We are edging closer and closer to the end of the term, which means the end of our year together. Next week will be our last full week together.

Maths

Our maths focus this week has been fractions. We linked our learning to that of division and sharing, so we were feeling fairly confident. We started by recapping fractions of shapes and were able to find ½ and ¼ of a variety of shapes. It was important to remember whatever we started with was the whole, and the fraction we found was just a part of the whole. We needed to understand how to say a fraction saying one half or one quarter, instead of one over two or one over four.

We moved our learning on to finding fractions of amounts. We used the bar model to help us to share into groups, this also helped us to visually see that the groups need to be equal/ fair. Finally, we moved on to finding fractions of number, we used the same method of using sharing circles and/ or the bar model to help us solve. Some of us began to show an understanding of the numerator (number at the top), indicating how many groups are needed for the answer.

PSHE

On Thursday, children got to spend another morning with their new teacher in their new classroom. Before Thursday, we talked about the story, ‘My Teacher is a Monster,’ and decided we wanted to get to know our new teacher better. We thought of some questions we could ask her to get to know her more, including, ‘What is your favourite food?’ ‘What do you like to do at the weekend?’ ‘What is your favourite book?’ ‘Do you have any pets?’ By knowing our teacher better, our relationship will grow and a healthy relationship is what we need to help us to learn.

ICT

This week we had an opportunity to practise our mouse and keyboard skills. We practised changing the colour, size and font when writing and then used the rubber to erase what we no longer wanted. It has been fantastic to watch as the children’s confidence has blossomed this term, it has also been lovely to see children problem-solving and working together to overcome problems.

 

Science

 

We continued our materials learning this week, starting off by investigating what happens to different objects when they are heated. Before our lesson, children showed a great understanding of how to remain safe whilst around the equipment.  This lesson allowed us to practise predicting and explaining our ideas. We had some great conversations about what we thought might happen to the butter, wax, sugar, ice and chocolate. It was also interesting to see what happened to them once the heat was removed. This lesson introduced the concepts of objects changing states, from solid to liquid, and from liquid to solid again.

Our next experiment this week was exploring the properties of different types of paper. We discussed what we thought about types of paper using the stem sentences,

‘Which paper is best at….?

‘What would happen if we….?

‘Does paper…..?

We then thought about how absorbent different types of paper are and made predictions about which might be the most absorbent from toilet paper, tissue paper, post it not paper and paper towels. We thought of different ideas as to how this might be tested. As a class we decided to test it by placing the pieces of paper over the side of a bowl of water, and seeing how quickly the paper sucked up the water. We were very impressed by the results and learnt that paper towels aren’t the best if we need to clear up a spillage!

Finally, we received a letter from Humpty Dumpty. He was getting upset that his family kept getting hurt by falling off the wall. He needed our help to design a crash mat using the best material to keep them safe. We used a variety of materials including wooden slats, cushions, metal bowls and plastic trays. With our learning partners, we discussed which material would be best and why, using the vocabulary we collected last week. We decided that if the eggs (rubber) bounced high, it meant they would have smashed, but if they bounced low they would have been OK. The experiment was lots of fun, and we recorded in a table our findings. We found that fabric was the best material to make the crash mat from, as it was soft and stretchy.

Love to learn

The love to learn task this week is topic. To get in to the spirit of the football final on Sunday, we would like the children to use an atlas or online resource to colour the flags correctly (attached at the bottom). As an additional challenge, children could then locate those countries on the European map. As an easier option, they could focus only on the teams which England have faced in the tournament.

Important messages

• Sport’s day dates have changed. Ours will now be held on Tuesday 20^th at 1:45.
• Children will have come home with their class photo order information today. Please check their bags for this. 

 

From the year 1 teachers

 

Mrs Walker, Mrs Barlow and Mrs Marazzi