Good morning Year 1, how are you all doing? I hope you've had a good couple of weeks off and that the Easter Bunny managed to make it to your house. We are still missing you all terribly and wish that we were welcoming you back into our classroom today. I have set you some work to be getting busy with at home and I hope that you work as hard at home as you do in school. Enjoy doing the tasks and if you get stuck on anything just let me know. 

Our topic for this half term would normally be 'An Island Home' based on the stories of Katie Morag. I would love to share the stories with you as it is often one of our favourite topics but I am still waiting to hear back from the publisher to find out how I can share them. If not I will try and adapt the plans so that we can use the BBC TV series as a back up plan!! 

I have linked in some Maths to get started with this week. The BBC are producing some daily lessons but they don't go live until Monday morning and I want to check them out myself before adding on the link here. So I will keep you posted on those. 

I have included some Maths, English and Science for the next few days. Mrs Taylor will be adding in some work for later in the week. Remember to keep moving and add a little bit of PE into every day. Any questions please do not hesitate in emailing us.

Hope you are all safe and well and we look forward to hearing from you.

Mrs Jennings 

MATHS

Click on the link for this week's maths. There is a short teaching video for each day and it will prompt you to pause and answer some questions. Don't worry about printing it all off, you can either answer the questions by writing them down on a piece of paper or answer them orally and discuss them. 

ENGLISH DAY 1 - using exclamation marks

Remind your child about capital letters and full stops when writing sentences and then ask what we add when asking a question. Today we are going to introduce a new piece of punctuation called an exclamation mark. This would go at the end of a sentence instead of a full stop or question mark. 

Look at the Powerpoint together and discuss. This is followed up with a short writing task. Don't worry if you can't print it, just ask your child to write the sentences out, or tell you which punctuation mark to use. There are three versions of the sheet * is the easiest and *** is the most challenging. Most of the children will be fine with the middle sheet, adjust where necessary.

ENGLISH DAY 2 - plurals using s and es

Today we are looking at how we spell plurals for different nouns. We are going to look at when we add 's' to a word to make it a plural and when we add 'es'. Look at the Powerpoint together and discuss and play the game at the end by sorting the words. This can be done by the children writing out each of the words and deciding which box they would go in. The last slide shows the answers as you click on each picture. There is also an additional writing sheet if they would like to have a go at that too.

ENGLISH DAY 3 - Think and write

Today is a short writing task. Look at the Powerpoint and it guides you through what to do. The second slide has a bigger version of the picture. Remind the children what they know about what makes a good sentence and the punctuation that is needed at the start and the end. Once they have completed the few sentences they could turn it into a short adventure story if they wish. Enjoy!

SCIENCE

Our new science topic for this half term is Plants. Year 1 curriculum is all about knowing and identifying common wild and garden plants, including the difference between deciduous and evergreen trees. They also need to know the basic structure of a variety of flowering plants and trees. I always like to start a new topic off by finding out what the children know. So I have included a quick task for them to complete by themselves and then you can discuss with them what they included in their list.

Another great initial activity is to look carefully at some plants that they might not realise are plants, such as fruits and vegetables. Cut a tomato/pepper/apple etc in half and discuss what they can see. Perhaps they could do an observational drawing of one, thinking carefully about lines and colour. We would use a magnifying glass in school to look observe carefully. One way of getting round this at home, if you don’t have one, is to try and take a photo with your phone and then zoom in to different parts.

Finally, I have included a Tree Hunt sheet. This would be great to use on your daily walk, or if you are lucky enough to have some trees in your garden. You could take it out with you on a couple of different routes and see what different trees you can spot.

There is also a link to a short clip from the BBC bitesize website. It looks at how plants are living things.