Brisbane (Year 1)
Ms Gray
Class Teacher
Mrs Ellis
Teaching Partner
Early Morning Activities
From Monday to Thursday the children in Year One start their day with Early Morning Activities. During this time, they access a variety of tasks from hand writing practise, number skills, reading comprehension or spelling activities’. The children also have the opportunity to read individually to an adult. They are responsible for changing their own reading books at this time to encourage independence. On Friday’s session, the children will have a spelling quiz
English
English is taught daily from Monday to Thursday.
This term, Brisbane Class will cover the following:
- Repetitive Texts (Week 1): This week will be focused on the story ‘Bringing the Rain to Kapati Plain’.
- Traditional Tales from Other Cultures and Repetitive Texts (Week 2 and Week 3): The children’s learning will be based around texts such as: ‘Mama Panya’s Pancakes’ and ‘Why Elephant has his Trunk’, which are linked to our topic of Africa. They will create a piece of writing using interesting word choices.
- Report Writing (Weeks 4 and 5): This will link to our topic, especially Science, whereby children will write a report on a Ugandan animal.
Phonics
In Year One, phonics is taught on a daily basis from Monday to Thursday. We will continue with Phase 5 sounds and the emphasis on alternative spellings of phonemes. Spellings this term will again stem from what the children learn during phonics during the week.
Thank you for your continued support at home with practising spellings and hearing your child read regularly. It really does make a difference and the Year One team are so grateful!
We will continue to use the following vocabulary regularly in our phonics sessions:
Phoneme – a sound in a word
Grapheme – a letter or sequence of letters that represents a phoneme
Digraph – two letters that make one sound (e.g. ‘ai’ in rain)
Trigraph – three letters that make one sound (e.g. ‘igh’ in bright)
Split digraph – two letters that make one long vowel sound but they are split with other letters placed in between. You would have possibly learnt them as ‘magic e’ at school (e.g. ‘a-e’ as in name or taste).
Maths
Maths is taught daily from Monday to Thursday. Typically each unit will last two to three weeks. This will provide the children with the chance to develop their fluency, reasoning and problem solving for each subject. The children will build on their previous knowledge and use practical resources to develop their confidence and mental fluency with whole numbers, counting and place value.
This term, Brisbane class will cover the following units:
- Measurement involving weight and volume (2 weeks): Children will compare, describe and solve practical problems for mass/weight and use language such as ‘heavy/light’, ‘heavier than’, ‘lighter than’. Similarly, children will compare, describe and solve practical problems for capacity/volume and use language such as ‘full/empty’, ‘more than’, ‘less than’, ‘half’, ‘half full’, ‘quarter’. They will use containers including measuring cylinders and measuring jugs.
- Multiplication and Division (3 weeks): The children will practise counting in multiples of twos, fives and tens. They will solve one step problems involving multiplication and division, by calculating the answer using concrete objects, pictorial representations and arrays with the support of the teacher.
Science
Science is taught once a week and so each topic will cover the whole term. The children are encouraged to be curious and explore the world around them through questioning and investigations to develop their scientific knowledge and thinking. As young scientists, Brisbane class will cover a variety of topics this year. The children will build on their previous knowledge, checking they are confident with their understanding, as well as the providing the chance for the children to develop their scientific knowledge, skills and understanding by:
- Making simple observations
- Observing and beginning to record changes over time
- Using simple scientific language
- Following a plan to carry out a simple test
- Using findings to answer questions
- Recording findings using words, pictures and tables
- Talking about what they have found out and how they found it out.
This term our focused topic is 'Animals'. The children will learn the names of a variety of animals including fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals and sort them into these categories. They will classify and name animals by what they eat (carnivore, herbivore and omnivore).
Computing
Computing will continue to be taught across the curriculum to enrich the children's learning in Maths and English and to develop their computing skills. However, the main focus this term will be Presenting Information. The children will explore simple iPad apps such as Pic Collage and eBook Creator.
Topic
Geography will be covered this term as part of our Topic called ‘Home of the Crested Crane!'. The children will develop their skills as a geographer by learning about the African country, Uganda and making comparisons between Uganda and the UK. The children will continue to identify seasonal and daily weather patterns in the United Kingdom and recognise that the climate gets hotter closer to the Equator. The children will learn basic geographical vocabulary to describe places they are learning about.
The children will continue to develop their skills by naming and locating the four countries of the United Kingdom and its surrounding seas. They will find where they live on a map of the United Kingdom and use maps, atlases and globes to identify the United Kingdom and Uganda.
Art
The children will make a printing tile based on the Ugandan flag. They will use printing ink and rollers to print their design on paper. The children will also continue to practise and develop their painting skills
Music
The children will practise using their voices to perform and explore songs from different cultures through weekly lessons of ‘Voice Tuition’ with Caroline Radcliffe.
The children will also have the opportunity to learn how to play our Djembe drums. They will copy rhythms and then compose their own to play and perform.
Religious Education
RE will be taught in a block towards the end of the term. This term the children will be learning about Easter and asking the question, ‘Why does Easter matter to Christians? They will also learn about egg decorating traditions.
PSHE
PSHE topics are taught over a two term basis. This term the topic we shall be looking at is ‘Living in the Wider World’. The children will be thinking about different groups and communities and learning to respect and appreciate their own and others’ cultures. These sessions aim to develop the children’s self-knowledge, self-esteem and self-confidence. In these lessons, the children are encouraged to think about others and have time to discuss different topics with their class, developing their listening and speaking skills.
PE
PE lessons are taught twice weekly. On Wednesdays, the children will be developing and applying their physical skills through outdoor games. On Monday’s, the children will have indoor PE. They children will learn a variety of fundamental movement skills.