HOME LEARNING

From Monday June 1st you can access your home learning by following the link to Lower School on the Class Pages/Home Learning page.

Some parents have asked me for a suggested timetable for learning at home to make sure that the children's day is structured in a similar way to school.

Here is a suggested daily routine. Please do not feel like you have to follow this if you already have a plan for the day in place.

9am - PE lesson with the body coach (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAxW1XT0iEJo0TYlRfn6rYQ)

9.30 - 10.30 - Maths or English

10.30 - 11 - break/drink and fruit - run/play in the garden

11-12 - Maths or English

12-1pm - LUNCH (and physical activity)

1 - 2.30pm - other activities/and areas of the curriculum (can be practical - cooking/gardening/making/art and craft/science experiments)

2.30 - 3.00pm - story / reading

The Year 1 staff are:

Miss E. Martin - Class Teacher

Mrs. S. Brewster - Class Teacher on a Thursday

Mrs. D.Podgers - Higher Level Teaching Assistant (Tuesday-Friday)

Mrs. Z. Filbey - Teaching Assistant (Monday)

Important information:

PE

In Year 1 our PE days are Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday the PE will be with Miss Martin and for the Spring term, we will be looking at moving our bodies in different ways to develop new skills such as balance and co-ordination. The other PE session will be with MR Clarke on a Thursday morning, so PE kits will be needed in school for this, weather depending it could either be indoor or outdoor PE.

Homework:

Spellings have now stopped until the summer term due to a focus on phonics as discussed at parents evening

Spelling homework will be given out on Thursday and will be tested the following Thursday. The spellings will be tailored to the children's capabilities and be based around sounds they are learning in class.

Maths and English/Topic homework: Homework will be given out every Friday and needs to be returned on the following Thursday as Miss Martin will mark these books on a Thursday night ready to be handed back to the children with new homework in on Friday. If your child does not hand their book in (we do offer them several reminders throughout the week) they will miss out on the next piece of homework. If there is a problem or you are having difficulties with the homework please do not hesitate to come and speak to Miss Martin about this. 

Reading: As we are now in the Spring term all of the children have been benchmarked several times using the school's reading book system, therefore you will notice that they will have two reading books and a free choice book. One of the reading books is their benchmarked level book and one is a phonics book based around the phase and sound we are learning. The phonics books are still important as in Year 1 a big focus is upon our phonics skills and how we blend, segment and recognise those tricky phonemes. The free choice book is a book your child has chosen from the classroom box to share with you at home, it was their choice on which book to choose, they may not be able to read it yet but may enjoy it if you read it to them and talked about the pictures and the story with them. There are plenty of opportunities for the children to change their reading books at school and we read with each child on a 1:1 basis at least once a week, however, please sign the yellow reading diary when your child reads at home as we have noticed this is not always being done and the children are missing out on rewards for reading.

George's Diary: Your child may have already told you about our class giraffe named George. Every child in Year 1 will have the opportunity to take George home (Friday-Wednesday) and look after him, they will then need to write, draw or take photographs of George's adventures with them in his diary. The diary entry for that week will be shared by your child on the day they return George to the class. We look forward to hearing all about George's marvellous adventures with you.

George has already had so many wonderful adventures with you and your children throughout the Autumn term and can't wait for more adventures during the Spring term! Thank you for taking good care of him and for recording your adventures in his diary.

What we will be learning.

Autumn Term 1st half 2019 - Zoom To The Moon

Autumn Term 2nd half 2019  - London's burning!

Spring Term 1st half 2020 - Marvellous Me

Spring Term 2nd Half 2020 - Paws, claws and whiskers

Summer Term 1st half 2020 - The wonderful world of plants

Throughout the topic the wonderful world of plants, the children will be taught to observe, identify, compare, classify and describe UK plants. They will also become familiar with different types of plants, including wild plants, garden plants and trees. They will use the terms 'deciduous', 'evergreen', 'leaves', 'stem', 'flower', blossom' and many more to describe a wide variety of plants. They will also be encouraged to observe how plants change over time, all through a variety of fun activities.

We will be focusing our writing this term on the book 'The tiny seed' by Eric Carle

For more information about this topic and how the curriculum fits togetheraround this to create an immersive learning journey for the children please look at the Summer 1 topic planning below.

Year 1 Phonics

what exactly is phonics? 

Words are made up of small units of sound called phonemes. Phonics teaches children to be able to listen carefully and identify the phonemes that make up each word. This helps children to learn to read words and to spell words. 

In phonics lessons children are taught three main things:

  • Phonemes: Each letter in the alphabet has a ‘name’ (a = ay, b = bee, c = see, etc), but spoken English uses about 44 sounds (phonemes). These phonemes are represented by letters (graphemes). In other words, a sound can be represented by a letter (e.g. ‘s’ or ‘h’) or a group of letters (e.g. ‘th’ or ‘ear’). These sounds are taught in a particular order. The first sounds to be taught are s, a, t, p. 

• Blending: Children are taught to be able to blend. This is when children say the sounds that make up a word and are able to merge the sounds together until they can hear what the word is. This skill is vital in learning to read. 

• Segmenting: Children are also taught to segment. This is the opposite of blending. Children are able to say a word and then break it up into the phonemes that make it up. This skill is vital in being able to spell words.

How is phonics taught? 

Phonics sessions are very structured and last for approximately 20 minutes per day. Children are then given the opportunities to explore what they are learning in phonics in independent or adult-led activities throughout the school day. Phonics forms a part of how we teach reading, but it is also important to help children become fluent readers by teaching them to recognise key words by sight.

Year 1 reading

Reading skills used and developed in Year 1

Phonics:

Children will continue to learn to read using phonics. Children will still be learning letter sounds for reading and spelling, but these will become more complex. For example, they will look at the same sounds but with different spelling patterns, such as long vowel sounds, e.g. ai, ay, a-e. It’s valuable to help them with these sounds at home when you are reading together and reinforce the letter sounds from the previous year so that children start to automatically apply their phonic skills when reading unfamiliar words.

Children are also expected to recognise some tricky words by sight. They will continue to build up a bank of tricky sight vocabulary and some schools may send home lists of these words so that they learn them off by heart. In the Summer term of Year 1 they sit a statutory phonics screening check to ensure they are making good progress in the basic phonic skills.

Comprehension:

Children also draw on their own experiences (the language and stories they know), the setting of the story and the pictures to help them understand what they are reading about. Comprehension skills are vital in making sense of what the words say and interpreting meaning. You can help your child to develop these skills by asking lots of questions about what they are reading as this will help them to understnad the story on a different level and broarden their reading skills.

Benchmarking of books explained:

At school as mentioned earlier on this page your child will have a benchmarked level book which they bring home to read with you. These books are given based on the two reading skills mentioned above, thier phonics/word reading and their comprehension/understanding of a text. We take a sample of each level and test your child's phonics/word reading and their comprehension of the text they have just read. We then make the judgement against their level by deciding if their phonics/word reading and their comprehension match the level for that book band and adjust accordingly until we find a level that is either too hard phonetically or they can not understand the comprehension questions. You may feel the book is too easy for your child, however if this is the case it may be that their comprehension skills are not as developed as their phonics/word reading skills and this is solved by asking lots of questions to help them understand what they are reading as this is just as important as reading the text. You will receive exapmples of these types of questions in the form of a bookmark which you can slot into your child's book to remind you to ask them as you are reading and discuss the text with them.

Reading at home:

As parents/carers, you can make the biggest difference to your child’s success as a reader by encouraging your child to read as much and as widely as possible at home. Reading with your child every day, even just for 5 minutes, can make all the difference to their progress. It’s really important to read as much as possible with your child. Read the books that come home from school, borrow library books, buy books and magazines. Read signs and notices, and find interesting websites to read. And keep reading together at bedtime too!

The below website from Oxford Owl has some great tips on things to try whilst reading with your child:

https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/reading/building-on-reading-skills-ages-5-6/

Useful links for Parents and Children: