Welcome to 1 Elm

Mrs Kidd - rkidd@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.

Home Learning

The children will all have login details for Mathletics and EdShed which can be found in the front of their reading record. These can be accessed at home and the children can earn certificates for earning points or completing tasks.

PE

This half term we have PE lessons on Tuesday and Friday. The children should bring their PE kit to school on these days (white t-shirt, navy/black 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 Kidd and Mrs Rodgers.

We have had a fantastic day in our PJs and onesies! We read a beautiful book called "Isle of You" all about a lovely place to visit in your dreams or when you are sad or lonely. We have created maps, drawn self portraits, dressed up, made wishes and designed our favourite desserts.

But most of all we have enjoyed snuggling up with lots of lovely books.

We looked around our school grounds to see which spring flowers are the most common. Daffodils are definitely the most common at school!  We have learned the names of spring flowers such as daffodils, snowdrops and crocus. 

Mrs Kidd set us a challenge to write a question and answer about Emperor penguins by ourselves and we did it! We are so proud of ourselves for all getting onto the rainbow for our brilliant writing! 

We played a game with a partner using base 10 to make a number. We had to tell our partner how many tens and how many ones our number had. Our partners then had to draw the answer. We had lots of fun!

We started our new topic "Poles Apart" by reading The Emperor's Egg. We have found out some fantastic facts about Emperor penguins. We drew life size Emperor penguins and wrote some questions which we are answering with our amazing penguin knowledge!

We huddled together like penguins do in Antarctic blizzards and tried balancing an 'egg' on our feet! We also did a polar animal spot around our classroom.

As part of our theme of connecting with nature we have been planting spring flowers outside our classroom. We hope you will enjoy looking at them at the start and end of the day.

We went on a nature scavenger hunt to find lots of things linked to our senses. We had lots of fun doing things with our friends.

We used a paint program to create a Piet Mondrian inspired piece of art on the computer. Some children from Year Five came and helped us which was great fun!

We are learning all about instructions in our English lessons. We had to follow the instructions for how to make a jam sandwich! We all did really well. The final instruction told us to eat it!

Can you have a go at making a sandwich at home? What do you need to do?

We have had lots of fun today investigating taste and smell and how our eyes help us. We all looked fabulous in our scientist outfits and could explain what kind of scientists we were which was wonderful! 

We loved watching Michael Rosen perform his poem Chocolate Cake! He even replied to our Year 1 tweet! 

We have been learning what similes are and then used them to each write a part of our own class poem about chocolate cake!

Our new science topic is super senses and we will be learning about human and animal senses. This week we were finding out about why our eyes are important and how our sense of touch helps us when we can't see. We had lots of fun wearing blindfolds and guessing what the objects were that we could feel. We also closed one eye to see how accurately we could see and did the 'pencil test.'

In our gymnastics lesson we have been learning how to make 5 shapes with our bodies - star, straight, pike, tuck and straddle. We had to make and hold our shape the best that we could!

We learnt what the primary colours are and how abstract artist Piet Mondrian used them in his art work to express what he saw and how he felt. We then made our own collages with primary colours. 

We used ten frames and coloured counters to investigate ways of making 10. We worked with a partner to find as many different ways as we could. 

As part of our multi skills focus this half term we played dodge ball! We had lots of fun and had to work as a team which we did brilliantly.

We used our designs to make a moving picture about the Three Billy Goats Gruff story. We worked so hard and did an amazing job! We had to evaluate our finished piece and say what worked well. 

We have been learning about local naturalist Charles Waterton and how he liked to trick people

by inventing crazy creatures! We had lots of fun inventing our own and giving them funny names! 

As part of our DT topic on Moving Books we have been learning how to make mechanisms called sliders and levers.

Roger Parkinson from Wakefield Tree Wardens came to visit on Monday to talk to us about the importance of trees. He then planted 2 special trees (a Ginko Biloba and a Dawn Redwood) with us in 'Woody', our mini woodland.

We have been learning all about number bonds and worked together with our counters and ten frames to make some.

Our corridor turned into an art gallery! We looked at sculptures by land artist Andy Goldsworthy. We loved the shapes and couldn't believe how clever they are!

We went on a nature walk as part of our science lesson to identify which British plants and trees grow around school.

Maths work about greater than, less than and equal numbers using dominoes, cubes and straws.

We are enjoying our rugby sessions with the sports coach.

We have had a super first few days in Year One and are settling in to our new classroom routines. We are practicing lots of grown-up things such as sitting on our chairs properly, holding a pencil correctly and getting ourselves changed for PE! 

We have been counting in maths, playing games such as Mr Freeze in PE, practicing our letter formation, labelling body parts in science, reading and working hard in our daily phonics lesson.