Autumn Term 1

This half term we have been adapting to life in Year 1 and have been very busy with our learning! We have learned about Old Toys in History and visited Christchurch Mansion to look at the old toys on display. We even had a go at making our own old toys. We have looked at seasonal changes and the parts of a tree in science – we really enjoyed looking at the trees in Christchurch park on our trip. In Art, we have practiced our sketching skills and had a go at a variety of shading techniques. In Maths, we have been looking numbers to 10, how to order them, compare them and we are beginning to add with them. In Talk 4 Writing, we have learned the story of The Little Red Hen and have learned to retell it using our active storytelling actions.

Autumn Term 2

This half term we have been really busy in Year 1! We have been learning about our world in Geography. We learnt about the countries and capital cities of the United Kingdom and found out about the seven continents and the oceans that surround them. We have learnt a very catchy song to help us remember! In our DT lessons we have been exploring healthy eating and we had a go at making vegetable crudites and kebabs. We really enjoyed eating them after! Within our literacy lessons we have learnt a new story called ‘Seb and the Sloth’. We got to be authors and write out the story ourselves and created our own fact files on sloths. Our science lessons helped us with this as we have been learning about what an animal is and what types of animals there are. We have really enjoyed our learning this half term!

 Spring Term

In Year 1 we have been learning lots of new and exciting things during the Spring term. In art we have been looking at printing and have made some of our own artwork inspired by the artist Karen Lederer. In our history lessons, we have been learning about Mary Anning and David Attenborough and found out about animals and fossils! We had an exciting visit from ‘Life Long Ago’ in which we got to look at some real fossils and even meet some baby dinosaurs! In science, we have learnt about the parts of a plant and the difference between wild and garden plants. We learnt about the equator and hot and cold climates, discovering what animals live in these different environments. We then went on an exciting trip to Colchester zoo to see some of these animals! In art we learnt about the artist Anne Kelly. We made portraits of ourselves using similar techniques to Anne Kelly such as textiles, watercolor paints and oil pastels.

   Summer Term

Year 1 have had a very exciting and busy Summer term! In History we have learnt about some famous astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Mae Jemison and we had a visit from the Wonderdome in which we got to see what it is like in space! In DT we did some sewing. We practised making a running stitch and used this to design and make our own monster hand warmers. In Geography we learnt about what maps our and made our own imaginary map based on the story ‘We’re going on a bear hunt!’. We then created our own map to show our journey from our classroom to the playground! In art we studied the artist Paul Klee and made some landscape pictures of cities using collage and oil pastels. We had lots of fun at our trip to a local farm in which we got to feed some animals, plant some seeds and even sit on a tractor. We finished the term by creating some artwork based around Hansel and Gretel using the technique of collage and were very excited to show our grown ups!