Y1 class news spring 1 2014

Year 1 News Spring Term 1 Welcome back! We hope you have had a wonderful Christmas Break.

This term our topic is ‘Amazing Africa’. Our aim this half term is to transform our classrooms into an African wonderland.

The children will have a key role in this by making, painting and designing African inspired work to reflect our theme.

During this half term our focus will be on African animals and their habitats.

We will also be learning about Safari’s and the children will be working in

groups to design and create their own African Safari. The children will also be making their own camouflage jackets to wear on safari and they will help us to create a Safari Jeep for our classroom.

Within this topic we will be studying animal fact files and using internet resources to help us find out interesting information about African animals. It would be fantastic if you and your child could also do some fact finding at home! The National Geographic Kids site is a great resource which allows children to read facts, look at

pictures, hear the animals calls and watch videos about a wide range of animals. We would love to know what new fabulous facts you have learnt!

You can access the website using this link: kids.nationalgeographi c.co.uk Then click on the animals and pets section to browse the different animals.

old socks and whatever other resources that you have at home to make a fantastic creation.

Volume 1, Issue 3 January—February 2014

 Science parent afternoon– Thursday 6th Feb— 1.15pm.

Come and help us to create our own camouflaged outfits to wear on Safari. 

Y1RB class assembly– Wednesday 29th January.

Library Visit Dates 

Y1ET—



Y1RB—

We set off from school to walk to the library at 1.15pm. If you can help out please speak to a member of the Y1 Team.

Creative Homework Project Make an African animal hand puppet.

Monteney Primary School

All children who bring in a handpuppet will win a prize. We can’t wait to see what exciting creations the children will produce!

Inside this issue: This term

1

Parent afternoon

1

Creative Project

1

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Will you design your puppet first?

As part of our topic on Amazing  Africa we are asking the children to work with grown ups at home to create an African animal hand  puppet. This is your chance to get creative by using junk materials,

What materials could you use?

Yorkshire Wildlife Park

2

How will you join the different materials together?

P.E

2

Reading in Y1

2

Class Blog

2

On Wednesday 12th February we will be visiting Yorkshire Wildlife Park as part of our topic on Amazing Africa. We hope that seeing African Animals and learning about their habitats will really bring the topic alive for the children. We will be sending out more information about this trip in a separate letter.

Monteney Primary School Monteney Primary School Monteney Crescent Sheffield S5 9DN Phone: 0114 2467916 Fax: 0114 2467965 Email: enquiries@monteney.sheffield.sch.uk Website: http://monteney.sheffield.sch.uk

Our Y1 Blog

PE KITS

We have recently set up a new Y1 blog which can be accessed on our school website. We hope to use this to showcase the learning that is happening in our year group. We are encouraging children, parents and other teachers to comment on the blog posts as the children would love to read your responses.

You can find the blog on the Monteney Web Portal using the Staff and Pupil Blogs link. If you select Staff Curriculum and Class Blogs option from the drop down menu then our blog can be found under the Class Blogs heading.

Please ensure that your child’s name is in every piece of PE Kit this will help your child to take responsibility for their own kits. If your child has pierced ears please provide them with plasters or tape to cover their earrings.

Thank you!

Reading in Year One At Monteney we are passionate about reading and we want to enable all our pupils to become successful readers. In year one we are working on a number of strategies to help children make good progress with their reading. You can also use these at home when you read with your child.    

If your child is stuck ask them to think about which word would make sense.

Predict what will happen next.

Ask your child lots of questions about what they have read to check their understanding. 

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Sound out unfamiliar words.

Re-read a sentence if a mistake has been made. 

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Use the picture for clues.

Ask questions about the characters thoughts, feeling and intentions.

Ask your child to retell the story in their own words including as much detail as possible.

We encourage you to read with your child for 5-10 minutes each night. Children who read every night will have their names displayed on our 100% readers board in the main school entrance. The class who have the most 100% readers get £100 to spend on books for their classroom. Each week the children can win a house point for their team if they read at home every night. Every Friday we will be checking the children’s reading diaries to see who has read at home each night.

If you have any questions about reading at home please speak to a member of the Y1 team.