We made it! Well done to all for making it to the end of this half term. We have been hearing about some of the lovely things you all have planned, and we hope you enjoy this well-deserved break.

Maths

Maths this week was a new concept- inverse. Inverse means opposite, so if I had an addition calculation, the inverse would be the subtraction calculation using the same numbers.

We had to use what we know about addition and subtraction to put numbers from a part, part whole model into calculations. We had to remember for addition we add the two parts to make the whole, and for subtraction we start with the whole, take away a part and are left with a part.

For example

From this, we could then find a family of calculations- two addition and two subtraction.

Towards the end of the week, we had a number missing from the part whole model. We had to think of strategies for how to solve this missing number problem. We tried counting on and counting back to help us.

 

RWI/ English

This week our learning was based around the story, ‘The Smeds and the Smoos,’ which fit in nicely around the PSHE themes for our afternoon sessions. The story is about Janet the smed and Bill the smoo, their families hate one another but they fall in love. Think Romeo and Juliet of the alien world! We discussed themes within the book of accepting and respecting those who are different from us and celebrating our differences. During the week we created pictures of the aliens and used adjectives to describe, created speech for character in the book, made wanted posters for missing aliens and played around with new words. In the story the moon was called the squoon, we enjoyed these funny names and wanted to make up some of our own.

 

We have settled well into our new RWI groups and we are continuing to shine. We are still learning/ recapping set 2 and 3 sounds to ensure we are confident in reading and spelling words using these sounds. As well as practising spelling and reading our new sound every day, we have review words and sounds also. This might be sounds which we feel the children need to recap or sounds we haven’t practised for a while.

 

PSHE

Our learning was centred on the book, ‘Julian is a Mermaid,’ this week. We discussed pictures from the book including one of Julian standing in front of a mirror where his reflection showed an image quite different to the appearance we could see. The children had discussions about why they thought there was a difference and ideas included that the mirror might show Julian as he wished to be as an adult, or maybe Julian felt different on different days. The book aims to explore the concept of personal expression from which we cannot assume how one identifies. We discussed differences and similarities between us all and how we can show respect to others who are different from us. We created beautiful mermaid tails using watercolours to celebrate Julian. We had a parade where we created our own unique outfits and cheered each other on, showing respect and kindness. We also made flowers for a hall display with a tag stating why it is good to be me! All children were very thoughtful when thinking of why it was good to be them!

This week we also enjoyed a PE festival. We spent the afternoon on the field with the rest of the school practising our PE focus of this term with our teachers. We played a variety of football skill games and had lots of fun!

Love to learn

This week our love to learn focus is Maths. We would like the children to practise their mental maths. This might be for number bonds- if you are out and about and you see a house number 4 you could ask how many more to make 10. If you see the number 12 bus, how many more to make 20. Encourage children to add numbers mentally when you can to help strengthen the strategies they are learning. After lots of practise, maybe you could quiz your child to see how many questions your child can answer mentally.

Important messages

• We will return to school on Monday 7^th May

 

Enjoy your well-deserved week off.

 

From the year 1 teachers

 

Mrs Walker, Mrs Barlow and Mrs Cheshire