St John the Baptist CE VA Primary School Year One

This week Year 1 had a wonderful time visiting our local Church of St John the Baptist. The children arrived at school dressed up, then our shepherds, wise men and angels set off on a walk.  We had made ‘Good News’ angels with prayers thanking God for the birth of Jesus. The children carried these to the church and hung them in the Yew trees for everyone to enjoy. We met Reverend Sarah by the Church doors who told us a wonderful story and shared some words from the Bible. The children got to see a lovely Nativity Scene and place a candle underneath.

This term in our Design and Technology lessons, Year 1 are learning about puppets! We have discussed the different types of puppets; marionette, rod, finger and hand puppets. We then made our own monster finger puppets! We discussed the type of materials you could use and chose to use felt. We then cut out the shapes and decorated them with googly eyes, sequins and pompoms!

This week we carried on our Continents topic by travelling to South America! We looked specifically at Brazil, and spoke about the many features of this beautiful and diverse country. We discussed the Amazon Rainforest and the amazing creatures you may see, and we even learnt some Portuguese! We learnt about Mardi Gras celebrations and carnivals, and made our very own carnival mask using green, purple and gold to represent faith, justice and power.

Today Year 1 took part in a Skip2bfit workshop.  The children learnt how to perfect their skipping skills and were taught why it is so important to have a growth mindset.

We began by skipping to upbeat and motivational music for 2 minutes, and we recorded how many skips we could do in that time. We then had a little rest, and set about trying again to see if we could beat our previous score. This was a great activity for the children as they competed against themselves to make an improvement.

The children were then given a box of blueberries, and were asked to reuse and recycle their pots. The children were also given leaflets with some more information and a tasty smoothie recipe!

In Year 1 this week we are thinking about Anti-bullying week. As a class we have agreed that we need to work as a team to spread kindness, and unite to stop any type of unkind behaviour.

We spoke about times where someone has done something that made us feel happy, special and supported. The children each wrote down a memory on a brick that formed part of our ‘Kindness Wall’. We are hoping to build this wall as high as we can, by writing down any act of kindness that we recognise this week.

This half term the children have started Forest School Lessons with Mrs Farrington. The children were very excited to get dressed into their warm clothes and venture out into nature!

We completed a hunt for wooden animal discs which were hidden around the Forest School area. The children then worked with each other to create groups with their animals. We had groups of mammals, birds, animals who hibernate, herbivores and nocturnal animals.

The children then separated into groups to do some practical work. One group made a ‘hibernaculum’ (a shelter) for hedgehogs, another worked with gimlets to create animals out of conkers, and the last group created wonderful matchboxes full of objects they had found.

We have spoken a lot this week about Remembrance Day, and the children have learnt about why we wear poppies as an act of remembrance for the brave people that fought to keep us safe. The children took part in a two minute silence, and made some wonderful poppies that we displayed on our classroom door.

This half term our school value is Trust. In Year 1 we have been discussing how important it is to be trustworthy, and what it means to be honest. We have shared our thoughts on those people that trust us, and those that we trust. We made Trust Cones to show all of the wonderful people in our communities that we trust, to keep us all safe, happy and healthy.

In Art & Design this week we have been looking at Paper Art. We have made Stained Glass Windows using cellophane and tissue paper. We made beautiful designs by taking inspiration from windows in Churches and other buildings. This Artwork has really brightened up our classroom!

We have started to look at Poetry during our English lessons this week. The poem we have been working on is called ‘When the Wind Blows’ by John Foster. We have been looking at the descriptive language used by the author, from lines such as ‘curtains swish, papers scatter’ and ‘doors slam, windows rattle’. The children used various objects to create sound effects for the verses of the poem, and performed their sounds to an audience. The children were very creative, some children even invented new instruments!

This week in PE the children have been practising their skills using javelins. The children were shown how to stand with one foot in front of the other, ready to throw their javelin at a hoop at the back of the hall.  We definitely saw some budding athletes, watch this space!

This week the children have been using clues outside to identify animals living in their local environment. They have been using their senses to listen to sounds such as birds tweeting, and to look for clues that might suggest an animal had popped by! We worked together to share what we had spotted, we even found a burrow!

In IT this week the children have been learning how to programme Bee-bots! We have written algorithms with our partners, and tested these to see if we could find some buried treasure. At times our algorithms sent our Bee-bots into the lakes or swamps, so we worked together as a class team to ‘debug’ our algorithms. This meant that we could identify where our robot was going wrong, and steer him back towards the treasure!

This week the Hertford and Ware School Sports Partnership came to visit St John’s and they arranged a variety of sporting activities for all of the children to participate in. The Year 1 children had the opportunity to try out Archery, which was great fun! We then tried out an activity called Boccia, using hoops and weighted balls.

This week in Art & Design the children have been working on some vibrant Autumn leaf collages. We have been thinking about the change in seasons from Summer to Autumn, and discussed how the leaves change their colours and fall from the trees. The children’s artwork now has pride of place on a display in the dining hall!

During our science lessons, the children in Year 1 have enjoyed learning all about wild and domestic animals. After discussing our favourite animals and making a bar chart to display and discuss the results, it was time to become Zoo Designers. In partners the children planned and created some wonderful Zoo Maps to include enclosures of some of their favourite creatures!