'Hooray! Let's go on holiday' project.

We are really looking forward to finding out all about our new project with our exciting entry point on Friday 16th June. We will be exploring other countries from around the world. The children can come to school on Friday, dressed in the colours of a flag from another country e.g. France - red, white and blue. We will also be tasting some food from other countries like China and India. We are sure it will be a fantastic day!

Ugly Bug Ball

We are so excited about our 'Ugly Bug Ball' on Wednesday 24th May! We will all be coming to school dressed as plants, flowers or minibeasts or wearing bug-coloured clothes. Everyone is busy getting their outfits ready. We will also have a special 'Ugly Bug Banquet' with yummy bug treats. It is going to be a really exciting way to end our 'Flowers and Insects' project. We are really looking forward to it!

Year 1 Scientists

We are having a great time learning about flowers and insects! We have set up lots of investigations to find out what plants need to grow. We have been studying the parts of a flower and looked at them really closely using magnifying glasses. We are also studying our beans and filling in our bean diaries with our observations. We love science in Year 1!

Flowers and Insects

This half term's project is 'Flowers and Insects'. We have been on an exciting plant hunt, searching the pond area, farm and class gardens for a range of plants and flowers including bluebells, tulips, daffodils, lilac, buttercups, daisies and dandelions. We couldn't believe how many beautiful flowers grow in our school grounds! Fabulous photographs to follow...

Our Knowledge Harvest

To find out what we already know about flowers and insects, we went on a nature hunt in our outside area to see what we could find. We took photographs and made sketches. It was so much fun! Then, we cut up and sorted our sketches into 'living things', 'things that were once living' and 'things that had never been alive'. We shared some interesting ideas. Next, we will learn how to tell the difference between things that are and are not living.

Welcome back, Super Learners!

We can't believe that we have started our final term in Year 1. This school year is flying by! The children have been totally amazing this year and have made so much progress; we are very proud of them all. Keep it up, Year 1 Super Learners!

Online Homework

Don't forget to log on to Education City and Mathletics to complete your online homework. There is lots of homework set in maths, phonics and science and a small group of children are completing it regularly. Well done to those children! If you have mislaid your log-in card, let us know and we can print you another one.

Our Materials Hunt

We went on a hunt around school searching for materials made from metal, glass, wood and plastic. Each team had a manager and recorder to make sure that everyone's ideas were written down and to ask children, 'How do you know?' We studied materials closely, touched them and tapped them to prove our ideas. Year 1 children are super scientists!

Sorting Materials

We have been so busy learning more about materials. We have sorted objects in line with the material from which they are made. We have also sorted materials according to their properties and learned to use words such as hard, soft, rough, smooth, bouncy and stretchy to describe them. We work so well together in our 'Materials Detectives' teams!

What's it Made Of?

In our new project, we will be exploring objects and saying, 'What's it made of?' We will learn how different materials are used to make different objects. We also plan to visit the Phiz Lab and do some investigations to find out more about materials. It's going to be great!

'What's it Made of?' Entry Point

For our Entry Point, we are going to work together to build a Timberley Tree sculpture using recycled materials. We have been studying some interesting sculptures using glass bottles, buttons, wood, washing machines, toys and coat hangers to give us ideas.

World Book Day 2017

We had a fabulous time during World Book Day! We learned how to measure using our body parts with Supertato, Cat Woman and Super Daisy. We designed our own superhero book characters and read books in our brand new library. What a fantastic day!

'Say Cheese!' Exit Point

We had a fantastic Exit Point to our project today to showcase our skills and show what we have learned during our 'Say Cheese!' project. We invited our Timberley Reception children and taught them how to take photographs in the farm and how to use Scratch and Espresso to write code and debug programs. We also showed them our photography gallery and project books and taught them how to set up a photograph of their own with their favourite toys. What a great day! Keep checking our class page for photographs!

Photography Project Homework

A massive thank you and a big well done to all of our children and parents who have already sent us their child's photograph as part of our Gabriele Galimberti-inspired photography project. They look fantastic! We are looking forward to printing them off and displaying them both in class and in children's project books.

NSPCC Number Day

In order to celebrate maths and raise money for the NSPCC, we took part in Number Day. Children wore clothes with numbers and we had lots of fun chanting our number bonds and playing maths games.

Safer Internet Day

It is 'Safer Internet Day' on Tuesday 7th February 2017. We will be talking to children about how important it is to keep safe online. Here are some useful websites to help you support children to stay safe whilst online at home.

Online Homework

A massive well done to all of our children who have been working hard to complete homework on Education City and Mathletics! Homework is set regularly which links to current learning in class. In addition, children can choose other activities and games to increase their learning further. It's lots of fun too! If you have mislaid your child's login details, don't worry - just let us know and we'll sort you out another login card.

Learning Together

Thank you to everyone who attended our Inspire Workshops. We had a fabulous turnout with 94% attendance - fantastic! It was lovely to see you all enjoying phonics with your children and grandchildren and working together to create your game.

Year 1 Reading Superheroes!

Wow! Our Year 1 children are really working hard on their reading this year. Almost all children have changed their book ten times, lots of children have changed their book over twenty times and one child has even changed his book over sixty times! Amazing! We are so proud of our reading superheroes! It is great to see children's superhero characters moving across our Year 1 reading display. Keep on reading!

Doctor Mark wows us with science!

We were lucky enough to meet a real scientist this week! Doctor Mark came to Timberley to show us some amazing experiments. We learned about sound and light and had a wonderful time. He even showed us how to pop balloons using a beam of light. Wow!

Mr Harris the Photographer comes to visit Year 1

This week, Mr Harris, a professional photographer, came to Timberley to tell us all about what it is like to take photographs for a job. He showed us photographs he has taken of the Queen, football matches, pop concerts, animals, landscapes and breaking news events. We were all very excited to see his wonderful photographs on the big screen. We were also wowed by his impressive cameras and lenses. There were lots of ooohs and aaahs when we saw them and we couldn't believe how expensive they were.

We had lots of opportunities to ask plenty of interesting questions such as:

How many photographs have you taken?

Which is your favourite photograph?

How do you get your photographs into the newspaper?

How do you send your photographs all around the world?

How do you turn colour photographs black and white?

Mr Harris even gave us his three top tips for taking a good photograph. They are:

1. Grip

Hold the camera properly and make sure that your fingers aren't in the way.

2. Composition

Make sure you can see everything you want to include in the picture.

3. Light

Make sure there is lots of light to avoid blurred photos.

Most of all, remember that photographs are memories so take pictures that make you happy.

Thank you so much for coming in, Mr Harris. We will follow your top tips when taking photographs in our 'Say Cheese' project work this term.

Fashion Show

As the Entry Point for our new project, "Say Cheese!", we held a fabulous Fashion Show. It was fantastic and the children looked so smart in their favourite outfits. Year 1 classes took it in turns to be the models, the audience and the fashion photographers. We used cameras and iPads to take some fantastic photographs and our catwalk poses were amazing! We will put as many photographs as we can on the website for you to see but please bear with us as we have over a thousand photographs to download and edit!

We are fashion photographers!

Here are some Fashion Show photographs taken by the children. We think we may have some professional photographers in the making! Fantastic photos, 1S!

Welcome Back

Happy New Year and welcome back children! It's 2017 and we have another new year of learning ahead. Let's keep working hard and make the fantastic progress we know you can. We are very proud of you. Keep smiling!

Year 1's Christmas Play

Just a reminder that our Christmas play will be on Thursday 8th December 2016 in the new dining hall, starting at approximately 9.10 am. We look forward to seeing you there!

Christmas Jumper Day

Just a reminder that we will be having our Christmas jumper day and special Christmas dinner on Thursday 8th December 2016. Children do not need to wear school uniform on this day and can wear their jumper with their own casual clothes. If you don't have a Christmas jumper, don't worry - just wear something bright and colourful instead! Happy Christmas!

Time Travellers Project

We have been having so much fun with our Time Travellers project this half term. We are such good history detectives! We started off with our Bonfire Night research and celebration. Then, we found out about the past by interviewing a family member, studying special objects and reading information on the interactive whiteboard. We visited Aston Hall and found out lots of information about life almost four hundred years ago. We tried on costumes, explored different objects and even did some dancing! Then we made our own museum of special objects back at school and visited the three galleries. We asked the curators lots of questions to find out more. We have also been busy using time words such as today, yesterday, tomorrow, before, after, now and then. We have learned about some important inventions and placed objects and events on a timeline. We have been so busy learning so much. Well done Year 1 children! We are very proud of you all!

Year 1 History Detectives

The Year 1 History Detectives brought in objects from home which remind them of special events. The children made a label and information sheet about their object and displayed them carefully in three galleries - 1H, 1M and 1S. They then used their special ticket to visit each of the galleries and asked questions about the special exhibits. We can learn lots about the past from objects. Good thinking and good talking, children!

Time Travellers - Our Entry Point

We had an amazing start to our new Time Travellers project! First, we decided to celebrate Bonfire Night and worked together to plan our celebration. We considered what we would do, what we needed to make to get ready for our event and what we would need to buy. We helped our teachers write a shopping list of things we needed to buy from the shops. Then, we made our sparklers and rockets, went outside and used our Timberley rocket launcher to shoot our rockets into the sky. Wow!

Time Travellers Trip

We can now reveal that we will be going on a special trip to Aston Hall to find out more about how people used to live a long time ago. We are very excited about it! Letters were sent out last week.

1H Friday 18th November 2016

1S Thursday 24th November 2016

1M Tuesday 29th November 2016

If you have any questions or need another letter, please ask your child's teacher.

Our New Project

This half term's project is called 'Time Travellers'. We will learn about life a long time ago and how it is different from life today. We are planning on going on a special visit to a house build hundreds of years ago and exploring how people used to live. We are very excited about that! We will be learning about inventions and how the things we see today, such as aeroplanes, telephones and televisions, have changed over time. We will also learn to use words such as 'yesterday', 'last week', 'last month', 'last year' etc. to explain when things happened. Keep checking our Year 1 class page for new photographs!

Welcome back, Year 1 Super Learners!

Welcome back to another half term packed full of fun and learning! We hope you have had a lovely half term with your families, children, and have enjoyed playing in the autumn sunshine. It'll be lovely to start our learning again. See you soon!

Have you been interviewed yet?

Over half term, we set our children a very special task to interview a member of their family to find out about a special event in his or her life. This might be a birthday, a party, a wedding, an anniversary, a christening, a religious celebration or any other special time. The children had questions to ask and a sheet upon which to record your answers. They will then be presenting what they've found out to the class. If your little interviewer hasn't mentioned it, just let us know and we'll send another sheet home for you!

Online homework

Homework is regularly set on 'Education City' for your child to complete. When your child logs on, click the 'Homework' tab to access the homework. We aren't currently setting a completion date for homework so don't worry if you haven't had chance to go on yet, the homework is waiting for you! Mathletics works slightly differently. A programme is set for your child to complete and, as we progress through the curriculum, we will make more activities available to give your child the opportunity to practise new skills. If you have mislaid your login details, just let us know and we'll print you out another set.

Baptism

In R.E., we've been learning about belonging. We have talked about belonging to our families, our class, our school, clubs and other groups. We are now learning about how Christians welcome a new baby into their church family. We watched a film about a Christian baptism and then acted out our own baptism in class!

This Half Term's Project: Our World

This half term, we will be learning about our wonderful world. We will be getting out and about as often as we can with lots of visits to our outdoor areas and school farm, which we know the children will really enjoy. It's going to be lots of fun and full of learning opportunities. We're really looking forward to it!

Entry Point

This project's entry point will involve a treasure hunt in the Timberley farm. How exciting! Our children will need to look very carefully around them to find the clues. Watch this space for lots of photographs!

Knowledge Harvest

To find out more about our world, we went on a walk all around our farm, fields, orchard, nature area and playgrounds to search for some geographical features. The children were keen to find as many human and physical features as they could. Look at what we found!

Homework

In Year 1, we will be sending home paper homework each Thursday to give children the chance to practise their skills at home. This may be maths, phonics, literacy or project-related and will always link with work we're doing in class so the children will have an understanding of the task. We would be really grateful if you could return homework by the following Thursday although, if you've had a busy week, we'll be more than happy to accept it a little later! Children completing and returning homework will receive a special homework Dojo point! 

Phonics

Phonics groups are now underway. Children have been busy practising their sounds and working hard to blend sounds to read words. We're really proud of them! Children are doing daily reading in their phonics lessons. They work with their reading buddy and phonics teacher to read sounds, words and simple sentences. They are also practising tricky words which don't follow the rules and saying, remembering and writing sentences. Well done Year 1 Phonics superstars!

P.E. Lessons

All Year 1 classes will have P.E. on Friday afternoons. Children will need their full school P.E. kit - shorts, t-shirt and pumps or trainers. We're looking forward to using our brand new Sports Hall!

Reading Books & Diaries

Many thanks to everyone who has sent in their child's book bag and home reading diary. These children have already gone home with their new reading book. Fantastic! If you haven't sent yours in yet, please send it in as soon as possible so that we can make sure that every child has a reading book to read at home. If you can't find yours, just let us know. New home reading diaries are available to buy for 50p and Timberley book bags are available to purchase from the school office. Thank you.

Dojo Points

You might have heard your child talking about Dojo points and wondered what they are! Dojo points have replaced housepoints this year and are an exciting way of saying 'well done'. Children get a Dojo point for lots of reasons such as working hard, using their manners, behaving well and walking sensibly around school. With such a great start to the year already, our Year 1 children are already collecting lots of Dojo points. We don't think it'll be long before we send out our first 100 Dojo point certificate! Keep up the fantastic work children!

Year 1 Superstars!

What a fantastic start to our new school year! Our Year 1 children have started so positively with big smiles, smart uniforms, bags of enthusiasm and lots of fabulous learning ideas. We are very proud of you all. Well done, children!