WELCOME TO YEAR 1 BUZZARDS

Buzzards are beautiful, graceful and strong birds of prey. They have to find their own food by hunting, so they constantly have to learn where food can be found and how they can get it. Buzzards learn every day in the same way we do.  Buzzards have fantastic looking and listening skills. These skills are as important to us in our learning as they are to Buzzards in their daily life.

THIS TERMS THEME

'#Explore More'

 This term, we will focus on cross curricular Science learning by linking Science to Art, DT, Writing and Maths. We will be looking at naming and labelling a variety of plants and trees. We will also be looking at seasonal changes and presenting our findings in our learning celebration. Our class texts 'Jack and the Beanstalk' and 'Tree' will be used to link our Science learning to story writing and picture book creating. 

P.E AND DANCE DAYS

P.E Days are Tuesday's and Friday's. Please ensure that your child has the correct kit in school all week. We will ensure that they are sent home at the end of every half term.

HOME LEARNING DAYS

Home Learning will be handed out on a Friday and collected in on a Wednesday. This will give you the opportunity to explore aspects of your child's learning if you wish.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Monday 19th April- First day of Summer Term

Monday 3rd May- Bank Holiday

Monday 17th and Thursday 20th May- Parent's evening

Friday 28th May - Break up for Half Term

Monday 31st May- Bank Holiday

Monday 7th June- INSET day

Tuesday 8th June - First day back after half term

Wednesday 7th July- Science Museum

Wednesday 14th July- End of Year Reports

Wednesday 21st July- Sports Day

Friday 23rd July- Final day of Summer Term

Meet the Team 

If there are any issues or concerns, please feel free to contact your teacher (Mrs Proctor) or alternatively please contact a team leader (Mr O'Sullivan or Mrs Jarrett).

sproctor@white-rock-primary.torbay.sch.uk

losullivan@white-rock-pirmary.torbay.sch.uk

sjarrett@whiterockprimary.torbay.sch.uk

ACADEMIC YEAR 2020/2021

Summer Term

Summer term curriculum map

Wednesday 21st July - Sports Day

Today we had our Sports Day. With our hats firmly on our heads, sun cream applied and drinks bottles full we set out for the field. The first race was the Hurdles, where we ran and jumped over the hurdles. Our second race was the Beanbag Balance race where we balanced the bean bag on our heads. Carefully we walked or ran to a cone and back again. Finally, the third race was the Egg and Spoon race where we balanced the egg on a spoon and had to walk as fast as we could down the course, around the cone and back again without dropping the egg. Have a look at our amazing action shots! 

Friday 2nd July 2021 - Handwriting.

Every day we practise our hand writing and this week we were practising a horizontal join with no ascender to a anticlockwise letter - wa and wo.

We are amazing at our handwriting! Have a look at how neat we are!

Monday 21st June 2021 - Writing

Today we had another exciting visit over Teams from the author and poet Joseph Coelho. Joseph has written 25 books! His books include Luna loves Library Day and Luna Loves Art which he read to us. He also read us some of his riddles and we had to guess what they were about. We also got to ask him questions which he answered for us. Have a look at us watching Joseph!

Wednesday 16th June 2021 - Writing/Reading

Today we were very lucky to watch a live link from Julia Donaldson and Alex Sheffler talking about all the different books Julia has written and Alex has illustrated for her. Julia read her great story of 'Tiddler' to us and Alex showed us how to draw the 'Gruffalo'. With some children on the screen, we also joined in acting out Julia's poem called 'Nut Tree'. Have a look at Julia live on our whiteboard!

Monday 7th June - Thursday 10th June 2021 - Maths and Computing.

This week in Maths we have been learning about position and direction. We have been using the language left, right, forwards, backwards, above, below, quarter turn, half turn, three quarter turn and full turn. We used the Beebots to embed this knowledge. We programmed the Beebots to follow a set route around a map. We also used the song 'Cha Cha Slide' to help us remember our left and right. The link is below, how about having a go! 

Thursday 27th May 2021 - Writing

This week we have been looking at suffixes. We learned that suffixes go on the end of a word. We have looked at 'ed', 'ing', 'er' and 'est' and learned all the rules that go with them. We then ordered ourselves in our lines of tall, taller and tallest. 

Have a look at our great photos!

Tuesday 18th and Wednesday 19th May 2021 - Finding half and quarter.

This week we have been learning all about finding half and quarter of an amount. We used our counters to find half or an amount by sharing the counters into two equal groups. We then got to show our understanding of quarters by finding a quarter of a piece of paper. We started by folding it in half, then half again to make 4 quarters and then wrote the amount in each section that we had made. We needed to remember to fold our paper so that each group was the same size to make it equal and fair. What amazing Maths Buzzards, well done!

Monday 11th May 2021- Mental health awareness week: Cloud watching

This week is mental health awareness week and in Year One we had a circle time assembly to discuss how to manage our emotions. We discussed different strategies we could use such as mindfulness, breathing deeply and enjoying being outside. We went out and gazed up at the clouds. We saw that some clouds were big, white and fluffy and some were dark and grey. We learned the fluffy white ones are 'Cumulus' clouds and the dark and grey ones are 'Nimbus' clouds. We decided we preferred the Cumulus clouds! We also discussed and learned that the clouds move quickly or slowly by the wind. We enjoyed finding different shapes,animals and objects formed in the clouds. 

Tuesday 4th May 2021 - Literacy.

Today we discussed what an 'algorithm' is. We usually associate algorithm's with computing. Today we found out that an algorithm is a simple set of instructions to tell something/somebody what to do. At first we had our story of Jack and the Beanstalk all mixed up. We used a simple algorithm or set of instructions to tell us to move to different places in the line so our story was in the correct order and it made sense.

Monday 26th April and Thursday 29th April 2021 - Maths

In Maths this week we have been learning all about equal groups. We used resources such as cubes, counters, sticks and numicon to create equal groups. Once we had mastered this we learned about repeated addition. This time, we used numicon to create our equal groups of 2s 5s or 10s and then wrote the repeated addition calculation underneath our groups. Take a look at the amazing Maths we have been doing!

Tuesday 20th April 2021- Science and Writing: Bean planting

For our new Writing journey, we are looking at Jack and the Beanstalk which links in with our Science topic on Plants.

We planned and set up an experiment to see what plants need to grow.

We will also be using our observational skills to chart the growth of our plants and link this with our Maths learning on measuring and recording data. 

ACADEMIC YEAR 2020/2021

Spring Term

Spring term curriculum map

Tuesday 30th March - PE

Today we took advantage of the glorious weather and had a PE lesson. We warmed up by running,hopping, jumping and skipping around and froze when the whistle was blown. We are all really good at skipping! We then got into teams and had had some team races. We skipped, ran and jumped. We then had the challenge of balancing a beanbag on a bat which we were really good at so we had an even harder challenge. We had to balance a tennis ball on our bat while we ran to the end of the courtyard and back. This proved a bit more tricky and required a lot of concentration and skill. Have a look at what fun we had.

Friday 26th March - Continuous Provision

In our continuous provision this week we have enjoyed writing stories about Easter using the story stones to help us plan out our story. We have used different Maths resources to help us work out mathematical problems. To help us with our spellings we found the magnetic letters to make the words and we also practised writing them in the sand. We had a Tea Shop in our role play corner and we wrote our own menus and served food and drinks to our guests. We also enjoyed some quiet reading in our book corner and using plasticine we sculpted animals that we had researched. What a fun week we have had. 

Wednesday 17th March 2021 - Maths

This week in our Maths lessons we have been learning about Mass and Weight. We have learned to use the language 'heavier' and 'lighter' when we are describing objects. We turned ourselves into human balance scales to compare which objects were lighter or heavier. We also used the balance scales to see how many cubes had the same mass/weight as an object. We also found out that the biggest object is not always the heaviest object. 

Monday 8th March - Friday 12th March - OUR FIRST WEEK BACK 

What an amazing first week back we have had! On Monday we eased ourselves back into the routine of school by completing some teambuilding STEM, Phonics and Writing activities. We completed writing the story of The Mousehole Cat and had fun with our choosing activities.

Buzzards we have had a great first week back and I am really proud of the way you came back into school and settled back into our routines after being at home for a long time doing your remote learning. You are all  A - MA - ZING!

Autumn Term

Autumn Term Curriculum Map

Final week in school- Christmas dinner day and craft sessions

This final week before Christmas we have experienced Christmas dinner day with the rest of the class in the dinner hall. The hall was decorated beautifully and this year we had the most wonderful winter wonderland themed display in the middle which the children found delightful.

We hope they have enjoyed their final week in school as much as we have! 

Monday 7th December - Polar Express Day.

Today we got to wear our pyjamas to school as we were having a Polar Express day. Mrs Proctor stamped our golden tickets and we climbed aboard the Poloar Express bound for the North Pole. We listened to the story and sound clips from the film where we had to use adjectives to describe what we could hear. We heard the wolves howling in the woods, the train thundered along the track and the brakes screeching to a halt against the metal of the track.  We decorated our own biscuits which we got to eat with a lovely mug of hot chocolate. Some of us were adventurous and had whipped cream on our hot chocolate. After listening to the story again, we story mapped out the story by drawing pictures to help us remember the correct sequence of what happened. Then, after watching the film we were given our first gift of Christmas. We learned that all of Buzzards believed in Father Christmas as we could all hear the bells when we jingled them. What a fun day we had.  

Thursday 3rd December - Fine Motor Skills

This week in our continuous provision we have used the play dough to recreate our dinners. We then used our fine motor skills to practise using our knife and fork correctly to cut up our food. 

Wednesday 25th November - Maths

For our Maths journey, we have been learning how to represent teen numbers using numicon and cubes. We enjoyed using the numberblock puppets to help us see how many tens and how many ones we needed.

Week beginning 16th November 2020 - Continuous Provision learning.

This week we wanted to show how often we are busy learning through play in Year 1! We have been creating worry dolls in keeping with our topic 'Free to be Me' and used them to act out stories which we then wrote independently in our Learning Journeys. We used the magnetic letters to spell out some of the spellings we have learned during the term and then put these words into a sentence.

We have been zoo keepers at the Science table and classified the escaped animals and put them into the correct enclosure according to whether they are Amphibians, Reptiles, Insects, Mammals, Fish or Birds.

We sorted 2d and 3d shapes in a variety of ways.

In our role play area - Post Office - we have enjoyed using our Maths, Writing and knowledge of the World to have fun and learn. We have written letters, postcards and posted them into our post box, not forgetting the stamp of course! In our outdoor provision we have enjoyed using chalk pens to practise our number formation. We used our mathematical knowledge to order the pegs from 0 - 20 and found hidden treasure in the sand and had to match the labels to form one of our tricky words.

Wednesday 11th November 2020- Geography naming the continents of the world.

In our Geography lesson this week we identified the World's continents. We found out there are seven continents, North America, South America, Africa, Asia, Europe, Antarctica and Australasia. We also looked at a globe and a map and had a discussion about whether or not they were showing the same thing. We realised that they were both showing us the World! We then worked in teams to label the continents correctly.

Tuesday 3rd November 2020- Science: Animals and their habitats

For our Science journey this half term, we will be looking at animals (including humans). This week we are focusing on sorting animals based on their habitats. We had to work scientifically by using our observational skills. We also ensured we looked and felt the part by wearing our very own scientist lab coats!

Thursday 22nd October 2020- Spanish lesson numbers and colours.

We have Spanish once a week and the children thoroughly enjoy joining in with the fun learning activities Mrs Head does with them! 

So far we have learned the Spanish for; good morning/afternoon/evening, how to say our name, how we feel, some types of food, colours and numbers up to 10.

In this week's lesson we learned a song and recapped how to count to 10 in Spanish.

Here are a couple of phrases we now know;

Como te llamas? (pronounced commoh tay yammas)- this means what is your name.

Que tal? (sounds like kettle!) - this means how are you?

Wednesday 14th October 2020 - Handwriting

This week in our handwriting we have been practising our Long Ladder Letters 'u' 'y' and 'j'. We practised them each day on our whiteboards. Take a look at our amazing letter formation!

Friday 9th October 2020 - PE

Today in our PE lesson with Mr Leaman were were working on developing our teamwork skills. We took it in turns to move the beanbags or balls from one hoop to the other. We worked out that the beanbags could be dropped in the hoops, but the balls had to be put down carefully or they would roll away. 

Tuesday 29th September 2020- Writing

This week, we had an exciting incident on our playground!

An alien crash landed and we had to search around the outdoor area for clues as to its whereabouts. This was to help 'hook' the children into their new writing journey studying the story of Beegu.

We also received a letter from the 'Secret Alien Police Force' asking us to write them a letter explaining what we thought the alien looked like and were it might be. In class we acted out the story of Beegu to show a clear understanding of the beginning, middle and end of a story.

Monday 21st September- Learning Journey: I am Amazing

For our learning this week, we have been thinking about what we are amazing at in school. We then went into our continuous provision activities to show our fabulous learning skills.  We have made an amazing display of our writing and pictures of us doing what we are amazing at. We found out that Buzzards class are amazing at all kinds of things including Maths, Writing and different sporting activities. Check out our amazing display below!

Wednesday 16th September 2020 - Science

This week, we have been looking at the materials that everyday objects are made from. We identified metal,wood, plastic and fabric. We have also had lots of fun sorting materials outside and creating structures from plastic only or wood only. See the pictures below!

Monday 7th September 2020 - First day

Wow, what an amazing day we have all had in Year 1 today. Everyone settled back into school really well. I am so proud of you all, Well done.