Year 1 Transition to Year 2

Dear Year 1 super stars,

It is hard to believe that this is the last week that you will be in Year 1. We have had such a lovely year with you even though the last few months have been very unusual. We have enjoyed watching you all grow and develop.

In September when you come back to school you will be in Year 2 – the oldest children in our school! If you look at the PowerPoint that we have attached to this email you will find out some information about Year 2. If you have any questions about moving to Year 2 please send us an email.

We sadly have to say goodbye to Mrs Purves and Mrs Gauntlett at the end of term as they move on to new adventures but we want to say a huge thank you for all that they have contributed to the Year 1 team. Thank you both! X

The whole Year 1 team hope that you all have an enjoyable Summer holiday and we look forward to seeing you all in September.

Take care,

From all the Year 1 team.

Please take a look at our Presentation about going into Year 2.

Year 1 Home Learning Support

During the school closure we will be adding a page in this section with Literacy, Maths, Phonics and topic work for Year 1 children to have a go at home.  This will be updated weekly. We look forward to receiving emails about the work you have completed.

We have put together some ideas of general activities that you can do to help support your child’s learning at home. This includes reading with them daily, discussing books, practising spellings and recalling number facts. Below we have attached some helpful documents with word lists and suggestions of activities to support you and your child with their home learning. We hope you find this helpful!

Welcome to Year 1 

The Year 1 team are:

Holly Class - Mrs Baird, Mrs James and Miss Eadie

Pine Class - Mrs Purves (Mon-Wed), Mrs Gauntlett (Thurs-Fri) and Mrs Fillon-Payoux

Rowan Class - Miss Cossey and Ms Barnett.

If you have any questions about Year 1, please contact your child's class teacher or Mrs Baird (Year 1 Lead)

hollyclass@faringdon-inf.oxon.sch.uk

pineclass@faringdon-inf.oxon.sch.uk

rowanclass@faringdon-inf.oxon.sch.uk

Computing - Programming the 'Jolly Postman' Bee-Bot Around Faringdon

This term we have been focusing on programming during our Computing work. We have been learning how to program a sequence of commands into Bee-Bot robots to tell them how to move around maps and grids and on the Bee-bot and Blue-Bot apps. We have been learning new words like algorithm, programming, coding and debugging to help us explain what we are doing in our Computing work. We call the instructions made out of a sequences of commands algorithms and if our algorithms do not go as we planned we debug them which means we fix them. 

During our art work we made 3D models of buildings around Faringdon using junk modelling to help us make 3D maps of Faringdon. We then used all of the work and skills we had practised using the Bee-Bot robots and the Bee-Bot and Blue-Bot apps to direct the bee-Bot robots around a 3D map of Faringdon or the Blue-Bot around the map on our screens on the Blue-Bot app.

Maths Open Morning

On Wednesday 5th February we invited our parents to come in and have a go at some fun, practical maths activities with us. We focused on activities to help us practise and remember our number bonds to make 10. For example, we drew around our hands, cut them out and stuck them onto card to make fingers that we could bend to help us see our number bonds. We played a game used the 0-9 dice and where we had to put a counter on the number on our digit mat that we could add to the number we rolled to make 10. We used Numicon, ten frames and other counting equipment to help us explore our number bonds to 10. We also had a go at measuring objects around our classrooms using Multilink or the rulers we had made out of beans. It was fun sharing our maths work with our families!

Observational Watercolour Paintings of Faringdon

As part of our topic exploring features in Faringdon and the different buildings and places we visit. we looked at photos of different buildings including All Saints Church, the Town Hall, Folly Tower, Faringdon Infant School, Tesco and the Fire Station. The children then had to look very closely at the photos, looking at the different shapes they could see on the buildings and carefully sketch the outline of the buildings before painting them with the watercolour paints. We then wrote about the buildings we have painted. All of the pictures look amazing!

Traditional Tales Wow Day

As part of our topic 'What would the Jolly Postman find in Faringdon?' we had a traditional tales wow day because the Jolly Postman visits lots of different traditional tales characters in the story. We dressed up as different traditional tales characters, did some problem solving in Maths about how many tables were needed for Cinderella's royal tea party and had challenges such as building bridges for the Three Billy Goats Gruff or a new chair for Baby Bear. 

It's A Baby - Year One Christmas Nativity

All of the Year One children were fantastic as they performed during the Year One Christmas play called "It's A Baby". They made all the teachers, TAs and parents very proud as they sang, acted and narrated the story beautifully - Well done!

No Added Sugar School Art Project

Year One have loved working together with the No Added Sugar art group to paint their own patterns and designs on wooden circles. They look really effective and amazing and everyone felt very proud of their creation. We can't wait to see them when they are finally put up on the wall outside the school office and Holly Class alongside those done by Nursery, Reception, Year 2 and members of staff and Governors.

'Why isn't everyone afraid of the dark?' Wow Morning

On Tuesday 26th November 2019 we had a very exciting special surprise when the Explorer Dome came to visit. We went to the Junior School where they had inflated a ginormous dome that is a bit like a tent. We had to take our shoes and socks off and carefully crawled through the tunnel where we had a fantastic show about Light and Dark. We learnt about different sources of light like light bulbs and torches which use electricity and  saw electricity in the plasma ball. We also experienced what it was like when it is pitch black and you can't even see your hand in front of your face! We thought about how we get light from the sun, how we can make shadow puppets, how light is reflected off shiny surfaces like disco balls and the moon. We talked about how light is made of lots of different colours which we can see in a rainbow and had a look at the starry night sky. Everyone thought it was amazing and really enjoyed discovering more about light and dark!

Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night

This term as part of our work about 'Why isn't everyone afraid of the dark?' we have explored the artwork of Vincent Van Gogh and how he created beautiful starry night landscapes. We have created our own using pastels, but have also explored using the 2Paint a Picture app on the Purple Mash website to create our own starry skies. They look absolutely fantastic!

Mary Anning

We have loved learning about Mary Anning and how she was the first person to discover the Icthyosaur, Plesiosaur skeletons. We have learnt that she lived 200 years ago in the town of Lyme Regis which is near the sea and had a dog called Tray who she took with her when she went fossil hunting. Mary Anning's Dad taught her how to find fossils and she  would sell the fossils she found to rich tourists. 

We have looked at a famous portrait of Mary Anning; created our own story boards about her life; made our own clay fossils; talked about why she is such an important, significant person and have even dressed up as Mary Anning and her Dad to role play what they might have done in the past.

Comparing Numbers

We have been exploring groups of objects and numbers and comparing them using the mathematical vocabulary of more than, greater than, equals, less than and fewer than. We then started exploring using the greater than sign >, less than sign < and the equal sign = to help us show which numbers or groups of objects are greater than or less than each other.

We are scientists - Investigating 'Dino Poo' 

A special parcel arrived from Professor Green asking for our help. He asked us could we investigate 3 different pots of 'dino poo' to find out what the dinosaurs have been eating. We used magnifying glasses to help us look at each pot of 'dino poo' closely. We found out that one pot had meat, bones, hair and feathers; the second pot had leaves, burrs, nuts and sticks; and the last pot had meat, bones, hair, feathers, leaves and nuts. We had great fun being scientists and learnt that the 'dino poo' that had meat, bones, hair and feathers came from a carnivore, the pot with leaves, burrs, nuts and sticks came from a herbivore and the pot which had meat, bones, hair, feathers, leaves and nuts came from an omnivore.

Dinosaur Wow Morning

One Monday morning we came to school and to our surprise discovered a massive mess that had been made by a dinosaur at the weekend. It had left a nest with an egg in Rowan Class, dinosaur poo and straw in Pine Class and had turned the tables upside down and left foot prints in Holly Class. We were so excited and loved talking about what type of dinosaur left the surprise, why it might have visited our school and what might happen next. We wrote letters to the dinosaur to ask questions about why the dinosaur came to visit and the dinosaur sent a letter in the post back to us saying that it had heard our school was a happy safe place and would we look after the egg. We also wrote letters to our Reception Teachers to let them know about what had happened.

Starting in Year One

We have all settled well into our new Year One classes and enjoyed exploring our Dinosaur Museum role play areas, using maths equipment, writing in the writing area, building with the construction toys and investigating our Outdoor Classroom Area.