Willow

March 2023

Friday 31st March 2023
Published 31/03/23, by Joshua Palmer
Talk homework

Talk to your grownups at home about ALL of the phase 5 sounds we have learned this year. Think back to September when started with ay, ay, may I play. Can you remember all the sounds and their caption actions?

Reading

Thank you to everyone who has been logging their reading on our new Boom Reader app! Please ensure that you are reading EVERY DAY with your child and logging it on the Boom Reader app.

Spellings

The children will be tested on their phonic sounds ‘ie’ and ‘ea’. Please make sure you practise them over the holidays as they will be tested on the first Monday back after Easter.

Handwriting

Please follow the link below to access LetterJoin, a website which is really useful to support children’s letter formation and cursive handwriting. You can see how we use cursive script by following the tutorials and you can also download handwriting sheets to support your child’s handwriting practice at home.
The login details are as follows:
Username: bpa_3
Password: Year 1

Twig Science Reporter

Please follow the link below for lots of interesting Science articles which can be linked to lots of areas of our science learning. Some of our talk homework after Easter may be linked to this website so please keep an eye out for future blogs.

https://www.twigsciencereporter.com/

Wow, where has this term gone? The children have worked so hard in all areas of our learning and have topped off a fantastic half term with five phenomenal performances of their play ‘A Quest for Arthur’ to the school and to you all!

In Maths this week the children have worked so hard to show us their knowledge and understanding of our arithmetic learning, including their knowledge of addition and subtraction, missing number problems and some children have shown an understanding of fractions of amounts – when we haven’t even taught them yet!

The arithmetic paper also highlighted some gaps in the children’s learning and we have responded to this by making a maths pack which will be attached to this blog for you to print at home and complete if you wish.

We have had a wonderful couple of days completing this terms skills builder project, ‘Dream Space’. The children worked in teams to design and create their very own dream space based on a theme of their choice. The theme of the space had to be agreed between the pairs and their dream space had to include interior design and furniture that linked to their theme. The children showed fantastic teamwork skills, used their creativity skills to design and make their own dream spaces and they also had to stay positive whilst overcoming any barriers or issues that they faced on their journey. We are so proud of how they have worked in their teams and they produced some fantastic final products! Well done all of you J.

The children have worked so hard this term and we are now moving quickly into the final term of the year! We are working towards Year 2 and the children’s reading, maths and writing will be reflective of this.

Have a fantastic, relaxing Easter break full of rest, plenty of fun and lots of chocolate! We look forward to seeing you all in the Summer term where the hard work will continue!

The Year 1 email address in a direct way of contacting the Year 1 Teachers: year1@buckdenacademy.org.

Best wishes and have a lovely weekend.
The Year 1 Team

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Friday 24th March 2023
Published 24/03/23, by Joshua Palmer
Talk homework

This week we have been learning about measuring length and height. We used cubes as a non-standard way of measuring objects and then moved on to use rulers and centimetres (cm) to measure the length and height of different objects around the classroom. Can you find some objects around your house to measure? Can you find a ruler or a tape measure to measure the length or height of some of your toys? Remember to start at 0 and to measure to the end of the object to find an accurate measurement, to the nearest centimetre.

Reading

Thank you to everyone who has been logging their reading on our new Boom Reader app! Please ensure that you are reading EVERY DAY with your child and logging it on the Boom Reader app.

Please make sure that you send your child into school with their reading folder every day as we will be reading with your children in school at least once a week.

Spellings

The children will be tested on their phonic sounds ‘ay’ and ‘ou’ this week. The ‘ay’ sound is usually found at the end of words and the ‘ou’ sound is usually found in the middle of words. Please remember to put your spelling books in your reading folder so that we can test you on Monday.

pay
clay
stray
Sunday
sway
mouse
shout
cloud
proud
hound

In Maths this week we have been measuring length and height using cubes as a non-standard way of measuring and using a ruler as a standard way of measuring. The children were accurate in their measuring, remembering to start at 0 and to measure to the nearest centimetre by measuring all the way to the end of the objects.

In English this week we are super proud of the children who have had the chance to show us their fantastic writing skills by writing an independent piece of writing about Claude from our Power of Reading book, Claude in the City. The children earned lots of house points by remembering their capital letters, finger spaces, full stops, writing for sense, using cursive handwriting to present their work neatly and even extending their sentences using because.

On Wednesday morning we went on our trip to Buckden Towers! We went into the Kings Room and the Lady Chapel, where we learned about Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragon and some facts about the Tudors, including how they travelled, what they ate, what clothes they wore and how they lived, including washing and going to the toilet!

We also learned about the buildings themselves at the Towers. We learned that some of the buildings burned down, some of them were knocked down, and some of them fell down! The bricks in the oldest part of the building were made out of clay, and some of the bricks were black because they got burnt when they were being cooked! Instead of wasting the burnt bricks, the people who built the Towers decided to make patterns in the brickwork which we decided looked really pretty. Some of the buildings were rebuilt out of stone, and others were rebuilt out of bricks and cement.

Finally, we went into the Knot garden where we looked at the Knot patterns in the bushes, and a variety of plants and herbs which were used for dying wool to make clothes, as well as for medicinal purposes. The Tudors definitely put the things that they grew to very good use!

Thank you for bringing your children’s costumes into school this week – we did two dress rehearsals to Upper School and Lower School on Thursday and Friday and the children performed brilliantly!

For Wednesday 29^th March’s evening performance (which starts at 6pm), please ensure your child has been dropped at the School Office at 5:30pm so that we can get them changed and ready for the evening performance. An adult will be on the door from 5:20pm-5:40pm to ensure we get all children in and ready on time.

If you have any more shoeboxes, please could you bring them in as we will be using them next Wednesday to make our very own ‘Dream Space’ in a sustainable way!

The Year 1 email address in a direct way of contacting the Year 1 Teachers: year1@buckdenacademy.org.

Best wishes and have a lovely weekend.
The Year 1 Team

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Friday 17th March 2023

Published 17/03/23, by Joshua Palmer

Talk homework

This week we have been learning about sustainability and looking after our environment. Talk to your grown ups about the different ways that we can help look after our community – think about how we can make it look nice, and what we can do to protect our local wildlife.

Reading

Thank you to everyone who has been logging their reading on our new Boom Reader app! Please ensure that you are reading EVERY DAY with your child and logging it on the Boom Reader app.

Please make sure that you send your child into school with their reading folder every day as we will be reading with your children in school at least once a week.

Spellings

The children will be tested on their High Frequency words on Monday. Please ensure your child has practised their dictation sentence(s) too.

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3
friend	king	floppy
school	night	jumped
house	please	river
one	queen	narrator
by	wanted	laughed
my	window	something
My friend’s house is by the school.	The king wanted a night by the window.	Floppy the dog jumped in the river to get something.

In Maths this week we have been estimating where numbers up to 50 would be placed on a blank number line. The children enjoyed using what they knew to help them think about whether numbers should be placed in particular places and got more and more confident as we had more practise.

In Art this week the children have completed their own portraits of an adult in school who inspires them. The children have worked really hard to try and get the facial features in proportion and in the correct place. We are very excited to send them off to the Sky Arts Competition next week – if you haven’t handed in your permission slip yet, then please send it into the school office so that we can enter your child’s work.

We are very excited to introduce Mr Payne to the Year 1 Team – Mr Payne is training to be a Teacher and will be spending lots of time in Willow Class teaching the children and supporting their learning. Please say hello if you get the chance!

Next Wednesday morning we are very excited to be going on our trip to Buckden Towers! We have enough adults to support Willow Class as Mr Payne has joined us for the next 8 weeks, however we still need 2 adult volunteers to join Bramble Class – if you are free between 9-12pm on Wednesday morning please send us an email or speak with Miss Murkett to let her know if you would like to come and help. Thank you so much for your support.

Please make sure that your child’s costume has been brought into school by Monday 20^th March at the latest in a named carrier bag. Thank you!

If you have any more shoeboxes, please could you bring them in as we will be using them in the final week of term to make our very own ‘Dream Space’ in a sustainable way!

The Year 1 email address in a direct way of contacting the Year 1 Teachers: year1@buckdenacademy.org.

Best wishes and have a lovely weekend.
The Year 1 Team

Friday 10th March 2023

Published 10/03/23, by Joshua Palmer

Talk homework

This week we have been learning how to partition numbers into groups of tens and ones. Talk to your adults about a range of numbers up to 100. How many groups of ten are there? How many ones? For example, 47 is four tens and 7 ones.

Reading

Thank you to everyone who has been logging their reading on our new Boom Reader app! Please ensure that you are reading EVERY DAY with your child and logging it on the Boom Reader app.

Please make sure that you send your child into school with their reading folder every day as we will be reading with your children in school at least once a week.

Spellings

The children will be tested on their High Frequency words on Monday. Please ensure your child has practised their dictation sentence(s) too.

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3
ask	both	water
your	break	mind
school	behind	great
push	friend	break
put	do	busy
she	full	clothes
She said to ask the school.	Look, is that your friend behind you?	Please mind your clothes near the great water source.

In English this week we have been looking again at our Power of Reading book, Claude in the City. We learned that on one of his adventures, Claude found a doctors coat in the hospital and was mistaken for a real life doctor who was needed for an emergency… We had to decide whether to Claude should lie and pretend to be a doctor to help the person in need or whether he should tell the truth and tell the lady he can’t actually help as he isn’t trained to save lives. The children gave some really thoughtful responses and we decided that honesty was the best policy!

In History this week, we have combined our Reading lessons by reading a passage of information all about King Henry VIII. We used our skills to find out about when he was born, when he was crowned King of England, why he didn’t stay married to Catherine of Aragon and when he died. We found out about his hobbies which included jousting, watching sport and holding great parties with lots of food!

In Computing this week, we have started our new topic on ‘Animation’. The children have created have now created their second (and third, fourth) pages to our stories and we have learned how to add animations to make our picture move and our stories more exciting. The children have loved the challenge!

The Year 1 email address in a direct way of contacting the Year 1 Teachers: year1@buckdenacademy.org

Best wishes and have a lovely weekend.
The Year 1 Team

Friday 3rd March 2023

Published 03/03/23, by Joshua Palmer

Talk homework

This week on World Book Day we talked about our favourite books. Talk to your grown ups about your favourite types of books. Do you like story books? Or fact books? Fiction or non-fiction? Do you like funny books? Do you like silly books? Think about the different genres of books that we can read. You could even give some examples of each type of book. We would love to hear some of your recommendations.

Reading

Thank you to everyone who has been logging their reading on our new Boom Reader app! Please ensure that you are reading EVERY DAY with your child and logging it on the Boom Reader app.

Please make sure that you send your child into school with their reading folder every day as we will be reading with your children in school at least once a week.

Spellings

The children will be tested on their High Frequency words on Monday. Please ensure your child has practised their dictation sentence(s) too.

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3
were	child	plant
where	hour	poor
love	kind	improve
some	last	parents
you	because	behind
of	pass	last
Where do you want to go?	The kind child told me the hour.	My poor parents need to improve the plant behind their house.

In English this week we have been looking in more detail at our Power of Reading book, Claude in the City. The children have enjoyed freeze framing a scene from the story and using their body language and facial expressions to portray the different characters. We had lots of fun guessing who the children were acting out.

In Maths this week we have been looking at numbers to 20 and related facts. We have worked hard to show the addition and subtraction number sentences that make up a fact family for a range of different representations of number, including part whole models and bar models

In Geography this week we talked about what a human and a natural feature is. We talked about the different features in Buckden, those that have been made by humans and those that have grown/been created by the environment.

In Computing this week, we have started our new topic on ‘Animation’. The children have created the first page of their own e-book, and we are looking forward to adding sounds and animations to our stories to make them more fun and interesting to read!

Thank you for your contributions to World Book Day – the children loved sharing their favourite stories, listening to a range of stories and enjoyed being in their pyjamas all day!

The Year 1 email address in a direct way of contacting the Year 1 Teachers: year1@buckdenacademy.org

Best wishes,
The Year 1 Team