What is going on in Year 1 - this half term, our topic is THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON!
Over the course of the school year, we will be adding some useful information to this page. You can find all the information you need, below, regarding our current learning within school this term and it may also include some handy tips and tricks to help your child at home or may be some useful websites for learning, related to our topics in class.
English
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We will be continuing to develop our reading skills in both independent reading to adults and our weekly guided reading sessions as well as in our weekly library time - don't forget to read your 2 reading books as many times as you can each week to become a confident and fluent reader! We will also continue to practice our cursive handwriting and aim to incorporate this in our writing.
This term year 1 will enjoy exploring a range of engaging texts linked to our history topic and seasonal events. We will begin the year by writing New Year wishes and a Christmas holiday recount. We will read the story of Toby and the Great Fire of London, the children will create poetry and write a diary entry. We will also develop our non-fiction writing skills by producing newspaper reports about the Great Fire of London. These activities will support children in developing their imagination, sentence writing, and confidence as young writers
Phonics
At Holy Trinity, we follow the Twinkl Phonics Scheme, which has been approved by the DfE as a validated scheme and is already making us fantastic at Phonics!
We began the year by recapping Phase 2, 3 and 4 before moving onto Phase 5. We will be reading a mixture of real and nonsense (alien) words in preparation for the Phonics Screening Check which takes place in June 2025. Please see the parent guide that has been uploaded. During this half term, we will continue to learn our Level 5 phonemes and consolidate our phonetic knowledge to help us become super spellers and confident readers and writers by following the Twinkl Rhino Readers home reading books which revise our prior learning.
Some Useful websites and resources that you can access at home and use to help your child with their phonics are:
Interactive games linked to each phase and a useful section on information for parents:
Offers interactive games, comics, and resources for various phonics phases, including blending, plural rules, and more.
BBC CBeebies series of animated programmes featuring the Alphablocks characters – great for practising sounds and blending words:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/alphablocks
Mrs G's little lessons on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJKLhhyCG1E&list=PLDNY9D-fYJHyzX_viN0HUr4f_Kr-e-JvY
A website set up by a Year 1 teacher who started making phonics videos for his class. He has since became very popular and has now created his own phonics apps:
More interactive games to support phonics skills.
https://ictgames.com/mobilePage/literacy.html
A collection of further games and resources
http://www.topmarks.co.uk/Interactive.aspx?cat=40
Some ideas for phonics games at home:
https://phonicsfamilycom.wordpress.com/phase-6-games/
Phonics screening check information:
a-parent-guide-to-the-phonics-screening-check.pdf
Maths
In Maths this half term, we will cover the following maths topics:
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We will explore these topics through a combination of practical whole class, small groups and independent activities, learning through play, using concrete resources, pictorial learning as well as seeing if we can then apply our knowledge independently at the end of each week with some trickier tasks. We will be working very hard to learn numbers bonds that make 10 so we can recall them rapidly, continue to reading and recognizing numbers to 50, days of the week and practicing our counting forwards and backwards skills within our 'Flashback Fluency' daily maths activities.
RE Our Christian Value this term is RESPECT AND REVERENCE. Within both whole school worship, class RE and PSHCE lessons, activities and discussions we will be thinking about what it means to have respect and reverence and how we can show this in our everyday lives. This half term our RE topic is “how should we care for others and the world and why does it matter?”
Topic This term in History, Year 1 will be learning all about the “Great Fire of London”. We will compare London today with London in 1666 and discover how people’s lives were very different in the past. The children will find out how the fire started, why it spread so quickly, and how we know about the Great Fire by exploring a range of stories, pictures and sources. We will learn about Samuel Pepys, a significant person from this time, and create a simple fact file about his life. The children will also think about fire safety then and now, and explore how London changed after the fire, including how the city was rebuilt. This topic will help develop curiosity about the past and an understanding of how events long ago have shaped London today.
Science In science our topic is “sensitive bodies”. We follow the Kapow science scheme. Some of the things we will be doing are:
The scientific skills we will be focusing on are:
PSHE In PSHE, Year 1 follow the Kapow PSHE scheme as we learn about Health and Wellbeing. The children will explore how to look after their bodies by learning that good hand hygiene can help to limit the spread of germs and how to stay safe in the sun by remembering the five S’s: slip, slop, slap, shade and sunglasses. We will discuss how certain foods and other things can cause allergic reactions and why it is important to be aware of these. The children will also learn why sleep is important for helping our bodies to grow, repair and restore energy. Alongside this, we will focus on understanding personal strengths and qualities, recognising what we are good at, and learning words to describe a range of positive and negative emotions to help children understand and talk about their feelings.
Art and Design Technology This half term, our Art topic is “make your mark”. We follow the Kapow art and DT scheme. We will be working on our drawing skills by exploring lines, mark making, using different types of equipment to draw and drawing from an observation.
Computing This subject is taught by Mrs Bester. This half term is all about computer science programming coding on screen. One of the software’s the children will be using and exploring is scratch.
This lesson is taught by our specialist music teacher. This term we will looking at pulse and rhythm. Children will learn to identify the beat in different pieces of music and join in at faster and slower tempi (speeds).
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Year 1 Reading Journey
Want to learn more about the books we have enjoyed so far this year and the books we will read this half term? Take a look at our Year 1 Reading Journey: