Year One Curriculum Letter SPRING TERM

 

Year 1 Spring Term Newsletter

 

Dear Parents,

Welcome back to school and to the Spring Term of Year One. We would like to say a HUGE thank you for the kind cards and gifts we received at the end of last term, and to take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year.

 

Pirates Ahoy!

Our class topic this term is Pirates. Year 1 will become explorers and head off on various adventures. The children will be discovering what pirate life was really like, role playing, finding out about famous pirates and be given many other exciting opportunities. This will bring the topic to life and include all aspects of the curriculum, especially the children’s numeracy skills where your children will have the chance to put all the maths skills they have learnt into practise in pirate themed lessons and adventures!

 

Wherever possible we will deliver skills through the project. However, there will always be certain subjects and skills that do not lend themselves to a particular project. These will therefore be delivered discretely.

 

Language, Literacy and Communication

This term we will be focusing on traditional stories and rhymes which have familiar settings with predictable and repetitive patterns from a range of cultures.  The children will continue to bring home 2 guided reading books each week from the school reading scheme, and a book of their choice from the class library.  Please continue to support us by helping your child with his/her reading. Getting them to write in their reading diaries, discussing the author, stories and content together is invaluable in ensuring that they progress and achieve their full potential. PLEASE BRING READING FOLDERS TO SCHOOL EVERY DAY.

 

Mathematical Development

Mathematics will continue to be taught daily consisting of both mental and written activities, as well as arising through a cross curricular approach to other subjects. We will be working on addition, subtraction, doubling, time, odd and even numbers and directions.  The children will continue to work individually, in a small group and with a partner carrying out real life problem solving activities which encourage thinking, reasoning and discussion.  Supporting your child’s learning by counting forwards and backwards in twos and tens, identifying odd and even numbers, recognition of o’clock, half past, quarter to and quarter past times and a variety of number activities can only develop further their mathematical skills and knowledge.

 

Knowledge and Understanding of the World

Through our topic of Pirates, we will be making close observations of our locality and of far away places. The children will become pirate explorers and be involved in creating and using maps and globes, studying various habitats, plotting key landmarks and using direction.

Using a range of fun and engaging activities the children will be looking at historic, famous pirates and the way in which they lived; investigating their behaviour, living conditions and possessions. The children will gather information from a variety of sources, study artifacts and draw conclusions from their research.

As a class we will also be looking at Materials.  This will include finding out about similarities and differences between materials and sorting materials according to their properties.

 

Personal and Social Development, Well Being and Cultural Diversity

Through looking at life on board a pirate ship, the children will learn about the importance of making friends, being healthy and the need to have agreed values and codes of behaviour. The children will be developing skills of how to help others and themselves. We will be exploring our own feelings and emotions, discussing strategies of how to cope with them and also how we can help others in a variety of situations. Opportunities are provided across all areas of learning for the children to work together, in pairs, small groups and as a whole class. We will also be discussing the Jewish Festival of Passover and setting goals for the future through the SEAL theme ‘Going for Goals’.

 

Welsh Development 

As well as encouraging incidental Welsh throughout each day, the children will be learning to talk, read and write about the weather, colours and body parts. The children will also learn language associated with the Pirates topic and will be encouraged to speak Welsh at all opportunities.

 

Creative Development

Songs will be sung daily (Number songs, rhymes) and learned for our Eisteddfodd and Easter celebrations, along with other Foundation Phase classes. The children will be also be composing and performing, using a range of instruments, pirate songs and sea shanties.

 

Whilst exploring our class topic, the children will be looking at treasure and the Jolly Roger flag. They will have the opportunity to apply their creative skills through designing and making their own pirate flags and treasure boxes.  In addition to this the children will be fully involved in the production of the role play area, making pirate bunting (following a repeated pattern) and various other pirate belongings.

 

Physical Development

PE lessons take place on a Monday, please can you make sure your child has his/her PE Kit in school on those days and that no jewellery is worn to school.  This term we will be looking at creative movement.  We will use a variety of stimulus to explore creative movement using the PESS Dance format.  We will also be looking at how different parts of the body can be used for balancing. The children will work in pairs and small groups to create sequences of creative movement based on a theme of their choice. WE HAVE CHANGED OUR P.E. DAY!

PLEASE ENSURE YOUR CHILD’S PE KIT IS IN SCHOOL EVERY MONDAY.

 

I.C.T

The class computers and iPads will be used as a tool for teaching and learning across the curriculum.  From regularly using the computers the children will become independent in the technique of dragging the mouse, to open and close documents and for playing subject based games. The children will also have the opportunity to develop their ICT skills daily through using the interactive whiteboard. This will be during whole class activities, group activities and individual work to support learning across the curriculum.

 

Pupil Voice

At Glasllwch Primary we continue to adapt and improve our school curriculum to encompass the interests and experiences of the children. We believe that asking pupils about what they would like to learn is fundamental to providing an engaging and inspiring curriculum. Therefore we shall be asking the children what they already know about the topic of pirates and discussing what they would like to learn.

 

 

Spelling and Homework

Every Friday we will send home a list of spellings for your child to practice and learn in readiness for an informal test – we will be pleased if you could make sure that your child brings their spelling book and spelling check homework sheet back every Friday.  These are words that the children need to read and write frequently.  We would be grateful if you could support your child to learn how to spell these words and spellings from previous weeks, discuss the different sounds and identify these words when reading together.  You may like to put these words into a sentence to support meaning.

PLEASE BRING SPELLING BOOKS AND SPELLING CHECK HOMEWORK SHEET TO SCHOOL EVERY FRIDAY

 

As you can see we have a very busy and exciting term ahead of us!

 

If you feel you would like to help in any way with the above topics; perhaps you have specialist knowledge of a subject that you could share with the children or perhaps you have items of particular interest, please don’t hesitate to come in and see me. If you have anything at home that relates to our topic ‘Pirates’ that you would be happy for the children to explore, please bring it in and we can look at it on the class finding out table.

 

Thank you in anticipation of your continued support and co-operation.

 

Miss Edwards and Mr Poyner

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