frames. Here are some of ideas:

  • Disappointed
  • Sad
  • Shocked 
  • Unhappy 

Science - Autumn hunt!

 A cold, wet and autumnal hunt! We went on a hunt today to see what we could find. We found footprints, leaves, conkers and pine cones. We took some of these objects back to class and discussed if we would find them in any other season.

Numbers, numbers, numbers...

 In Maths we have been looking closely at our numbers and making them in various ways. We have used numicon, cubes, pencils, glue sticks and even teddy bears! We used our understanding of number to then show our number bonds to 10 and to 20. As well as number bonds, we have been learning how to add and subtract.

Sparkling start.

We were lucky enough in Year 1 to have 3 visits from real life superheroes; we had a Fireman named Chris, 2 Policemen named Robbie Dale and a Paramedic named Ad. The children spent their English lesson before writing questions that they would like to ask a Superhero, and the very next day.. Look who appeared! 

Some of the questions we asked were:

How long is the hose?

How fast do you have to run? 

Why does the fire alarm ring so loud?

Do you arrest bad people?

How many house have you been to put out a fire?

Who do you work for?

How many police cars are there?

How big are the prisons?

Our first topic this year is Superheroes in the Big City!

During this topic we will learn how to write an adventure story with character descriptions, learn all about our numbers to 20, identify the seasonal changes that happen through the year and after half term we will be learning all about The Great Fire of London.

Image result for superhero

 

Autumn Term 2019

 Please find below our curriculum map, so you can see what we are up to through the year.