10 Mar 2017

Yr1 Weekly Update – 03/10/17

People create homes to suit their needs

 

Unit

As the children have become more knowledgeable about different types of homes and the role the environment plays in the design and structure of them, we have begun to look more in-depth at the materials used in building homes. We have focused on four main types of materials: wood, rock, sand and clay. We have begun to identify their properties by shape, colour, texture and the way we can manipulate them. We have used our skill of application to apply what we know to building homes from these materials.

Suggested activities: Ask your child to go on a material hunt, finding things that are wood, metal, plastic etc. Ask your child to identify materials as manmade or natural.  Explore with them how the original source of the material is natural, such such as clay, however the shape and design are manmade. Look at the properties of materials with your child and compare them with others such as plastic that doesn’t bend and plastic that does.

 

Questions: What material is this? Is it manmade or natural? Where does this material come from? What would I use this material for? How can I shape this material? Can this material stretch/bend/twist/snap?

 

Phonics and Literacy

Phonics activities have been based around finding different combinations of sounds in words, such as ‘ag’ is in ‘bag’, ‘brag’, ‘baggage’. We have been making words lists using short vowel combinations such as ‘ig’, ‘op’, ‘ut’ etc.  During Literacy we have continued to look at informational texts and focused on our reading skills. Children have been finding out ways to help them understand complex ideas about homes/materials and other topics. They are using the strategy read/pause/summarise when reading a new idea in a text. After reading a sentence they need to pause, rephrase and explain the information in their own words.

 

Suggested activities: Play phonic games with your child such as who can make more words with blends in them, e.g. ‘ip’ or’ ake’. Go onto http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk  and play some trash or treasure games with ‘Obb and Bob’ or ‘Dragons Den’.

Questions: What vowel sound does this word have? Is it a long or short vowel sound? What real words can you make? What nonsense words can you  make?

 

 

Maths

Children are becoming more familiar with 2D and 3D shapes and using more accurate vocabulary to describe them. We have begun to look at the properties of shapes beyond lines, corners and faces. We are exploring how the lines on shapes affect how the shape is used, such as can it roll, slide or stack.  In number we are continuing to use problem-solving skills to show the value of numbers. We are forming strategies to help us solve number problems. First we think about the nature of the problem; do we need to subtract or add? Next the numbers,  which is the number we are going to add/take away from and which number we are going to add/take away. Finally is the procedure they are going to use to solve it.

 

Suggested activities: Ask your child to practise counting on and back to given numbers from 1-100. For example count on 7 from 55 or count back 100 from 73. If your child finds this difficult stick to numbers 1-20. If your child finds this easy make the number they count on or back bigger such as count back 12.

Questions: When I count back/on what happens to the number? How can I make the number smaller/bigger?