Welcome to Year 1!

Sports Day

Just to say a big thank you to all of the fantastic mums, dads, nannies, grandads, aunties, uncles and friends who came to cheer us on. The weather wasn't quite what we'd hoped for but it was a great day. The children had lots of fun and had the chance to show off their egg and spoon and skipping skills. Timberley 2015, Olympics 2024? Watch this space!

Parents' Evening

Thank you for coming to Parents' Evening. It was lovely to see you all and have a chat about your wonderful children and the progress they have made in Year 1. It was also great for you to get the chance to see your child's work; the children have tried so hard this year and are very proud of their books. If you were unable to make it, don't worry. Just let us know and we can arrange an appointment. 

Important dates for your diary

Key Stage 1 Sports Day

Monday 6th July 2015 (Weather permitting) 9.15 a.m. approx. 

Bacon and sausage sandwiches available!

Parents' Evening

Wednesday 8th July 2015 4.30 - 6.30 p.m.

Look at your child's wonderful work and have a chat to us about his or her progress this year.

Break up for summer

Friday 17th July 2015

There will be no sports clubs or Tea club on this day.

Back to school

Thursday 3rd September 2015

Teacher Day on Wednesday 2nd September 2015.

Finding out about Cezanne

This week, we have been learning about the artist, Paul Cezanne. We looked at some of his work and talked about what we could see. Then, we studied the colours in Cezanne's still life paintings and talked about his palette. Later on, we explored fruit and talked about the colours we could see. We even had a go at arranging the fruit to create our own fruit sculptures. To finish off the week, we had a delicious fruit picnic! 

Maths & Money Week

The week beginning 15.06.15 will be Timberley's Maths and Money Week. We will be learning to recognise and name British coins and notes. We will also talk about spending and saving money. The children will then have to think of ideas to raise some money of our own. We will let you know once we have decided and start to produce our goods to buy. You never know, we may have a few budding Alan Sugars in our midst!

Tree Explorers

As part of the new Year 1 Science curriculum, children are expected to be able to identify and name some common British trees. So, this week, we will be going outside with Mr Herbert, our outdoor learning teacher, to explore the trees in our school grounds. We had so much fun on our plant hunt last half term that we know that children are going to love it! Listen out for your children naming some trees when you're out and about this week. Hopefully, they will impress you with their knowledge!

Phonics Fun!

We are working really hard to practise our phonics this week. We have made special phonics hats with sounds which change every day; we team up with our friends to make words. We have played lots of phonics games and plan to go on a word hunt around school later this week to collect real and nonsense words. We even collected sounds in our races in PE today! We say words in 'Fred Talk' first and then blend the sounds together such as s-l-ee-p-i-ng, sleeping. We are doing so well. Our reading keeps on getting better and better!

Reading Homework 12.06.15

As it is Phonics Week, instead of sending home spellings, we have sent home a list of words for children to read. This is a list of real and nonsense words to encourage children to use their phonics to read unfamiliar words. We have been working on this in school this year. Firstly, children need to look carefully at the word to see if they can spot any sounds they know, such as 'sh', 'ng', 'ai' or 'ar'. Then, they need to 'Fred Talk' the work, by saying each sound and, finally, blend the sounds together to read the words. Thank you for your support with this.

Time to write a letter!

We will be learning about writing letters over the next two weeks in literacy. If you get chance, perhaps you could work with your child to write a letter to a friend or family member. There is nothing quite like a visit to the post box or getting a letter addressed to you in the post when you are 5 or 6! 

Welcome back to our last half term in Year 1!

Well, it's hard to believe it but we are fast approaching the end of term. We have lots of exciting events ahead with Sports Day, theatre performances and our final Parents' Evening of the year to look forward to. Keep checking the newsletter for important dates. The children have worked so hard and done so well this year but they're growing fast and will soon be on their way to Year 2. We'll just to have to make the most of every moment whilst we still have them! They are a fabulous group of children and a credit to you all.

Have a Super Half Term! 

The children have worked so hard this half term we would all like to wish them a lovely week off! 

Children have received new copies of their Education City log-ins and passwords with plenty of educational games and activities available as well as extra maths homework! 

We look forward to hearing all about your holidays when you come back on Monday! 

Giving Directions in Maths

This week the children have been working hard to give each other directions. We went out onto the playground and drew some shapes and had a go at directing our friends around the shapes. They all tried their best and we were all very impressed!

The Gingerbread Man

The children have all worked hard this half term in literacy. We have been looking at the story of The Gingerbread Man and using it as our starting point for our big writing when we 'make it our own!' The children acted out the middle of their story using finger puppets and we heard some super language!

Spelling Champions

​We have noticed that some children have been working really hard to learn their spellings; one of our superstars had a jumper full of stickers on Friday. Well done, spelling champions! However, in some groups, progress is not quite as good with some scoring 1, 2 or even 0. A big part of writing in Year 1 is for children to be able to spell CVC words (e.g. mat, can, leg) and some common words correctly so it's really important that children get used to doing this. Let's work on it together. Come on children! Don't forget that you can use your 'Fred Fingers' to help you spell the words.

Final Sunflower update of the term

Unfortunately, we had mixed fortunes with our sunflowers. Children were able to choose a large, medium or small sunflower seed and we have a suspicion that some of those seeds grew better than others! Our tallest sunflower was over 20 cm tall when it went home with its happy owner last week. Sadly, we had quite a few not-quite-so-happy owners whose seeds were still tucked up snug underneath the soil. Poor things! Nevertheless, we are hoping that, with some care and attention over the holiday, there might have been some growing action. Remember to keep us updated about how your sunflower is growing and perhaps even take a photo to show us in school! Good luck and happy growing, sunflowers!

Sunflower Update

Lots of our sunflowers are still yet to grow but the others are growing by the day. The tallest one so far is 10 cm. We're keeping our plants on the window ledge and watering them and it's starting to get warmer so, hopefully, it won't be long. We enjoy looking at them each morning to see how they are growing.

Summer Term's Topics

This half term, we are learning about 'Growing Plants' in Science. Mr Ball is going to show us around our Timberley garden and talk to us about the flowers and vegetables which grow there.

We had lots of fun working with Mr Ball this week to plant some seeds of our own. We're hoping that our children who go to Gardening Club will be able to share their skills and make us all a little more 'green-fingered', reminding us to water our seeds every day to help them grow!

You can help your child by talking to them about the fruit and vegetables you see when out shopping and sharing ideas about whether they grow on the ground, under the ground or on trees. When out and about, have a look at the plants and flowers which grow in Springtime and the changes that are happening around us. We have some real Nature Detectives in Year 1; they'll love it!

In Geography, we will be learning about our local area. We will be talking about roads, houses, flats, shops, the library, churches - everything really! Encourage your child to look closely as you walk to school or visit the local shops and see what they can tell you. The more they learn, the more likely it is that they will get to sit on the teacher's chair to share their ideas with the rest of the class!

Finding groups of numbers

We've been working hard in maths this week to find groups of numbers. We had a great time on Friday, answering multiplication word problems in our teams using arrays. We used cubes, counters and marks to record our working out. Well done to the winning team!

Fantastic Fractions!

In maths, we have been learning about halves and quarters and sharing fairly. We cut up food and made sure that all of the parts were equal. We then used playdough to make our own cakes, fruit and pizzas and cut them up into halves and quarters. Why not practise your fractions when cutting up pizza, toast or sandwiches over the weekend?

Year 1 Superstars!

Our children are working so hard! They have such a positive attitude towards learning and are making good progress. Phonics lessons are well under way and we will be regrouping children again shortly in order to ensure that they are in the group which best matches their attainment. Children are also using their phonics skills when reading which is great to see. We are very proud of them all!

Keep it up children! 

St George's Day Celebrations

We had a really special day on Thursday 23rd April. Children looked great in their red and white clothes and had lots of fun making their England flag and St George and the dragon placemat and decorating their England flag biscuit. They enjoyed finding out about St George the soldier and we even acted out the dragon story, drawing straws to see whose daughter was going to be chosen to be the dragon's dinner. It was a nervous time for all! However, the highlight has to be our afternoon picnic with Year 2 out on the field in the sunshine. We all had a fabulous time! Thank you to you all for your kind donations of party food; we had an absolute feast!

P.E. Kits

Just a little reminder that children need their P.E. kit in school to enable them to take part in P.E. lessons. This needs to include shorts, a t-shirt and pumps or trainers. Children who wear earrings will either need to remove them before school, or before the lesson, or bring in plasters.

We have lots of fun and active learning ahead of us including athletics, to get ready for Sports Day (It's not long now until the egg and spoon race, children!), and ball games. We hope to have plenty of sunshine to be able to make the most of our wonderful school field so let's make sure that all children can take part, have fun and get fit together! 

1L Children (Mrs Hamley's class) - P.E. is on Tuesdays and Thursdays

1H Children (Miss Harris' class) - P.E. is on Tuesdays and Wednesdays 

Homework - Maths and Spellings

Children will continue to bring home maths homework on Fridays, to be returned by the following Friday. We have been very impressed with how many children are doing and returning their homework, although a few children do need a bit of help to remember to take it out of their bookbags! If you have been unable to do homework, for example due to a really busy weekend, don't worry - just return it when you can. We are just really pleased to see that children are working so hard. Thank you to you all for supporting children to continue their learning at home.

Children also bring home spellings on Fridays so that they can practise writing words at home, ready for the spelling test the following Friday. This homework can be returned before the spelling test, if you wish, but just make sure that you've written down the spellings first so that your child can continue to practise them ready for the test. Fingers crossed for lots of 5/5, 7/7 and 10/10! Keep practising, children!

Finally, don't forget about Education City and Mathletics. Children have access to a range of super activities online to enable them to practise their skills. If you have mislaid your child's login details, just let us know and we'll get you another copy; it's no problem.