Welcome to the Year 1 Class Page!

Class Teacher: Miss Benson

Support Staff: Mrs Hughes 

Email: [email protected]

Hello and welcome to Year 1's class page! Myself and Mrs Hughes are so excited for a year of engaging and fun learning! I am Miss Benson. I was born in Blackpool but have always taught here in Leeds. This is my fifth year teaching at Armley Park and I love being part of the Armley team. I am looking forward to meeting my new class this year and learning all about their interests.  

We hope you enjoy looking at our class page. We will update this regularly throughout the year with photographs of what we have been doing and also with key information which you may find useful. If you have any questions, please contact me on the year group email [email protected] and I will do my best to help. 

P.E day - Thursday
Change Reading Books - Wednesday and Friday 

Summer 2

Our trip to None Go Bye Farm! The children had an amazing time, stroking and feeding the animals. We saw goats, alpacas, cows, sheep, llamas, donkeys, chickens, ducks, pigs, Guinea pigs, rabbits, a pony and lambs! The children even got to sit on a real tractor. 

Summer 1

Weeks 5 and 6 (15.5 - 25.5)

Explorers week!! The final week of the half term has been explorers week across school. Our explorer was Bear Grylls. Throughout the week, the children participated in orienteering, den building and fire building/roasting with support of year 6. The children also took part in a commando joe session where they had to use team building skills to create a boat that would help them across the Northern Atlantic (like Bear Grylls!) 

Writing for explorers week! As our explorer for the week was Bear Grylls, we focused on his expedition across the Northern Atlantic in an inflatable boat (Cat Engine Powered RIB). Our hook was pretending that we were crossing the Northern Atlantic in a real inflatable boat! We went through storms and came across icebergs. By the end of the week, the children produced a post card in the perspective of Bear Grylls, writing to his wife. They wrote about their thoughts, feelings and what they could see. 

National Numeracy Day! The children were given a jar of money but were not told the amount that was inside. The children had to work collaboratively to count in 2’s and 10’s to work out the amounts. Together, we added these to work out the overall total. Inside the jar, we even found some money from different countries! We spoke about how we could not use this money to buy things in the UK so we didn’t include it in our total. 

Weeks 3 and 4 (1.5 - 12.5)

Science - Creating our rain gauge’s to put in our playground. Over the next few weeks we are going to be measuring the rainfall and completing a rainfall diary. 

Digital art experimenting with shape and colour in our Computing lessons -

The children made some super crowns at home for King Charles ||| Coronation! Here they are showing them off before our Coronation assembly. 

Weeks 1 and 2 (17.4 - 28.4)

Measuring mass in a practical maths lesson! 

Identifying heavier and lighter in a practical maths activity. 

Having lots of fun during our Commando Joe sessions! During our missions, we had to transport porridge oats for Goldilocks and pass treasure down the beanstalk for Jack. 

Digital art during computing lessons, in the style of Piet Mondrian.

Spring 2

Weeks 5 and 6 (20.3 - 31.3) 

Our trip to Pudsey Civic Hall for the music event ‘The Little Sing - Jump into the Jungle’. The children had a fantastic afternoon out, even loving the bus journey! They sang, danced and even got to play some instruments. 

Commando Joes! 
Lots of team work and collaboration in our commando joes session this week. The children had the mission of creating a safe way for Goldilocks to travel across the river to the cottage. The children came up with some super ideas and were able to work together to get across, even when Miss Benson kept adding obstacles like laser balls! 

Weeks 3 and 4 (6.3 - 17.3)

Maths - Partitioning numbers within 50 into tens and ones. 

History - 

In History, we have been looking at the history of nursing and how nursing has changed over time. We have been learning about Florence Nightingale and the changes that she made to hospitals during the Crimean war. We have learn lots about Florence’s life and how she is significant because of the lasting impact that she had on nursing and health care. 
 

We also learnt about the life of Mary Seacole and the positive influence that she had on nursing during the Crimean war. We looked at the similarities and differences between Florence and Mary and why they may have been treated differently. 

Weeks 1 and 2 20.2 - 3.3

Our trip to Interplay theatre! 

Year 1 went on a trip to the Interplay theatre to watch and be involved in their new performance about the Seasons! The children loved getting involved and performing alongside the actors. They were so confident and made us really proud! 

Digital art in computing lessons!

Spring 1 

Week 5 and 6 (30.1 - 10.2)

Literature week - Aesop’s Fables. 
The last week of this half term has been Literature Week. Each class looked at Aesop and a range of his fables - identifying the moral behind each one.
Writing -

In Writing we looked at ‘The Boy who Cried Wolf’ and after some brainstorming and discussion, the children decided to innovate the fable to ‘The Moose who Cried I’m stuck in a tree!’. The children absolutely loved innovating the story map, creating actions, planning their fable and eventually writing it. 
Art - (Drawing and sketching focus)

In Art, we looked at the fable ‘The Hare and the Tortoise’. We started Art by looking at line and pattern. The children had to practise using lines of different thickness to recreate a pattern. We then moved on to looking at a tortoises shell and the patterns within it. The children had a go at using lines of different thickness and shading to recreate the patterns on a shell. Our final piece focused on the shell of both a tortoise and a turtle. The children had to use the skills that they had learnt (line, shading and pattern) to sketch the animal. 

On Friday, our parents came into the hall to look at a showcase of our learning and a video of us performing ‘The Moose who cried ‘I’m stuck in a tree!’. The children were so excited. 

D.T - In D.T, the children have designed and made their own moving picture for Nursery and Reception. The theme of our moving pictures was ‘Traction Man’ so that we could show the children how exciting our story and characters have been. We practised making the mechanisms ‘sliders’ ‘levers’ and ‘wheels’ before the children had to choose which mechanism they were going to include in their picture. The children had to follow their design and brief really carefully when making their moving picture and tried really hard to be independent when adding their mechanism. Here are some of our finished products!

Weeks 3 and 4  (16.1 - 27.1)

History - Looking at toys that our parents and grandparents played with! 
As a homework task we asked the children to talk to their parents and grandparents about what toys they played with when they were younger. We also asked if the parents would kindly bring us in some toys that they played with if they still had some at home. The children were so excited to look at the toys. We talked about how the paint was cracked on some Russian dolls, we talked about some of the similarities and differences between our toys, and even watched some African games on YouTube that had been played by some of our parents! 

History - Comparing old and new toys 

We have also been comparing old and new toys in our history lessons. We have been looking closely at their materials and their condition. The children worked in groups to sort the toys and then had a go independently in their books. 

Some practical maths! 
In maths we have been continuing to look at numbers within 20, focusing on teen numbers. In our lesson on Wednesday (25.1) the children had to focus on the number 20. We looked at how many tens and ones make 20 and how many different ways we could write and represent it. 

Week 1 and 2 (4.1 - 13.1) 

TOYS HOOK - Our new topic is ‘The History of Toys’. To introduce the topic and get the children excited, we asked the children to bring in their favourite toy from home. We sat in a circle and each child had their turn to talk about their toy and what they like to do with it at home (its purpose as a toy). We then sorted the toys into materials and talked about how many of these toys are new and that the majority of our toys were made out of plastic. We are going to move on to looking at old toys and comparing them. 

A surprise package! We arrived back at school after the Christmas holidays to a surprise package. Inside the box we found a Traction Man toy and book! The children were so excited to read the book and find out who Traction Man is and what he does. 

Autumn 2

Last week fun! (Week 7)

Visit from Santa, Christmas party and our Christmas singing performance! What an exciting week. 

Weeks 5 and 6 - (30.11 - 9.12)

A video call with famous author illustrator Nick Sharratt!  
The children loved hearing about Nick Sharratts work and joining in with his ‘draw along’ of a character. 

D.T - Designing and making our healthy dips! The children chose what they wanted to include in their dip during the design process, before using safe cutting techniques to chop up their vegetables and make their dip. We then tried them ready to evaluate them next week. 

Decorating our Christmas tree! 
Hexagon group got to help decorate our class Christmas tree as they had worked really hard as a team all week to make good choices and show five! The children loved decorating our tree, they used lots of tinsel and were amazed by all the different decorations. We think they did a super job.

Science - Carnivores, Herbivores and Omnivores - sorting in groups and our animal poo investigation! If the ‘animal poo’ had meat (strawberry laces) and bones (pasta) in it then it must have been a carnivore, if the ‘animal poo’ had leaves or seeds in it then it must have been a herbivore, if the ‘animal poo’ had all of these in then it must have been an omnivore! The children loved trying to work them out. 

Weeks 3 and 4 (14.11 - 25.11) -

Science - comparing and grouping animals. 

We have been practising using conjunction ‘and’ - the children worked in partners to match the sentences and join them together using ‘and’, before writing their own sentences with it included. 

Practical maths - finding a part and fact families 

Art - Observational drawings and natural sculptures.

Week 1 and 2 (7.11 - 11.11) -

Art - Nature hunt ready for next weeks observational drawings!

Remembrance Day 

Throughout the week, we made poppies out of card to put on to our uniforms. We discussed the soldiers and why we have Remembrance Day. The children also painted poppies and in our library time on Friday we read the story ‘Where the poppies grow’.  

Sense challenge in the provision -

Week 7 -  17.10 - 22.10
ENTERPRISE WEEK! 
This week it has been enterprise week across the academy trust. Each year group had to think of their own product to promote and theoretically sell. The children had to create their product, think of a price, make posters to promote it and write some persuasive text. Some children then stood up in our ‘Apprentice style’ enterprise assembly to sell their product to the rest of the school! 

Year 1 created commemorative royal plates to mark King Charles ||| accession to the throne! This linked in really well with our United Kingdom topic. The children loved designing and making their plates! We included maths by using repeating patterns and making sure we had a certain number of each object on our product. We also used our phonics to create posters and our persuasive text. We were so happy with our finished plates, the children worked so hard to paint carefully so that they included all of the details from their design. 

Making our commemorative royal plates!

Week 5 and 6

Art!
In Art we have been continuing with our ‘Landscapes and Cityscapes’ topic. We have been looking at artists Monet and Metzinger and creating Art inspired by their famous pieces. We have used pastels and collage in a mosaic style! We have been so proud of their hard work. 

Independent challenges in the provision! Each week we have independent challenges in the areas of provision for the children to complete. They have been very busy over the last few weeks practising their phonics, comparing numbers and writing their letters independently. 

Our latest Talk for Writing text is a set of instructions on how to make a marmalade sandwich! The children enjoyed following my ‘WAGOLL’ instructions to make a sandwich with their partner! We have also been practising our Talk for Writing actions to help us to remember the vocabulary and structure of the text. The children then worked collaboratively to play the ‘barrier’ game, allowing them to use time conjunctions and imperative verbs whilst having fun! 

Week 3 and 4

Lots of practical maths over the last few weeks! We have been finding one more and one less, counting backwards within 10 and comparing objects using the language of ‘fewer’ ‘more’ and ‘the same’. The children have blown us away with their determination! 

Weeks 1 and 2

Library time! Each Friday we are lucky enough to visit our brand new library. We enjoyed listening to Miss Benson read a story and even some of us got to sit on the comfy new bean bags! 

Practical maths lessons! In the first few weeks we have been busy starting our maths lessons. We have done some practical lessons and some activities in our books. Here are some pictures of us sorting shapes into different groups, as well as us representing numbers using objects. 

Writing -

in Writing, we have begun looking at the story and story map of Paddington travelling around the United Kingdom. We have been making up our Talk for Writing actions and practising them each day! We have been building and writing sentences about what Paddington has been up to, as well as using role play to re-tell the story!

Art and Geography - Van Goghs starry night and labelling the countries of the UK