Welcome to 1 ASH

Mrs Ward - mward@st-peters.wakefield.sch.uk

Mrs Goodrich - hgoodrich@st-peters.wakefield.sch.uk

You can find out what we are currently learning on our Curriculum Newsletter.

Reading

At our school we place a great importance on nurturing a love of Reading and we teach phonics and reading using the Little Wandle scheme. As part of this, the children will bring home 2 types of books each week: a sharing book and a reading book matched to their phonics level. The sharing book is a book to enjoy reading together, perhaps at bedtime. The reading book is read in reading sessions during the week and brought home at the end of the week. We would encourage you to listen to your child read this book and celebrate their achievement as they read it independently.

Please return your child’s sharing book to school on a Friday and their reading book on a Monday. It is important that these books are looked after and returned promptly.

Reading Challenge

Each half term the children can earn raffle tickets each time they read 5 times with an adult. At the end of each half term a winner from each year group is then picked out.

We also set a class target each half term and our reward for reaching it is a new class book to share. Please date and sign your child’s yellow reading record each time they read with an adult at home including their sharing book.

PE

This half term we have PE lessons on Monday and Friday. The children should bring their PE kit to school on these days (white t-shirt, navy/black shorts, leggings or jogging bottoms, a hoody or jumper and trainers/pumps). It should be labelled with your child’s name please. You may also wish to send a waterproof jacket on these days.

Drinks and Snacks

We ask the children to drink water at regular intervals during the day so please provide them with a named, durable water bottle (water only, not juice). A fruit or vegetable snack is provided everyday for the children which they eat at morning playtime. You can send your child with their own piece of fruit or vegetable if you so wish but no other snacks are suitable, thank you.

And lastly, thank you for your support and if you have any questions or would like a chat, please catch a member of staff at the beginning or end of the day.

Thank you,

Mrs Ward, Mrs Goodrich and Miss Yarnold

Maths - Counting in 2s, 5s and 10s

We have been working on counting in different numbers (2s, 5s and 10s). If you could practise this at home it would really help the children with their Maths we are doing in class at the minute on multiplication and division. We will soon be teaching them times tables which is much easier if they are confident in counting. Thank you. Any queries, please ask!

We danced along to a Supermovers song about how precious our Earth is. Then we read the book "Planet Full of Plastic" and learnt how much plastic pollution there is on our wonderful planet. We then all made a pledge to look after our Earth.

We observed the parts of a flowering plant, carefully and came up with some actions to help us remember what the parts do. We then planted the plants outside our classroom.

We had the challenge of sorting looks, interests and activities into boys and girls, but found it very difficult. We had lots of discussion and decided that all of them could be classed as things for boys AND girls. We ended up deciding that we are all unique and can choose what we want but we also need to allow others to be who they want to be without judging them. A very mature conclusion - well done 1Ash!

We finished off our Piet Mondrian unit of Art work by creating a piece of work using ICT in the style of Mondrian.

In our PSHE lessons we worked in pairs to decide what we thought were the most important aspects of being a good friend and how we should respect our friends. The children showed maturity and cooperation, talking and compromising with each other. We were very proud!

In our senses work we talked about which part of our bodies we use for each of the 5 senses...

We smell with our nose.

We see with our eyes.

We hear with our ears.

We taste with our tongue.

We touch and feel with our hands and skin.

We are exploring each sense one by one. So here are some photos of us exploring our sense of sight and touch.

Our Design and Technology project this half term was to create our own moving picture for a story book. We explored existing story books that contain moving parts and then learnt how to create different mechanisms from them such as a 'lever' or a 'slider'. We designed our own page from the story 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff' and then made it using our new skills. We evaluated our final pieces and here they are! We all really enjoyed this project. 

In our History lessons we have been learning about significant people and how they have changed our lives. In this lesson we looked at what hospitals were like before and after Florence Nightingale's time and the wonderful changes she made to them.

As part of our PSHE lessons we talked about how important sleep is. We talked about all the different things we do to get ready for bed and came up with a set of instructions as a class. The children wanted me to share this with you all.

On a misty Monday morning, Year 1 walked to Horbury Park using our Geography skills of route making and describing directions. We have since written down instructions of how to get from school to Horbury Park. When we were at the park we used natural materials to create our own piece of Art in the style of Andy Goldsworthy. We had lots of fun. We have so many talented artists!

We had a great Mental Health day on Tuesday... we started by talking about how to keep our minds healthy by exercising, breathing fresh air, getting creative and spending time with friends. So, we had fun in our PE lesson, working with friends with a little friendly competition. Then we thought about our different feelings and made colour monsters with natural things we found in our Wild Area. Lastly we acted out different emotions and talked about how to help ourselves if we feel sad, worried, scared, etc.

After listening to the "Thankfulness Coat" in Collective Worship, some children chose to make their own thankful coats and say what they were thankful for.

After looking for plants in our school grounds, the children wanted to find out how old trees are. We researched and found out that if you measure around the trunk of a tree in cms and then half it, it tells you roughly how old the tree is in years. The biggest tree we found was a Beech tree in the playground that measured 200cm which meant it was 100 years old!

We have loved reading "The Colour Monster" and learning about our feelings through lots of different activities.

We had our first Rugby session with the coach. We worked on evading and dodging skills by playing different types of tag games.

We have had a wonderful first week in Year 1. We've been impressed with how well the children have all settled. You are all superstars!

Here are some pictures of some Maths where we've been sorting and counting objects and Science where we have been drawing around and labelling parts of our bodies, and also some fab independent learners!