7 Feb 2017

Yr1 Weekly Update – 02/10/17

People create homes to suit their needs

 

Unit

During our Unit of Inquiry, we have explored the concept of what a home is. Children have looked into the structure and purpose of homes and come up with their own definitions of a ‘home’. Through this process they have begun to explore a variety of homes and formed questions around the structure, purpose, materials and diversity of homes around the world.

 

Suggested activities: Look at the similarities and differences of your childhood homes to those of today. to help us know if we read and write long vowel combinations.Start to explore the materials around your home and talk about the function they have.

Questions: How are homes the same? How are homes different? Why do we need homes? What are the materials used when building homes? Why are these materials used? What would happen is a different material was used?

 

Phonics and Literacy

During Phonics we are exploring at differentiated levels the roles vowles play in words. For some this means looking at end blends with short vowels such as ‘ag’, ‘ed’ etc. For others they have been looking at the role of long vowels in words and some of the strategies to help us know if we read and write long vowel combinations. During Literacy we have explored different text types, fiction/story texts and nonfiction/informational texts. They are beginning to look at the format and type of language used in informational texts so they can beginning to apply this knowledge in making their own texts.

 

Suggested activities: Read with your child some informational texts and talk about the structure of them such as Index page, Glossary, Contents page, Labels and captions.

Questions: How do you know this is an informational text? What can I learn from this text? How is this type of text different from a story text? What are the different parts to this text?

 

Maths

In Maths we have been assessing children’s understanding of 2D and 3D shapes and planning where to go next in their learning. They will be exploring how to name the shapes, how to talk about the elements of that shape such sides, corners, faces and how to create shapes.

 

Suggested activities: Go on a shape hunt in different environments and ask your child to identify different shapes. Differentiate this by either using 2D shape names or 3D shape names. Challenge them to explain how they know it is that shape.

Questions: What shapes can you see? Are there any shapes that you don’t know the name of? Can you see any ways smaller shapes are used to create bigger shapes? Is it a 2D shape or a 3D shape? How do you know that? How is the shape the same or different from the other shape?