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 be using our Scientific skills to explore the way the world works and use our observations to explain what is happening around us. We will be curious about the way things work and explore the similarities and differences between our country and one in another continent. 

P.E AND DANCE DAYS

P.E/Dance Days are Monday and Thursday each week. 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

Phonics Home Learning will be handed out on a Friday along with Maths Home Learning. Books will be collected in on a Wednesday. This will give you the opportunity to explore the sounds that your child is learning each week and give them a chance to play some exciting Maths games linked to the learning that they are completing in school.

UPCOMING DATES

Tuesday 22nd April - Non-Pupil Day
Wednesday 23rd April - First Day of Summer 1
Thursday 1st May- Mastering number workshop at 2pm 
Monday 5th May - Bank Holiday
Friday 23rd May - Last Day of Summer 1
Monday 26th May - Friday 30th May - Half Term
Monday 2nd June - First Day of Summer 2

Monday 9th June to Friday 13th June- Year 1 Phonics Screening Check

Friday 18th June- Buzzards Zoo trip

Tuesday 24th June - Sports Day
Monday 30th June - Friday 4th July - RSHE Week
Wednesday 16th July - Money Sense Day
Friday 25th July - Last Day of Summer Term

Contact Details

If there are any issues or concerns, please contact your class teacher (Miss Durnford) or alternatively please contact the Year One team leader (Mrs. Ayling);

sdurnford@whiterockprimaryschool.co.uk

bayling@whiterockprimaryschool.co.uk

SUMMER TERM CURRICULUM MAP

Tuesday 29th April - Science

This term we are learning all about plants. This week we have been finding out what different plants are called and looking for them around the school. We went on a hunt to see what we could identify in our school grounds. 

Monday 28th April - PE

This half term year 1 are focusing on Athletics. They will practice a variety of running, jumping and throwing activities in preparation for sports day next half term! 

Friday 25th April- English: Role play

This week, we have started our new writing journey around a story called Boa's Bad Birthday. We have been learning about the main character Boa, who had lots of presents for his birthday but they were all not suitable! We acted out being Boa and feeling upset that we had been given a pair of sunglasses that won't stay on our face because snakes have no ears or noses!

Spring Term Curriculum Map

Thursday 3rd April 2025 - Learning Celebration

We would like to say a big thank you to all the grown ups who came to our Learning Celebration on Thursday. We enjoyed telling you all about our History learning and especially enjoyed teaching our grown ups how to make a collage picture in the style of Henri Matisse. Below is a video of Buzzards glockenspiel performance.

Monday 31st March - PE Martial Arts

Today we were really lucky to have Richard Kelly in from MF martial arts, teaching the children some basic self defence skills. They all joined and really enjoyed the session! Look out for the flyer that will be sent home with your child today with more information. 

March 2025 - Computing

As part of our Being Safe in a Digital World learning, we have been looking at Online Reputation and Online Bullying. We have talked about how we can find information about anything and anyone when searching for it on the internet and we have talked about what information we should be sharing about ourselves online. In terms of Online Bullying, we know that we need to treat people when we are online exactly the same as we would in real life and we know who we can talk to if someone makes us feel scared or anxious when we are online.

Friday 21st March 2025- Spanish

Year 1 had lots of fun today learning the days of the week (los dias de la semana in Spanish) iQué fantastico! 

Here are the days of the week in Spanish to practise at home.

lunes=Monday

martes= Tuesday

miercoles= Wednesday

jueves=Thursday

viernes=Friday 

sabado= Saturday

domingo= Sunday 

Señorita Head was so impressed with Year 1's pronunciation of these new words. iQué maravilloso!

Week beginning: Monday 17th March 2025 Writing- Poetry

This week, we have started our new Writing journey based on the poetry book Tell me a Dragon. We arrived in our classroom to find a dragon egg and a lovely book in a basket at the front of the classroom. Then we explored the illustrations and listened to the wonderful descriptive language in the book. We will complete our learning by writing our own dragon poems. Check out some of the pages in this book they are really beautiful! Please also click on the link below to practice reciting some of the poems with your child. 

Thursday 13th March 2025 - Dance

We have been enjoying our dance lessons this term, where we have been learning African dance steps, creating a Chinese Dragon dance and then this week we were using actions to show the building of the pyramids. We were carrying bricks and slabs of stone, as well as collecting water and fishing in the River Nile.

Wednesday 5th March - Maths

This week we have been learning all about measures. We have compared height and length and ordered the class from shortest to tallest and tallest to shortest. We started using non-standard measures such as cubes to measure objects in the class before learning how to use a ruler. 

Monday 3rd March - PE 

This half term year 1 are focusing on ball skills. Children will be using their hands to throw, catch and dribble the ball, and their feet to dribble and control the ball whilst moving around. We will explore with a range of balls allowing children to challenge themselves when selecting their own equipment. 

Tuesday 25th February 2025 - History

This week, we began our History learning about the Titanic. We explored a first class, second class and third class facilities. In 3rd class, we practised our Irish jigs (because there were lots of Irish passengers on the Titanic) as well as having tea cakes and soup. In 2nd class, we had fruit tea and learned some different card games that would have been played on the Titanic. In 1st class, we walked around the promenade, used the gymnasium and tried our hands at ballroom dancing. There was even a chandelier! We had so much fun and learned lots about this significant event in History.

Week beginning: Monday 10th February- Internet safety

On Tuesday 11th February, we celebrated Internet Safety Day as a school. Mrs Foster and the Year 6 digital leaders held assemblies and asked us lots of question about what we should do if we see things on our computers that worry us. We also had an assembly with Mrs Walker as a year group and went over the 'Smartie Song' the lyrics are being demonstrated by the children in the pictures below. 

The song lyrics are: Before you click click click. You need to think, think, think. And tell someone. 

February 2025 - Computing

Our current learning is based around Creating Media. We have been using the 2Paint tool in Purple Mash to create our own pictures in the style of Piet Mondrian. We have used the shape tools, line tool, fill tool and undo tool. Look at a few of our creations - they are amazing!

Friday 31st January- Spanish 

Year 1 have been so excited to be learning Spanish on a Friday afternoon with Senorita Head. iQue maravilloso! We have been learning greetings and colours in Spanish. 

Here are the words we have been learning. 

iHola!=hello

iBuenos dias!= good morning

iAdios!= goodbye

rojo=red

azul=blue

amarillo=yellow

blanco=white

We sang lots of songs in Spanish. iQué fantastico!

Week beginning 20th January 2025: Writing

This week we have been retelling the story, 'Don't Spill the Milk'. We have made up class actions to help us remember the story. Later in the week we went on our own journey around school to deliver some paint to Mrs. Mitchell but unfortunately a big, bouncy hit the paint pot and spilled it everywhere. 

Thursday 23rd January 2025 - Dance

We have been really enjoying our Dance lessons this half term as we have been learning some African dance steps. This week in our warm up, we had to show stillness by freezing like we had a spear in our hands to try to catch a fish; we had to change levels and go down low to collect sticks; we had to jump high to be as a tall as a tree and we had to walk slowly with our fingers showing rain. We then created our own dance sequences (with a partner) which included an African dance poses as our start and end positions and a turn to link them.

Week beginning 13th January 2025 - PE

Year 1 are continuing their fundamental movement skills in PE this half term. We are looking at travelling in different ways, balancing, jumping and landing safely. Children have been using variety of equipment to explore different movements which they have really enjoyed. Well done year 1!

Week beginning 13th January 2025: Art- Collage

For the start of our Art unit, we have completed an elicitation to see what we already know about how to create a collage. Throughout the unit, we will look at work from our focus artist Henri Matisse and use the knowledge and skills gained in our lessons to create a picture of the Titanic using mixed media. Check out our very first collage pictures below!

Week beginning Monday 6th January 2025- Geography: Naming the 7 continents of the World. 

For our first Geography lesson of the term, we identified the 7 different continents of the world. We built upon our prior knowledge of mapping the classroom and used that to help us understand how to read the map which showed the 7 continents. We also listened to a song to help us remember the names of each continent.

In groups, we performed an elicitation task to complete a puzzle of the World by placing the continents in the correct place. As this was new learning, we had to use our school values of teamwork to persevere and encourage one another to complete the task.  Later on in our unit of learning, we will label the 7 continents correctly on a map in our Learning Journey books and explore the 4 countries of the UK. 

AUTUMN TERM CURRICULUM MAP

Week beginning: Monday 2nd December- Writing (shared write)

This week, we have been practising completing our learning in our books as a whole class. We really enjoyed learning about the structure of poems and how they are laid out on the page a little differently. We also tried really hard to ensure that our letters were formed neatly. Check out our writing below!

Week beginning: 25th November- Maths

This week, we have been exploring the properties of different 2d and 3d shapes. We have named them, used key vocabulary such as sides, vertices and faces to describe a variety of different shapes. We also looked at how to make repeating patterns using different 2d and 3d shapes. Within our continuous provision, we made shape pictures and created different things with the 3d shapes we have in the classroom. 

Week beginning: Monday 16th November 2024- English 

This week, we have been exploring poetry and how even though the language may be similar to stories, they are not the same thing! We identified the rhyming words, short sentences (lines) and looked at some of the descriptive langauge. Then we 'freeze framed' a line from the poem and only moved when it was our turn to say the line. 

Week beginning Monday 11th November 2024- Design technology, English and PSHE

We have been extremely busy this week designing, giving instructions and finally spending Friday thinking about how there are so many children who need help and support in their everyday lives.

For Writing, we are learning how to write instructions so we practiced orally rehearsing them as a whole class and then following them to make our own gingerbread men. Once we had baked them in the oven, we decorated them according to their designs which were created in our DT lessons. 

For PSHE, on Friday, we took part in a non-uniform day to raise funds for children in need. We attended an assembly to look at the work that the charity does to help children across the UK and beyond. Then we played some games which the Y6 children led. 

Monday 11th November - Computing

This week, the children have been learning how to keep themselves when they are online. We talked about what devices the children might have access to at home - gaming consoles, tablets, mobile phones - and we talked about what they could do with these. We then read a story about Smartie the Penguin who received a new computer for his birthday. The children were able to tell Smartie what he needed to do to make sure that he was safe when using his computer.

The story can be found below if you would like to read it with your child - it is a great place to start discussions about online safety.

Wednesday 6th November - PE

Our first impact day with our Dartmoor School Sports Partnership was fantastic! The year 6 sports captains led a games festival for year 1 where children got to complete a circuit of activities including: rugby, football, handball and batting. Everyone had a great afternoon practising and developing their skills. 

Thursday 24th October 2024 - History

This week, we have been learning about the similarities and differences between toys from the past and toys today. We went to Bygones Museum to see lots of old toys and found out how they work. We found out that old toys are usually made from wood or metal and they didn't have any sounds or lights like our toys today.

Thursday 17th October 2024 - Dance

We have been enjoying our dance lessons in Year 1. We have been learning to use the space safely and travel at different speeds. Today, we were walking using a variety of different styles, including changing direction. Some of the styles of walking we did today were walking like a supermodel, a soldier and as if we were walking in the rain and wind.

Monday 14th October - Science

This week we have been using our senses to make popcorn. We looked at the bag of microwave popcorn before and after to see how it changed. We talked about what we could, see, hear, smell, feel and taste. 

Monday 7th October - PE

This half term year 1 have been working on moving in different ways, in different directions and at different speeds. All children have demonstrated the ability to use the space safely and move with control, understanding the basic effects that exercise has on the body. Well done Buzzards! 

Monday 30th September 2024 - Computing

It has been such an exciting start to the school year for Buzzards as they have gone into our Computer Suite for the very first time. They have been practising how to hold the mouse correctly and have had so much fun Painting by Numbers and then trying to draw a picture of themselves using 2 Paint. Buzzards - you have done so well!

Tuesday 24th September- Languages

Today we celebrated European Language day. We had a whole school assembly with Senorita Head where we learned to say 'hello' in lots of European languages. Later in the day we had our first Spanish lesson where we enjoyed joining in with some Spanish songs using some puppets.

Monday 16th September- Geography 

For our Geography learning this week, we have been looking at the skills geographers need to have. We focussed on the skills of fieldwork and mapping and used our observational skills around the school grounds to map out the different places that we visited.

Monday 9th September- Our first week in Year 1 and PSHE

We have all had a wonderful week in Year One! We have explored our new classroom and played with the new toys and activities whilst learning all about the new routines now we are in Year One. We also created a class charter and decided which rules we should follow in class to ensure we work together as a team and look after our school belongings. Well done everyone for a fabulous first week back to school.