Year 1
Friday 15th March: Week 5
Friday 8th March: Week 3
Friday 1st March: Week 2
Friday - 23rd February 2024 - Week 1
Friday 9th February: Week 6
Friday 2nd February: Week 5
Friday 26th January: Week 4
Friday 19th January 2024: Week 3
Friday 12th January 2024 - Week 2
Friday 5th January 2024: Week 1
Friday - 15th December 2023 - Week 7
Friday 8th December: Week 6
Friday 1st December: Week 5
Friday 24th November 2023 : Week 4
Friday 17th November 2023: Week 3
Week beginning 6th Nov 2023
Week 7
Week 6
Week 5
Week 4 - Take a look at our some of English, Maths and Art learning from this week!
Week 3 - This week we started our new English learning journey "A Little Bit Brave" and learnt about the months of the year in Geography!
Week beginning 11th September
Our first week in Year 1!
Half Termly Overview - Summer 2
Friday 14th July - Week 6
This week we were really lucky, and had the chance to visit John Hanson for their gymnastics festival. We had the chance to use trampolines, trampettes, and the air track! The children were on their best behavior and we were really proud of how they followed our code of conduct whilst off site.
Friday 7th July - Week 5
What an amazing week! This week was Arts' week and we have had a wonderful time. We studied Austrialian aboriginal art and focused on the composer Mirrie Hill. We created pieces of collaborative art using the dotting technique, as well as individual 'rainbow serpents'. We also took part in afternoon workshops including drumming, samba and bollywood dancing!
Friday 30th June - Week 4
This week we have loved taking part in 'Scooter-ability' lessons. We learnt how to stop and move off using our scooters safely. We also practiced moving around obstacles and pedestrians. We were very sensible!
Friday 23rd June - Week 3
Striking and Fielding
This half term we are learning striking and fielding games such as rounders, baseball and softball. To start our learning journey we have been recapping our throwing strategies.
Friday 23rd June - Week 3
Week 2 - Reading for Pleasure
This week in guided reading we are focusing on reading for pleasure. We have enjoyed trips to the library to explore a wide variety of texts. We have been sharing the books with one another and talking about what we enjoy. We love to snuggle on a bean bag and dive in to a new book!
Week 1 - Gardening
As part of our Health and Wellbeing Curriculum, children get to spend lots of time planting and growing food. Today we planted some new vegetables as our lettuce was ready to harvest. We enjoyed eating the lettuce!
Our Trip to Trinley
Rooksbury Mill Trip - Week 6
This week we visited Rooksbury Mill as part of our Longitudinal Study! We were looking for features of Spring and were so excited to see a baby coot, and a gosling! We were so sensible crossing roads and keeping ourselves safe. Our teachers are so proud of us!
Summer 1 - Week 5
Building on our drama and skills sessions from last week, today we published our final Jack and the Beanstalk stories. The children were very excited to become real life authors and publish their final works. Here is a snippet of what the children created. We are so proud of how hard the children have worked this week so make sure their work was the best it could be.
Summer 1 Week 4
Jack and the Beanstalk
This week we were amazed to find a beanstalk growing in the Year 1 area! The Year 1 children were very quick to remind us of the story 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. To show off their story knowledge, we created an 'in the round' theatre and acted out the story.
Summer 1 - Week 4
Summer 1 - Week 3
This week, Year 1 children enjoyed a visit to the 'Tricky word woods'!
Children had to hunt for as many tricky words as they could, read them to a partner and write them down. We had lots of fun.
Tricky Word Woods!
Summer 1 - Week 2
This week children have enjoyed their first computing lesson of the half term. Children got to grips with the programe 'Scratch Junior', and coded commands to animate a character.
At the start of each computing lesson, we begin with a short Talk Toolbox on E-Safety. This week we were discussing the rules for staying safe online. We revised our 'Think then click' policy which we have in place at the Federation. Children were so sensible when using the tablets, following instructions carefully and not clicking on anything which they had not been instructed to. Well done Year 1!
Computing - Week 2
Summer 1 - Week 1
In Health and Wellbeing this week we have been discussing...
What does Safety mean to us?
Here are some of our responses;
"Don’t swing on your chairs"
"Don’t push people"
"Don’t cross the road when a car is coming"
"Wait for the traffic lights to cross"
"Don’t talk if the teacher is talking – they might be trying to keep you safe!"
" I feel safe in my house"
Once we had shared a response, we put our fingerprint on our poster to show our contribution to the Talk Toolbox session.
Learning about Palm Sunday
Snow Day!
Geography
In Geography this half term we have been learning all about our town - Andover! Over the past few weeks we have been learning to identify human and physical features. We created mini 3D ariel maps of a small area in Andover to share with our classmates. We then discussed whether the features we had drawn were human or physical.
3D aeriel maps
Music
This week in music we played follow the leader! We recapped our prior learning on tempo, volume, rhythm and pace by responding to the beat Miss Bolton played to us using her drum. We used untuned percussion instruments to each take a turn at being the 'leader' setting the beat for our friends!
Music - Follow the leader!
Counting in 10s
This week we have been learning to count in 10s. We have been using a variety of practical resources to group and count. Later in the week we applied our knowledge to problem solving.
Spring 1 - Week 2
Spring 1 Week 1 - Art
Tree Planting at Bury Hill
We had a fantastic time planting at Bury Hill this week. We learned how to dig a hole, plant the tree and identify it for future visitors. We got very muddy but had so much fun!
Tree Planting
Rooksbury Mill Trip
This week we went for an Autumn walk to Rooksbury Mill! We went as part of our longitudinal study to observe wildlife, weather and trees.
The children were extremely well behaved and asked some fantastic questions.
We saw robins, swans, cormorants and even a heron!
We have been busy in Science learning all about materials! We made houses for the Three Little Pigs to see which is the best material.
"I will huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down...
The children love to perform and made the most of the woodland amphitheatre to perform The Three Little Pigs as part of our English learning journey.
Week 3 in year one we have continued our learning on representing numbers and The three little pigs!
This week in year one we have been using natural resources to practise counting!
Queen Elizabeth II 1926-2022
Our first week in year 1 2022-2023
Investigating Pushes and Pulls
This week in science we have been learning about the forces, push and pull. We took a trip to the local park to investigate different types of push and pull!
Investigating pushes and pulls
DT - Wooden Spoon Puppets
This Half term we have designed and made our own wooden spoon puppets! We have been learning to select materials and tools to carefully join materials together in different ways.
DT - Wooden Spoon Puppets
3D Shapes
Marshmallow Maths!
This week in Maths we have been learning all about 2D and 3D shapes! To help us identify and name 3D shapes, we used marshmallows and cocktail sticks to create 3D shapes such as cubes, cuboids and pyramids.
It was great fun!
P.E In the Sunshine!
This week in P.E we had a bonus session to remind ourselves how to correctly use our play-ground equipment. We are so lucky here to have lots of amazing things to play with outside! Our teachers helped us learn to correctly use the bats and balls, skip and even hula hoop!
Chicks!
This week we have had the pleasure of watching 10 eggs hatch into very cute chicks! The children have loved keeping chick diaries and making observations each day. The children have all day the chance to hold a chick, which they have really enjoyed. We have also made chick fact posters which we plan to share with the Year R children later in the term.
Counting in 2s
This week we have been continuing to practice counting in 2s. Here we are problem solving using a variety of practical resources.
Maths
Meerkat Mail!
This week we had a visit from a very special visitor! Sunny the Meerkat has come all the way from the Kalahari desert to visit Balksbury Infant School. We started our learning journey by generating questions for Sunny and punctuation our sentences with a question mark. Just as we had started to learn more about Sunny, a post-card arrived from his very concerned Mum! We decided to help Sunny by writing a reply to his Mum for him. Some pictures from the week can be seen below.
Meerkat Mail
Lost and Found Diary Entries
This half term we have been using the text driver 'Lost and Found' by Oliver Jeffers.
The story follows the journey of a little boy an a penguin who find each other in an unlikely friendship.
Here are some of the diary entries we wrote. We pretended to be the boy writing at the time of a storm whilst sailing to the South Pole.
Tree Planting at Harmony Woods!
Remembrance Day Art
Tree by Britta Teckentrup
In English this week we have started exploring a new text called Tree!
It links beautifully with our science learning all about the four seasons.
In response to the text we created group art pieces representing how trees change throughout the year.
Here are some pictures of us hard at work and some pictures of the finished pieces.
Creating our pieces
Drawing nature!
This week in Art we have been experimenting with different types of drawing materials! We used pencils, crayons and pastels to draw sunflowers from our Year One Garden.
Art
Free Reading Friday!
This week in Free Reading Friday we had a visit from the lovely Year 2 children. It was lovely to see the two year groups sharing stories together. Our Year One children really enjoyed themselves!
Farm to Fork!
This Term in Design & Technology we have been learning all about where food comes from and how to prepare food safely. Our food in the Poly-tunnel is not ready to be harvested yet, so we had to buy our food from the supermarket. We learned all about how the food arrives in the supermarket and where our food is grown. Here we are cooking a delicious pasta bake, containing lots of delicious vegetables! Watch out Masterchef, here we come!
D&T Cooking Pasta Bake
Measuring Measuring and More Measuring!
We have been mathematical investigators by using water to measure the volume and capacity of different containers. We had lots of fun understanding the concept of containers being full and half full!
All about the United Kingdom!
We have been learning all about The United Kingdom in Geography this half term.
We started by identifying the 7 continents so we could understand which continent the UK is in. We learned that the UK is in Europe and then we started to learn about each of the countries within the UK.
We created our own group posters on each of the capital cities and have made amazing models of UK landmarks!
See some of our learning below.
All about the UK.
Writing instructions for our friends in Year R!
As you can see from our pictures below, our plants are thriving in the polytunnel! Our friends in Year R have been reading the stories "The Tiny Seed" and "Oliver's vegetables", just like us! We thought it would be a great opportunity to write them instructions on how to plant seeds of their own. We gifted them some sunflower seeds and had a zoom call on Friday to share our instructions. The children loved seeing their old teachers and the Year R children enjoyed the experience too!
Instruction writing
Plant power!
In Year 1 we are going ga-ga for gardening! Now that we finally have some beautiful weather, we are on a missing to make our outdoor area look as beautiful as possible. Because we are scientists in year one, we are learning all about the parts of a plant and what they need to grow. In English we are using the story "The curious gardener" to write diary entries from the perspective of a little boy who gardens an entire city!
Here are some pictures of all the fun we have been having over the past couple of weeks.
Plant power!
Fancy dress Friday!
This week we celebrated another amazing week of home learning with Fancy Dress Friday.
As part of Children's Mental Health week, we had been learning all about self-expression.
It felt like the perfect time to choose our favorite outfits and end the week with a dance off.
Here are some of our amazing costumes.
We are so proud of the resilience our children have shown both in school and when learning at home. We are still smiling and working hard. Well done everyone!
The Queens Knickers and the Queens Handbag!
In Year one over the past couple of weeks we have been learning all about Her Majesty the Queen!
In English we designed our own pair of VIP knickers and wrote sentences to describe what they might look like.
We also thought of questions we might ask the Queen if she visited our school.
We wrote diary entries from the perspective of the Queens royal knicker keeper!
In Art we created some fantastic portraits of the Queen and her corgis. We also learned to draw Buckingham palace.
Here is some of our amazing work!
Amazing Work!
Amazing online learning!
This half term our year one children have blown us away with their amazing attitude towards their learning at home.
At the start of the term we chose to use "Meerkat Mail" by Emily Gravett as our text driver. We even had a visit from Sunny the Meerkat!
In English we wrote postcards, letters and made wanted posters for the pesky jackal!
In Geography we studied the human and physical features of the Kalahari desert. We thought about which areas of our school would be most suitable for Sunny during his stay at Balksbury.
In Science we learned about different animal classifications and compared Sunny the Meerkat with Miss Bolton's pet dog Polly.
Meerkat Mail
English
Our Text : Tree by Britta Teckentrup
In science and English this week we have been learning all about the different seasons. We made clay characters on the trees and wrote about what our characters would see in the woodland all year round. Have a look below at some of our creations and writing!
Outdoor Learning In English
Wonderful writing
We have been investigating 'sharing' in maths, here some examples of our fantastic sharing...
Rememberance activities
A Warm Welcome from the Year One team!
We have been enthusiastic scientific investigators by creating baskets that would protect Humpty from breaking, we learnt about different materials and how they could be used to protect our eggs.
Our letters to Zin Zan...
Poetry
To celebrate Poetry at Balksbury we created a Poet-tree to share our thoughts...
Our reflection areas
We have really enjoyed thinking about who are important to us and shared those important people in our Reflection Areas...
Message from Mrs Whatley:
Dear Parents/Carers,
Some children may be finding this time at home very confusing, they may be anxious, they may not quite understand why they are unable to go out and play with their friends. Here are some stories that will hopefully help them understand some of the issues that they are having to deal with.
I will also be updating weekly with some ideas of ways to cope with anxiety and ways to encourage the children to have a healthy positive mind.
I understand that some of you may not have access to a printer, therefore I will include activities that can be done without one.
Take care
Mrs Whatley - ELSA
ELSA Stories
Identifying Carnivores, Herbivores and Omnivores from their Teeth...
Sport Relief Activities
When a Tiger Came to Tea!
A big, furry, stripy tiger came knocking on the door. We let him in and he was very hungry. He looked in all the cupboards but he had already eaten most of our fruit at playtime. He said he liked sandwiches, buns, cake, chicken, daddy's beer, tea and all the water in the tap. Sadly we could only offer him one banana and so he left in search of more food. We discussed what we could do to prepare ourselves for next time he comes as he did say he would be back!
Paschal Candle Ceremony
We had a Paschal Candle Ceremony. We began by sitting in a circle in the dark and thinking about what darkness means to us. Then, the Paschal Candle was brought in and we watched as more candles were lit from the Paschal Candle. The centre of the room was filled with light and the children were spellbound gazing at the flames. Gradually, we gathered closer to the flame and thought about how Christians feel when they think about Jesus' light in the darkness. We said a prayer and blew out the candle, imagining we are Christians taking Jesus' light into our heart and minds.
Year 1 Paschal Candle Ceremony
Non-Fiction Writing
Painting Our Relief Maps of Peru...
Making relief maps of Peru so that we can see where the cloud forests are. Paddington is a spectacled bear from darkest Peru. Spectacled bears live where the Amazon rainforest meets the Andes.
We Love Spectacled Bears!
PSHE
We have been learning about how we can achieve goals with practice and perseverance. In PE, we supported our partners to navigate around the hall without touching the floor. Many of the children tackled equipment in ways they had not felt confident to previously.
Learning the Continents of the World Through Collage...
Going on a Bear Hunt!
Geography!
We looked closely at photographs of an unknown place. We described the physical and human geography we could see and built the places using junk modelling, plasticine, Lego and craft materials. We noticed that in some of the photos the place looked dry and hot. However the people were wearing warm clothes so we thought it must not be hot after all. We saw that they were making their own clothes and the place has mountains and forests. We also noticed that some people live in big cities and other people live in small villages with houses made from straw. Later we learned that this place was Peru!
Building Peru
Treasure Hunting!
We found a message in a bottle! We read the message and discussed what we should do next. We wrote to Mrs Holloway to ask if we could follow the instructions and dig to see if we could find anything. It took us a little while to solve the riddle but once we did, we went on an expedition to see if we were right. We took turns to dig in the ground until, to our great excitement, we hit something solid. We pulled it out of the ground and it turned out to be a bag with a box inside. Once we had brought our find inside we all took turns to look inside the box and describe what we could see.
Message in a Bottle
Digging for Treasure!
Investigating Pushes and Pulls at the Park
Investigating Sculpture with Natural Materials
Sculpture Inspired by Andy Goldsworthy and Richard Long
I'm Gonna Shine Christmas Performance
Computing Lessons. Learning how to use 'Paint' to Create a Self Portrait.
This week we have been learning about how to use exclamations in our writing. We went on a virtual tour of the Houses of Parliament and practised exclaiming about the wonderful things we had seen. Click the link below for the tour...