12th - 16th September 2022

Highlights of the week

The children are continuing to work hard to adjust to the new routines of year 1.

Phonics and reading

For the next two weeks the children will be receiving paper copies of reading material to support their reading at home. This is because over the summer we have been working on reorganising our banded reading books so that they can be more accurately matched to the phonics being taught in class. This will be explained fully at the phonics workshop on Monday 26th September at 9am. From this date the children will be able to bring reading books home again. In the meantime, please continue to read with your child or children. You can use the paper texts that we send home or you can revisit their phonics work in their phonics folders to help consolidate the learning they have been completing in class. This can be recorded in your child’s reading record. The children will also be bringing home library books to share with you.
Thank you for your ongoing support with your child’s reading.

Maths

We have been looking at number tracks this week to help us find the answers to ‘one more’ and ‘one less’. The children have been using multilink to support their learning. We even got to make rockets on Wednesday and fly them in the playground! This helped us with our counting backwards from 10.
Science
This week, we all spent time handling a plant so that we could see the different elements. We found out that the roots help support the plants growth but that they are quite delicate and look like hairs! Some of the plants had petals on them and others were still formed as buds. This was really interesting as we don’t often get to see buds up close. We have planted some of the plants in our outside area so that we can watch them grow.

English

The children have been planning a story during our lessons this week. Using the concept of The Enormous Turnip, the children were invited to change one element of their story. Instead of starting with a little old man, they could change the character to a superhero or farmer, and instead of planting turnip seeds they could choose another fruit or vegetable. We are looking forward to reading their stories next week.

Geography

The children were introduced to the unit ‘Local area’ this week. We spent some time talking about the differences between villages, towns and cities. We all decided that Botley is growing from the village it once was with the development of the new estate and additional schools. We discussed the features of Botley as a class and recorded all that we knew so far so that we can use this information throughout our unit.