Happy New Year! It is lovely to see the children back at school after the Christmas holidays. Thank you for all your support so far. Please try to hear your child read every evening – even if only for a few minutes – as this really helps with their confidence and progress. Remember to make a note in the reading record each time. Children who read at home every day for seven consecutive days (with signature in reading record) will be entered into a draw to win a book each week.
Please remember to check the talk homework in the newsletter emailed out each week, as this always refers to something we are covering in class. This term our Literacy homework focus will be on writing sentences. Please support your child by checking that they are remembering to use capital letters and full stops correctly.
Here are some dates for your diary:
Thursday 17th January Drama session (Superheroes) run by Perform
Thursday 7th March World Book Day (come to school dressed as a character from a book – more details to follow)
Tuesday 19th March Haiku Poetry Workshop run by Norden Farm
Please find overleaf the list of topics that we will be following in Year 1 this term (until Easter). I hope that this information will help you to support your child in the best possible way.
Year 1 Spring Term Topics
Pencil grip
It’s a good idea to encourage a good pencil grip and fine motor control with children at this age. This helps them with their handwriting and also with cutting, doing up buttons etc. Suitable activities you could do at home include playing with Play-Doh, making scrapbooks, cutting pictures out of catalogues, magazines etc. You can buy sticks of glue at the school shop more cheaply than in the shops. The school shop is open every break time.
Reading
Please continue to hear your child read as often as you can at home. This is a wonderful opportunity to build your child’s love of books and reading, so do make it fun! Remember that we are concentrating on building the children’s comprehension ability, so make sure that you talk about the story together and ask them questions about it. Make use of the parents’ notes in the front and back covers of many of the newer books. This will also help the children’s creative ability when they come to write their own stories.
Phonics website you may find useful
Phonics play – Select Phases 4 & 5
Here are some websites which the children will enjoy and will complement their learning in class:-
www.phonicsplay.co.uk (select phase 3)
http://www.abpischools.org.uk/page/modules/materials/game.cfm?coSiteNavigation_allTopic=1 Science materials game
www.ictgames.com/fairyClock_v5.html good for telling the time
http://www.ictgames.com/coinAbacus_v2.html counting money
http://www.ictgames.com/Y2shape.html 3D shapes
http://www.abc.net.au/countusin/default.htm general maths games