Our Learning

Year 1 marks the beginning of our journey into Key Stage 1. Our children continue to do the majority of their learning through play and exploration within a range of exciting and engaging topics.

Our first topic of the year is Me, Myself and I. As well as providing lots of opportunities to share information about ourselves, so that we can get to know each other better, we also investigate our school. We start by looking at our school and investigating ‘built’ and ‘non-built’ features.  We also learn how to draw simple maps and plans of our school and begin to think about our journeys to school and what we pass on along the way.  We then use our school as the basis for a journey back in time to the Victorian period.  Starting with a thorough examination of our school building, we look for clues the building gives us about what life for a Victorian schoolchild was like. We then compare what our lives are like now with the lives of Victorian children. Enjoying stories is also a big part of Year 1, one of our favourite class stories is ‘Naughty Bus’, because he creates havoc in our classroom!

Our second topic Explorers and Journeys takes us further back in time learning about the experiences of some famous explorers:  Christopher Columbus, Ibn Battuta, Neil Armstrong, Mae Jemison and Robert Falcon Scott. By studying and comparing the historical periods in which these great explorers lived, we begin to develop understanding of the past and the order of events in the past (chronology).

In the Spring Term, we get our claws into a fantastic dinosaur topic! Over the term we travel all the way back to pre-history to the time when dinosaurs roamed the earth, exploring how dinosaurs came to be and what led them to becoming extinct. We become investigators, palaeontologists and explorers, looking at what dinosaurs ate and where they lived. We also investigate the fossilised remains the dinosaurs left behind which tell us so much about them today.

The Summer Term starts with a mission to become weather experts in our topic Sunshine to Storm. It is easy for us to become weather obsessed, especially when daily weather patterns are so unpredictable. We write and perform weather reports using the green screen software on the iPads. We also observe and record daily weather patterns, investigate seasonal changes and even test the size of raindrops during a shower! In the second half of the Summer Term, in our topic Into the Forest, we discover even more about our forest using a range of equipment to make close observations of the flora and fauna it contains.  We use our learning from science to spend lots of time growing our own fruit and vegetables outside. We also take inspiration from the work of the artist Andy Goldsworthy to create our own temporary sculptures.

Year 1 Weekly Home Learning

Please click on the links below to see your weekly timetable of home learning.

Year 1 Weekly Home Learning 23rd-27th March

New:

Year 1 Weekly Home Learning 30th March – 3rd April