The Grove Primary School

It has been a fantastic final term in Year One! We have learnt so much and had a lot of memorable fun with our topic ‘Off, Off We Go!’

It feels like such a long time ago when we started our topic with a Rail Safety workshop. We learned how to stay safe around railway lines, on platforms and in trains. We were then able to put what we had learnt into practise when we travelled on a train to Bath. The children still talk excitedly about this experience!

 ‘Off we went’ to Africa for one of our English activities. We learnt the story ‘Awongalema’ and then we used our drama skills to perform the story using masks. The children were eager to take the role of narrator as well as the different animal characters. We then wrote the story in our own words.    

In Science, we returned to our Plants topic and learnt to recognise and name some common wild and garden flowers. We went for a walk around our local area and identified a variety of garden plants. We kept a tally as we walked to be able to identify which garden flower is the most popular in Hazel Grove.

It has been a wonderfully busy term in Art and Design too! We started the term with several of our Year One pupils displaying their self-portraits at County Hall. Then we made hot air balloons and worked on several skills to produce them, including weaving, plaiting, cutting, gluing, trimming and mixing materials to create textures by mixing paint with flour, sand and oats. We had a lot of fun making our hot air balloons and they look fabulous.

In Geography, we have been naming and locating the seven continents and some countries within them as well as learning the four countries in the UK and where we are in the world. We have used maps, atlases and globes to do this. We also worked in small groups to make our own globes using beach balls. We have loved singing ‘The Seven Continents’ song too! At the end of the term, we learnt about the four points on a compass and used simple maps of the school grounds to help us move to certain features.

We have loved our Music lessons this year. We have learnt to play a range of percussion instruments and now we can keep a steady beat as we accompany different songs. We sound really good!

In Maths, we have worked really hard on learning our bigger numbers using tens and ones and finding one more and one less. We have also been working with money and playing shops with coins. The children loved this!! We have also looked at time and the children have enjoyed practically focusing on o’clock and half past.

This year has been a brilliant year for Year One with so many highlights and achievements. We are so proud of all the children and the progress they have made personally, socially and academically. Thank you for all the hard work which has been done at home with reading, spelling and times tables – it really does make all the difference!

We wish you all a fabulous summer break.