Return to Pupils

Year 1

Welcome to Year 1

Our Year 1 team includes Miss Muncey (class teacher) and Mrs Randall, class LSA. Mrs Agyen, Mrs Sovitch, Mrs Lovell and Mrs Murray and Mrs Addy provide small group or one to one support at times during the week.

  • Mar 302020

    30.3.20- Maths and English Update

    Good afternoon Year One,

    I hope you had a lovely weekend. I’ve been enjoying reading the e-mails you’ve been sending me. It looks like you have all been working hard. Remember, this is a unique time in your education. You have the freedom to explore things that interest you and learn about the world around you. I would just like to suggest that every day you spend at least 10 minutes reading and you do a Maths and English task a day. Be that a little Phonics, writing, number bonds etc.

    This week’s focus in Maths is money. We spent a bit of time on money about three weeks ago so this is just to keep that learning fresh in your mind. I have set you 5 learning tasks, one for each day:

    Maths

    • How many of each coins are needed to make £1? Can you work it out? Can you stack enough coins to show what £1 looks like? You don’t have to use coins for this, anything would work to show scale.
    • Mathletics tasks.
    • Who has the most money? Twinkl task
    • Money Bags Nrich Task
    • Make your own shop. Write tags for the shop and practice giving change.

     

    English:

    • Plurals- Recap what a plural is (more than one). How many plurals can you find in your house (ie beans, coats etc). Look at the endings and group them.
    • Complete a Purple Mash task- writing a story.
    • Complete a diary entry based on the weather, what you have been doing etc.
    • Write a book review based on a book you have read this week.
    • Put on a short play based on a book you have read this week.

     

    Please remember, Phonics and reading are crucial for our children and daily input is required. PhonicsPlay and Twinkl can support with these as well as previous blogs. I will try to record another Story Time later today, ready for this evening or tomorrow.

    Keep safe, I am missing your faces lots!

  • Mar 272020

    27.3.20- Story Time- Aliens Love Underpants

    Good afternoon everyone,

    Thank you for all your kind messages regarding Story Time. Here is the second story time video. I apologise for my slightly croaky voice, it is hay fever season for me!

    If you wish to do some fun follow up activities based on Aliens Love Underpants, you can use these links to download from Twinkl. Twinkl are offering a free months trial.

    Design an alien

    Stick Puppets

    Mixed Number Bonds

    Word Mat to help with spellings

    Book review writing frame

    Keep safe and keep happy,

    Miss Muncey

  • Mar 272020

    27.3.20- Moving and Computing!

    Good afternoon Year One,

    Just a quick reminder that Purple Mash has many additional activities bar the ones I set. I have set a Air Traffic Control coding task for you to take a look at sometime. I would like you all to have a go. You may need an adult to help you to begin with but I’m sure you will pick it up very soon.

    In addition to this, I would like to make you aware of some new challenges set by the Herts & Ware Sports Consortium. Each week, they will set a challenge, a skill, an outdoor activity, a movement dance activity (from Hannah at Imagination Arts), a quiz and a website of the week. These can be accessed here:

    https://sites.google.com/view/hwsspc19/home

    Enjoy exploring these links if you so wish. You can send pictures of how you have responded to these activities via my e-mail address provided on previous blogs. Thank you for the kind responses to my Story Time video, I will record another one very soon for you to enjoy at home.

    See you soon and stay safe,

    Miss Muncey

  • Mar 272020

    27.3.20- Today’s Challenge!

    Good morning Year One!

    I hope you are having a lovely day so far and you have got wonderful plans to fill it. Yesterday, I went for a walk down the river and saw a grass snake! I wish I had taken a picture for all of you to see but it moved so quickly and I was scared I would frighten it by getting too close. I wonder if you have seen anything interesting in your gardens and local area? You will be surprised by what you will find when you just stop and take a look.

    This got me thinking… I wonder where that snake was going? He was very quick and moved by slithering his body around in an ‘S’ shape. I wonder if he was on a mission. In our work on ‘Traditional Tales’, we have studied how many animals in stories talk. I wonder what he would say…Could you write a short story about the grass snake? Could he be on his way to save another creature? Could he be a forgetful snake? It would be lovely if you could pick an animal that you’ve seen in your garden- be that a bee, a bird or maybe, like me, a grass snake- and write a short story about it. You can send them to me on my e-mail address: year1@standrews323.herts.sch.uk or post it as a blog post on PurpleMash. Thank you to everyone who has so far got in contact, it has been lovely to hear from you!

    Please, don’t forget to send in more pictures of your plants! Also, please keep going with your Maths, have a look at the links posted on Wednesday to give you more ideas about counting in 2, 5 and 10’s. Next week, we will be recapping money and word problems.

    Have a good day,

    Miss Muncey

  • Mar 262020

    Brian the Smelly Bear- Story Time

    Good evening Year One,

    I apologise for the lateness of this post. I know that for some of you, this time can be confusing and a change to what you are used to do. I hope you are having fun nevertheless. One of my favourite parts of the day is story time and I have missed reading you stories. I thought it would be a nice idea to record myself reading a story for you to enjoy at home. Maybe you could record yourself reading a story and send it to me on an e-mail? Now I’ve (finally) worked out how to do it, I’ll try and find a few more exciting stories to share with you.

    I miss you all and am so looking forward to seeing you all again.
    Miss Muncey

  • Mar 262020

    26.3.20- Today’s Photo Challenge

    Good morning Year One!

    I am so happy to see you starting to e-mail in your pictures and replying to blog posts on Purple Mash. Today, I am setting you a Photo challenge that will encourage you to use aspects of Art, Science, Computing and English.

    I have been spending a lot of time in the garden, admiring the flowers as they start to bloom and seeing the insects visiting these beautiful creations. I felt inspired to take some photographs to show you:

     

    Can you spot the visiting bee who is collecting pollen and nectar?

    If you can, and would like to, have a look in your garden or surrounding area. Take a picture of a colourful flower or a plant that you enjoy looking at. Maybe it is spiky or smooth? Has it got colourful petals or shiny leaves? What shape are the leaves? Is it tall or short? Once you have photographed it, can you identify what plant it is? Your parents and carers may already know but if, like me, you aren’t as familiar with a wide range of flowers and plants you can use many apps and websites to help you.

    GardenAnswers is a particularly helpful app but if not, the woodland trust website is a reliable website.

    When you have photographed your plant and identified it, you can research which insects will visit the plant. Do they lay eggs on it? Do they eat the leaves? Do they help with pollination? You could also think of some adjectives to describe the plant as well.

    Once you have done this, you can send me your finished work at: year1@standrews323.herts.sch.uk or send me a blog post reply on Purple Mash. I can then publish some of them on tomorrow’s blog.

    Get snapping!

    Miss Muncey

     

  • Mar 252020

    25.3.2020- Ideas for Counting in 2, 5 and 10s.

    Good afternoon!

    In Maths, our last topic was counting in 2, 5 and 10’s. We sometimes call this skip-counting or counting in steps. It is the skill needed to be acquired before learning times tables. I have set this as a home learning task on Mathletics for you and have included some links below to games/ activities that you could do at home. Don’t forget, reciting these in ascending, descending and starting from a random order is also very important.

    This is a fun, video that we have danced and sang along too many times in class.

     

    Twinkl has been made free to parents for a month. Please e-mail me if you are struggling to get onto this resource and I will send it to you.

    For those who would like a more serious challenge, here are two NRICH acitivities for you to try:

    https://nrich.maths.org/232?utm_source=primary-map

    https://nrich.maths.org/154?utm_source=primary-map

    Send me an e-mail on year1@standrews323.herts.sch.uk or comment on our Purple Mash blog with how you have got on!

    Have a good day,

    Miss Muncey

  • Mar 242020

    24.3.20- Phonics Ideas

    Dear Year One Parents and Carers,

    I have been researching (and racking my own memory) to think of fun, free (or low-cost), interactive Phonics activities that you can use at home to keep your child/ren engaged with Phonics sounds. We have covered all the sounds from Phase 2-5 but each child has a different Phonics profile, with their own strengths and areas to develop. You will be able to notice these when you read with them. For many children, recognising digraphs and trigraphs automatically in words can be challenging, for others its split-digraphs or blending the sounds in the correct order. Many of these activities can be tailored to meet the requirements of your child, as well as time and money constraints.

    Fun Phonics activities:

    • Use a bingo dabber/ highlighter pen to find a sound. Pick a sound that you want to focus on. Provide an old book, a newspaper, magazine etc. and ask them to find as many words with that sound in. Every 5 words they find earns them a point. Points may mean prizes…or something equally fun!
    • Sound Burst. Blow up old balloons. Write a different sound on each balloon. Call a word or a sound and the children have to find the matching balloon, ie (day for the ay sound or just say ‘ay’). If they get it right, they have to burst the balloon in one go. If they don’t do it, they have to try again on their next go.
    • Sound splat. Write the sounds/ common exception words on Post-it notes and ask the children to splat the word/sound with a fly swat.
    • Phonics baskets. Provide a small basket or container and give the children a sound. Ask them to fill their basket with a range of items that have that sound in. Bonus points if the sound is in the middle or the end.
    • Twinkl games. Twinkl has made its website free to parents for one month. Although I wouldn’t recommend downloading too many worksheets for our younger children, there are fun board games that can be printed out and played (or played on an iPad screen).
    • Alien Adventures. Draw your own alien and name him in his own alien language. Write an alien language for him to speak in speech bubbles. Practice blending the sounds together as you read back through the language.
    • Make your own flashcards. Write 5 or 6 sounds on scraps of paper. Get the child to think of a word/ picture that matches the sound and draw it above or below the sound. Children can use these to recap the sounds.
    • Word Rub. If you have a whiteboard pen and a plain, laminated surface (a vinyl table cloth etc), write a mixture of words all over them. Call out a word and ask the children to find and rub out the word as quickly as they can.
    • What can you hear? Often we move so quickly in schools, we rarely have a chance to just stop and…. listen. Whilst you might feel this is too basic for your child, every child will benefit from just spending time being still and practising listening for sounds. Can they identify what the sound is? Is it coming from nearby or far away? Is it high-pitched or low-pitched? This simple exercise will train their ears to be more specific in the sounds they hear in words.
    • Alphabet activities. Introduce using a dictionary and how this works. Alphabetising is an important skill that we will be looking at in Year One and refining in Year Two. Make your own alphabet puzzle and board games with your child and they won’t even realise that they are learning!

     

    So, there are ten ideas to get you started. As always, the internet contains a wealth of ideas and I will post again with some more ideas on a different date.

    Please feel free to contact me via my e-mail address or write a reply on my blog page on Purple Mash!

    Miss Muncey

  • Mar 242020

    24.3.20- What a school day looks like in Year One

    Good Morning (again!),

    I’m so grateful for the sunshine and warm weather today. Although times are hard, it has been made a little easier by having a Spring breeze coming in through the window. My current plan for these blogs is to build a range of ideas that you can use at home, rather than prescribe a timetable as I know each of your children are different. I have included below a rough timetable for an average day in Year 1. Each day, I will focus on a different area and will give you suggested activities, links to websites and a background to what we have covered in class.

    A Typical Day in Year One

    9.00- Collective Worship. Although we could not meet for the last week in school, we still continued to develop and enhance our understanding of Christianity and the Bible. There are many YouTube videos bringing these stories to life. “The Beginners Bible” is an animated series suitable for Reception, Year 1 and 2. “Veggie Tales” can be found on Netflix and YouTube. It is an American program that retells Christian values and stories in a comedic way. Continuing to share our current value of ‘Forgiveness’ will be helpful to the children as they navigate through this time. We try and relate this back to the teachings of Jesus, to encourage children to connect these stories to their lives.

    9.30- Phonics. I will be writing a post today to give you all ideas to continue recapping and securing sounds. We would recommend ensuring that the children have some access to Phonics each day for between 5-20 minutes.

    9.50-10.40- English. Please look at Purple Mash for ideas for writing. I have tried to set different, fun tasks that can be used to encourage the children to practice writing skills. Many people are keeping a diary of their time in isolation to share with future generations. This could be a fun activity that the children can partake in- a time capsule of sorts. This doesn’t need to include pages and pages of writing (although it can be, if your child wishes to!) and your child doesn’t need to be writing for 50 minutes a day. Instead, frequent (daily, if possible) writing opportunities with a focus on: capital letters, full stops and finger spaces will keep key skills in the forefront of the mind. In class, we were just beginning to write our own traditional tales based on ‘The Three Little Pigs’. The children had planned which animals they wanted as their main characters, the houses that they would build and mapped out the main parts of the story. This could still be written at home and shared with me via my e-mail address. I would love to hear from you all!

    10.40- 11.00- Physical exercise break. We have regular, short intervals of ‘Brain Gym’. We use internet videos like Cosmic Kids and GoNoodle to wake our brains up (every hour or so).

    11.00-12.00- Maths. I will continue to blog some more ideas involving Mathematics this week.

    12.10-1.15- Lunch.

    1.15-2.15- History, Geography, Science, PE, RE, DT and Library time.

    2.15- 2.45- Guided Reading/ Spellings. Please continue to look at the Key Spellings list that went home at the beginning of the academic year. If you cannot locate your paper, these can be found as a link on the Year One page. Please also read with your child every day. We have made such fantastic progress with reading this year and have made a big effort to ensure most children are heard every day. In order to not lose this momentum, please continue this at home.

    2.45- 3.00- Show and Tell/ Snack Time/ Story Time. Sharing stories is a different, and just as important, time to hearing your child read. Audible are releasing free audiobooks that all children can access.

    3.10- Home time.

    I am not asking anyone to home school their child for 6 hours a day, however, elements of all these lessons can be included in a way that meets both yours, and your child’s needs. Please remember to explore the links that I have posted on previous blogs.

    Also, please feel free to contact me via the e-mail address that can be found on the letter sent home last week. I will reply to any queries,  photos of works etc, as quickly as I can.

    Enjoy your day,

    Miss Muncey.

  • Mar 232020

    23.3.20- Collins Big Cat ebooks for Parents

    Dear Parents,

    In December, we purchased a new reading scheme- Collins Big Cat. Harper Collins have now made these available as interactive ebooks to all parents, free of charge. This is a fantastic resource that will be of use to all of your children. If you are unsure what colour band your child is currently reading, please check their the back of their reading book, or the coloured band/square at the top left hand corner of the front cover. If your child is ‘self-selecting’ their reading book, and these no longer have coloured bands on them, please select books above the purple band (Gold, White or Lime) as these books will still interest and challenge them.

    To access this fantastic resource, go to https://connect.collins.co.uk/school/Portal.aspx

    Click on the Teacher portal and enter:

    Username: parents@harpercollins.co.uk

    Password: Parents20!

    And click Login.

    Please note, that we will reassess the children when we come back together as a class so please understand that we are making this resource available to you as a tool to give your children access to free reading material and not as an assessment tool. Reading is far deeper than just saying the words out loud, but involves processing the sentences, understanding the text and adding expression, intonation and fluency. There is no need to rush through books- take your time, ask questions, ponder over the pictures, ask the children what they have enjoyed about the story, what they might do if they are the main character etc. They are interactive, they children can click things in the pictures, click the words for help etc.

    Enjoy!

    Miss Muncey