What a performance!
Well done to all the children for such a great Christmas performance this week. A lot of hard work has gone into this production and many many rehearsals.
Thank you also to all who came to watch. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.
A few pictures below.
End of term
As the end of the term approaches, you’d think it was time to wind down. Well, not in Year 1!
The children have continued on with their learning and we have turned some Christmas crafts into great learning opportunities.
Maths with gingerbread men?
This was an opportunity to create some repeating patterns, some symmetry, counting and even some addition and subtraction.
Careful cutting
Whilst making their Christmas cards, the children were encouraged to cut things out for themselves.
Using a pair of scissors can be tricky. However, all the effort was worth it when snowflakes appeared like magic!
Threading salt dough
Another craft activity we have completed is making decorations with salt dough. This involved careful painting of both sides which was a challenge. The children worked out that asking a friend to hold the decoration whilst they painted the back was a good solution. Everyone threaded some ribbon through the hole and some attempted to tie a knot in the ribbon.
The four seasons
These calendars were created with a theme of the four seasons. The children thought carefully about each season throughout the year. Then, using the image of a tree they added detail according to the relevant time of year. Lots of colour and some very detailed painting.
It’s been an absolute pleasure to have been working with the Year 1 children. Over the last few months, I have seen talented artists, creative writers, resilient mathematicians, enthusiastic readers and much more. A change of adult can be quite unsettling for some children. I have to say, the whole class have coped well with this and the changes have not affected their high standard of learning. In fact, I have been amazed by the quality of the work produced by the children.
What are ascenders and descenders?
Year 1 have been using word shapes to help to learn their spellings and also help with their handwriting.
Tall letters such as t, l and h all have ascenders and letters that come under the line such as g, p and y have descenders.
We can use a word shape to show the ascenders and descenders in a word.
Ask your child what spellings are missing from this week’s list and if they can draw a word shape for these words?
Our Handwriting Guide is easy to follow and a great way to support your child.
Road Safety Pantomime ‘The Gift of Life’
Yesterday, all pupils watched this lighthearted show that delivered important road safety messages.
Pupils joined Santa and Rudolf as they travelled back in time to prevent young Neil Downe from being knocked down. Whilst being fun and interactive, the pantomime covered the following road safety themes:
- the Green Cross Code
- seat belts
- be bright, be seen
- safer cycling
Ask your child about the performance and what messages they took away.
We are special
In Year 1, we have been thinking about how each and every one of us is special. We all like different foods, celebrate different religions, live in different places, have different hobbies and yet, in lots of ways, we are all the same.
The children have thought about identities.
Who are you?
We had such a lovely time creating paintings of ourselves. Take a look at our gallery below.
Along with this, we have also thought about the communities that we live in and learnt about similarities and differences within them.
What is respect?
“What is respect” is a big concept to grasp.
Respect is how you feel about someone or something.
Having respect for someone means you think good things about who a person is or how he/she acts. You can have respect for others, and you can have respect for yourself.
Respect is how you treat someone or something.
Showing respect to someone means you act in a way that shows you care about their feelings and well-being.
Showing respect for others include things like not calling people mean names, treating people with courtesy and showing good manners.
Learning how to show respect is so very important. We have thought about respecting ourselves and others. The children also discussed that we should show respect to our community, animals, people and belongings.
Whilst I have been working in Year 1, I have seen the children showing respect to each other. They are proud of their classroom and the school as a whole.
Well done!
Packed lunches
On Monday, Caitlin Kitson, Nutritionist and Healthy Eating Adviser, delivered a whole school healthy eating assembly. The main focus was the importance of healthy packed lunches.
We talked about the different food groups on the Eatwell Guide, why different proportions of each food group are important for our bodies and how to achieve this in a packed lunch.
It was great to hear the children’s excellent knowledge of the Eatwell Guide when answering Caitlin’s questions.
At Moortown Primary, our packed lunch guidance includes:
- information about the different food groups
- how to put together a healthy, balanced packed lunch
- links to recipes and ideas for healthy packed lunches
Following the assembly, all children were given a copy of our packed lunch guidance and the Eatwell guide.
As an alternative to packed lunches, school meals, including a vegetarian option, are prepared daily in our kitchen and children are offered a choice of main courses and desserts. Children select their main meal choice at the start of the day. Catering Leeds provides food which meets national Food Standards criteria. School meals can be combined with packed lunches.
Free school meals are available to all children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. They are also available to some older children according to family income. It’s important to register for entitlement to free school meals, even if your child has a packed lunch or is in a younger class – this is so we can receive additional funding (called the pupil premium) which we can use to help your child.
What is our new school charity?
Part of our Who do you think you are? themed week was to learn about charities and how we can support them.
Our previous school charities, Leeds Mind and Yorkshire Air Ambulance Money, will benefit from £309.97 and £508.88 respectively as a result of fundraising and donations. Thank you.
It is now time to change our school charity. Each class discussed a range of charities, researched by the children for their homework, and voted on one charity they wanted to put forward for the school councillors to decide on.
Here were the class choices:
- Year 1 Plastic Oceans Foundation
- Year 2 Barnado’s
- Year 3 RSPCA
- Year 4 St Gemma’s Hospice
- Year 5 Make a wish
- Year 6 Diabetes UK
The final decision was a vote by the school council and the winning charity for 2017-2018 was Make A Wish. We will support this charity for one year.
We look forward to welcoming representatives from the charity in January for an assembly where we will hear more about their valuable work.
Writing
In Year One,we have focused our English lessons around a story – The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch.
Every day, Mr Grinling the lighthouse keeper cleans and polishes his light to make sure it shines brightly at night. At lunchtime he tucks into a delicious and well-deserved lunch, prepared by his wife. But Mr Grinling isn’t the only one who enjoys the tasty food. Will Mrs Grinling think of a way to stop the greedy seagulls from stealing the lighthouse keeper’s lunch?
We’ve looked closely at three different ways of telling this story. These variations of the same tale sparked some great discussion.
The children then worked on the items they would put into Mr Grinling’s basket. Before doing any writing, we orally rehearsed what we were going to write. This is an age related expectation for the end of Year One: I can say what I’m going to write and then compose a sentence orally before writing it.
The children were encouraged to say a sentence, count the words, say it again and finally write it.
We had some great sentences during our lesson with the correct use of capital letters and full stops. Some children experimented by using the word ‘and‘ to join their ideas and make their sentence longer.
- “I will put in some apples.”
- “I will put in some chocolate cake.”
- “I will put in some salad and some grapes.”
Another age related expectation for Year One is to: use a capital letter for ‘I’.
Ask your child about this story and see if they can retell it. Following that, encourage your child to orally rehearse a sentence about the characters in the book and then have a go at writing it.
Year 1 homework
Year 1 had a great discussion about different charities following their talk time homework. It was great to hear about such a variety of good causes covering many areas from homelessness to giving shoes to children in Africa. Some children also selected charities we had worked with in our themed week, for example RNIB.
Once we had come up with our full list, we held a vote for the charity we wanted to be the Year 1 choice. Harry’s choice of Plastic Oceans Foundation was chosen by the children. He was very passionate about this!
Keeping safe in the community
Year 1 became police officers for the afternoon during our themed week and were under the instruction of PCSO Michelle.
After an initial safety briefing, it was time to go outside school to learn about road and pedestrian safety in our immediate area. Then, all children had the chance to check whether drivers were following the new 20mph speed limit along Shadwell Lane by using the hand held speed gun.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good news with children catching drivers in excess of the 20mph limit. We talked about the reasons for the new speed limit and the children were very concerned that not all cars were travelling as slow as they should have been.
Thank you to PCSO Michelle for working with us. Make sure you say hello if you see her in the community.
