Year 1 - Curriculum Newsletter

Helping your child at
home
Important information
W E S T T H O R N TO N
P R I M A RY AC A D E M Y
Reading
PE
Curriculum
Newsletter
Please read with your child every night and
sign/date their yellow reading record.
Learning logs/handwriting
Children will receive a learning log question and
some handwriting practice every Friday which
will need to be completed and returned to school
by the following Wednesday. We ask for
Learning Log homework to be your child’s work
as far as possible and ideas are presented in a
creative way (printed pictures, drawings,
sentences, making mini books etc).
Our PE day is
Thursday
It is very important that children have the
correct PE kit in school, consisting of a white tshirt, navy shorts and plimsols. In cold weather,
children are allowed to bring in jogging bottoms
and a jumper to wear outside.
Letters will be sent home if children fail to bring
in their PE kits
Academy
Year 1 area
The year 1 area has equipment to be used by
the year 1 children. Please leave the year 1 area
promptly once you have collected your child so it
can be cleaned ready for the next day.
Reading for Pleasure
Children will be read with three times a week in
class. We aim to read from a variety of sources
including books, newspapers and digital media.
Children take will take home a book of their
choice on a daily basis.
Blogging
All children now have their own logins and passwords, please logon and post comments.
The blogs can be found at West Thornton Academy blogs.
Building Futures
Year 1 Team
Miss John
Year group leader/Class 1.1 Teacher
Year 1
Mr Chamberlain
Class 1.2 Teacher
Miss Starnes
Class 1.3 Teacher
Our Teaching Assistants
Mirs Gabriel, Miss Beck, Mrs McDermont, Mrs
Hasnein, Mrs Morris,
Rosecourt Road
Croydon
CR0 3BS
Phone: 0208 684 3497
E-mail: office@westthornton.croydon.sch.uk
This half term
Thank you for your support and well wishes over
the Christmas period, your gifts and kind words
were greatly appreciated.
This term year 1’s first learning challenge will be
‘Would it be good if dinosaurs had not died out?’
Through this topic we will be exploring historical
events in history including prehistoric environmental research. Children will have the opportunity
to find out about dinosaurs and extend their
learning in a number of ways, including; museum
visits, resident expert in paleontology and carrying out their own historical investigations.
Children will be using ICT facilities in school to
create their own content including fact files and
multi media presentations to share what they
have learnt.
In art we will use the subject of dinosaurs as a basis of development for
still life, sculpture and paint technique.
In Literacy we will be covering various
genres including recounting our trip, diary writing and
creating Jurassic fact files. We will
be developing questioning skills in
preparation for interviewing Dino
Dan.
Our main focus in
numeracy will be measuring, children will be
measuring using standard and non-standard
measures and looking at statistics concerning all
different dinosaurs shapes and sizes.
Dates for your diary
In the second half term year 1 will be learning
about history through toys , children will be discussing toys that their parents and grandparents
played with which will lead on to creating a timeline. In science children will be sorting toys and
investigating pushes and pulls, they will then make
their own moving toy. Children will think up philosophical questions and have discussions based on
the Toy Story 3 movie. Children will be organizing
a bring and buy sale to raise money for charity.
Our bring and buy sale last year was very successful and £165 was raised for the Special Care Baby
Unit at Croydon University Hospital.
Our numeracy will involve data handling where we
will be finding out which is the most popular toy in
the class.
As the space in the year 1 corridor is very limited
we ask that children do not bring their belongings
to school in back packs. If your child does not
have a school book bag or PE bag they can be
purchased from the school office.
As usual if you have any questions or problems
please do not hesitate in contacting us. Teachers
are available to speak to parents after school, or
if this is not convenient, please phone and make an
appointment.
Please note that it is extremely difficult to speak to
parents after the morning bell has gone as we are
legally responsible for the children in our class.
Thank you for your continued support.
Thursday 15th January 2015
Natural History Museum visit
Friday 13th February 2015
Inset day
Monday 16th February– Friday 20th
February 2015
Half term holidays
Thursday 26th March
Parents consultation evening
Friday 27th March
End of Spring Term