Welcome to Year 1 

from

Mrs Cooper and Miss Mellor

Our email address is: year1@kingsleyschool.org.uk

This is checked regularly however, if you need to speak to a member of staff as a matter of urgency, please either speak to a member of the leadership team on the gate on a morning or ring the school office.

If you require any additional information regarding our curriculum, please do not hesitate to contact your child's class teacher or a member of the Leadership Team.

Our current topic is 'Around the World'

Scroll down to see some of our amazing work!

PSHE: Problem Solving

In PSHE our current topic is 'Going for Goals' where we will be learning about how to achieve our goals. This week we were given the task of rescuing some dinosaurs that had been frozen in ice! We have to think of possible solutions to this problem. We had to use our problem solving skills such as resilience and teamwork. We decided that it was important not to give up and to keep trying different solutions, and to listen to our friends when they had an idea.

Gymnastics

In Year 1 we have been loving going to Hartlepool Gymnastics Club every Wednesday. We have lots of fun trying all of the different equipment and practising our rolls, jumps and balances. Look how strong we are!

World Book Day 2023

Check out our fantastic World Book Day costumes! We enjoyed dressing up as our favourite characters and watching the 'masked reader' videos and guessing who it was! 

In Year 1 we have enjoyed lots of activities this week for Children's Mental Health Week. These have included: yoga, mindfulness, making emotions from playdough and making paper chains to show how we are all connected. Here are some pictures from the week. 

We celebrated 'Safer Internet' day by reading a story about Buddy the dog and learnt how we could be safer online. We learnt his song and practised it as a class. Afterwards, we wrote down his key message and coloured in a picture of him as you can see in the pictures above.

We read the story 'Ten Delicious Teachers' and then played a guessing game using clues to guess which monster our teacher was thinking about. We then created our own game and wrote down several clues for our peers to guess which monster we were thinking about. Can you guess our monster from using our clues?

This half term in Literacy, we explored the terms fiction and non-fiction. We learnt about the features of a non-fiction text and created our own about London. We practised writing questions and then answered them using knowledge learnt during our Geography lessons.

We enjoyed playing 'messy bedroom' during our outdoor PE lessons this half term. We were put into two groups and were tasked with getting any many balls as possible in our side of the playground. We had lots of fun!

In maths this half term, we developed our learning with numbers to 20. We practised using tens and ones as well as whole part models to represent different numbers.

We are enjoying getting to grips with how to use a computer (laptop). We know the names and purposes of different parts of a computer and enjoy exploring how to control the mouse to make the computer work.

We recieved a letter from the fairy tale police asking for our help to locate a little girl called Goldilocks. We read her story and learnt about her wrong decisions. We practised writing sentences about the story and then created a wanted poster to help find her. She was later found hiding in the woods but needed our help - she wasn't sure how to apologise so we stepped in and wrote an apology letter for her to send to the three bears. Take a look at our work above!

We enjoy observing the changes in seasons across the year. So far we have learnt about Autumn and Winter. We explored what we wear during the different seasons and learnt about trees. Have a look at our learning above!

After learning about the United Kingdom, Daniel drew his own map at home and proudly showed everyone at school his work! Well done Daniel - fantastic job!

In Geography we learnt about our local area. We began by learning about features of maps and mapped out our classroom. We had lots of fun learning about north, east, south and west and played a game to help us to remember. We then located our school on a map and learnt the school address. We also enjoyed learning about the United Kingdom and London. 

Our Science topic for Spring A is Light and Shadow. In our first lesson we carried out an investigation. There were items hidden in 5 boxes and we were only allowed to use our torches to guess what was inside each box!

In our second lesson, we learnt how a shadow is created and then explored how we could change the shape of shadows, or make them disappear altogether!

We then explored the meaning of the words transparent, translucent and opaque and carried out an investigation using different objects to test their properties.

During our last lesson for this topic, we learnt about reflection. We were given the task of classifying materials into reflective and not reflective. We were told that Cinderella needs our help to make a new reflective dress so that she can be seen in the dark after her ball with the Prince. We had lots of fun!

Local History Week

For Local history week, we investigated the question "What was is like to be a lad or lass in Hartlepool in the 1900s?"

We learnt about what key places in Hartlepool looked like in the 1900s and compared it to what it looks like today. We have explored a range of sources such as photographs, old toys and old clothes from the early 1900s. We learnt that school was a lot stricter then!

Then we practised our sketching techniques and used these to create a sketch of ourselves wearing Victorian clothes, which would have been worn by children in Hartlepool in the early 1900s.

We had lots of fun celebrating the launch of Times Tables Rockstars! We had a rockstar party and was given the opportunity to practise our times tables on the laptop.

We were lucky enough to take part in an online 'draw along' lesson with famous illustrator Nick Sharratt. We also had the chance to speak to Rico Hinson-King, the author of Strong and Tough. We were very inspired and created some fantastic artwork.

For Anti-Bullying week, we learnt about the qualities of a good friend and how to be one. We also chose a buddy who we took care of and looked after for the week (and beyond).

We have had lots of fun using the iPads in computing this half term. We have learnt about what an algorithm is and explored some simple coding games such as Daisy the Dinosaur and the BeeBot app. We have also enjoyed following agorithms to draw a selected picture - in our case, a snowman. Take a look through the photographs, do you think we did well?

We enjoyed creating a collage to represent ourselves during Art this term. We began by learning about the artist Henri Matisse and how he creates artwork using different coloured paper and scissors. We planned our collage first by choosing five words/objects that represent us and then used scissors to create our work. Take a look at our wonderful work above.

We enjoyed learning about Autumn. We explored the outdoors and collected a range of different sized twigs from the ground. We read the stories 'Stanley's Stick' and 'Not a Stick' and then used our own imagination to pretend that our twig was something else. We have also written an Autumn poem using our senses as well as writing about the story Stick Man. Take a look at our wonderful writing.

We had a great time on our trip to Hardwick Park. We learnt all about Autumn and went on an Autumn walk around the park. We used autumn leaves and other natural materials to create a piece of artwork inspired by the artist Andy Goldsworthy. Our favourite part of the day was playing in the playground! Take a look at our recount writing at the end of the slideshow.

In Science this term we have enjoyed learning about animals. We learnt how to classify animals into different categories. Have a look at our wonderful work above.

We loved reading the story Leaf Man. We used leaves from the school grounds to create our own artwork inspired by the story. Take a look!

We learnt about Rememberance day by creating a poppy to display on the window. We also wrote a sentence to remember those who died in the war.

We learnt about why we celebrate Bonfire Night and used oil pastels to create fantastic firework pictures. We then wrote about our pictures using adjectives. Take a look at our wonderful writing!

In Design and Technology this term we learnt about cooking and nutrition. We decided to make smoothies using different fruit and vegetables. We began by learning where our food came from. We tasted different smoothies to see which ingredients we wanted to use. We made sure to wash our hands first and practised our chopping skills to prepare the fruit. Then we got to taste the smoothie that we had made - some of us were more keen than others!

In PSHE this term we have been learning all about safety. First we came up with classroom rules to keep us safe in school. Then we learnt about safety in the home, people who keep us safe and how to be safe around medicine. We looked at pictures of different rooms in the house and worked with a partner to spot any potential dangers. 

We love reading a good book in our reading corner! What is your favourite book to read?

In computing this term we are learning all about online safety. We created our own 'golden computer rule' about how to be safe online. We also created a poster detailing our 'life online' and wrote a list of five people who we can trust to help us. Here are some useful links to talking about e-safety at home.

We enjoyed reading The Gruffalo during our literacy lessons. We created a character description of the Gruffalo by using adjectives and then created our own version of the Gruffalo. We then pretended that we were the Gruffalo and drew our favourite food - yum! We also completed a book review detailing our favourite part of the story.

We have recently begun using our Year 1 Maths No Problem workbooks. This half term we are working on developing our fluency with numbers to 10. We have been completing a range of problems involving addition, subtraction, comparing and ordering.

Our PE lessons this term are based around the film 'The Incredibles'. We are developing our invasion game skills by completing special superhero missions. It is lots of fun!

In Literacy we enjoyed reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We wrote simple sentences about the story before coming up with our own version of the story. We also created butterflies and wrote instructions detailing how to make them.

During our first few PE lessons, we learnt how to play playground games. We played hop scotch, duck duck goose and also practised skipping.

In Science we have been learning all about the human body. We had a great afternoon investigating our 5 senses. We had to use our senses of hearing, taste, smell, sight and touch to explore mystery items and guess what they were!

In History this term we have been learning about how we change from babies to adults. We had lots of fun playing 'guess the baby' and trying to decide who each baby photo belonged to! We learnt about how babies' needs are different to ours and wrote about how we have changed.

We love being active! Here we are completing the daily mile. We tried our best to complete as many laps of the playground as we could within a given time.

We enjoyed writing about ourselves during our first week in Year 1, as well as painting our self portrait. We talked about our interests and created a lovely display in our classroom, detailing how each one of us is different but together we make a team. We also had fun learning about our body during our first Science lesson.

See what we got up to in the academic year!

2021-22

Look at the beans that grew from Louie's runner bean plant - wow! Louie helped his grandad to plant his runner bean plant in the garden and it has grown lots of beans. Well done Louie and thank you for bringing them in to show your friends.

Our trip to Preston Park! 

We had a fantastic time on our trip to Preston Park last week. We visited the Victorian street at the museum for a workshop about toys from the past. The children were fascinated by the Victorian shops and loved the demonstrations from the shop staff. We also went on a nature trail around the gardens and woodland walk and we were lucky to have glorious weather!

We really enjoyed learning how to sew as part of our Design and Technology unit on textiles. We designed, made and decorated glove puppets for the nursery children to play with. Look at our amazing creations! The teachers were so proud of how well we concentrated, and the resilience we showed when trying to thread our own needles and not giving up when we made a mistake.

The Year 1 team want to say a big thank you to everyone who has sent in toys from the past, pictures, photographs or has been speaking to their child about their favourite childhood toys. The children have all been fascinated with learning about toys that their family members played with in the past. We even had a very special visit from 71 year old Ted the teddy bear! 

We have also been exploring a selection of toys from the past thanks to Hartlepool museum. We had lots of fun playing with the toys and trying to figure out their names and how they work. We compared these with the toys that we play with today. 

In our art lessons we have been learning shading techniques such as hatching, cross hatching and smudging. We practised shading from dark to light. We then used our new shading skills to create a drawing of a castle by looking at photographs. Have a look at some of our amazing artwork!

The theme of Science Week this year is 'growth'. As our current topic in Science this term is plants, we have kicked off the week by doing some experiments to see what a plant needs to grow. We planted some cress seeds in different conditions (with/without water and light) and predicted which ones would grow best. Then we made out own 'cress heads'. We put them on the windowsill as that is where we thought they might grow the best. We can't wait to see how they turn out!

We also did an experiment to find out how water gets to the different parts of a plant. We put celery in pots of water with different food colouring in. We were surprised to see that after a few days the celery had changed colour! This meant that the water had travelled up the stem to the leaves.

Here is a link to a video showing you how to do the experiment if you would like to try at home. 

In computing we have started to learn about coding. We had a go at making our own algorithms to make fish move on a game. Then we were able to fix a code that was broken. Some of us decided we want to be computer programmers when we grow up!

Our Spring term PE topics are dance and gymnastics. In gymnastics we have been working hard at practising different balances and putting them together to create a sequence. In dance we have been learning to travel around the hall in different ways in time to music and have worked in pairs and groups to create a simple dance routine. 

PE lessons take part every Tuesday and Friday mornings. 

In Year 1 we had lots of fun dressing up as our favourite book characters for World Book Day and taking part in book related activities. Some of us brought in our favourite stories from home to chare with the class. We made our own bookmarks and enjoyed doing a book 'scavenger hunt' where we had to search through books to find things. Well done to Alfie and Coleton who were the winners! Check out all of our fantastic costumes below.

This week we learnt about Shrove Tuesday and why pancakes are traditionally eaten on this day. Then we all helped to make a pancake batter and wrote our own instructions on how to make pancakes. Our favourite part was tasting the pancakes with lemon juice and sugar on. Yum!

In Geography this term we have been learning about our local area. First, we found Hartlepool on a map.  We took a tour of our local area on Google Maps and looked at different landmarks we could see such as the shops, school, the playground and the church. We also learnt about the different types of houses that people live in. We then went on a walk around our local area, using a checklist to see what features we could find.

We compared our local area to children living in different countries, such as Kenya. We watched a video about the day in the life of a girl from a Maasai village and it was interesting to see what was the same and what was different. We were surprised about all of the wild animals that lived nearby!

Here is some of our Geography work and pictures from our walk.

In literacy we have been doing lots of practise on writing sentences with a capital letter, finger spaces and a full stop. We try our best to apply new sounds and words from our phonics lessons into our writing. We have also been working on extending our sentences using the connectives and, because and so.

This half term we have been exploring non-fiction texts. We then had a go at writing our own non-chronological reports about how to take care of a dog. Have a look at some of our fantastic writing above!

In RE this term we have been learning about Christian beliefs and churches. We learnt lots of new vocabulary about the objects inside and outside of a church and we made some fantastic work. We have also learnt what Christians believe about God and why they celebrate Christmas. 

Our local Vicar showed us around one of the local churches. We had to have a virtual tour, but it was personalised for us and we really enjoyed it. During this time we filled in a checklist of what objects we could see in the church, you can find lots of our amazing work above.

Our focus this term in Art was collages. We linked this to our science topic of habitats. First of all we made a plan, and then in groups we made a collage of one of the four habitats we had been exploring. They look amazing and we have even displayed them in the classrooms.

During the Autumn 2 term we looked at animal habitats. We looked at four habitats; woodland, arctic, desert and under the sea. We explored what animals live in these types and habitats and why. Here is a selection of some of our wonderful work on habitats.

Curriculum Information

Useful websites