Welcome to the Picasso Bugs!

Hello and welcome!

*Meet the Picasso Bug grown-ups*

The grown-ups in the Picasso Bug class are Miss Cocking, Mrs Parkinson and Mrs Warner. We love teaching the Picasso Bugs and we are so proud of their achievements!

If you ever have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. Thank you! 

*Our Christian Value for the term*

Our Christian value for this term is Friendship.

Friendship is such an important value in our society, with children often spending more time with their friends than with family.

Jesus tells stories of the heavenly banquet to which all are invited. The barriers between people are broken down in a loving community around God, and Jesus had stern words to say to those who refused to recognise that all are included in this community of friendship.

True friendship enables each person to grow and ensures that the unique individuality of each person is recognised. All this echoes the value placed by God on the preciousness of each person.

‘A friend loves at all times.’ (Proverbs 17:17)

*Our Learning for this term*

Autumn Term 1

Fantastic Families!

Our first exciting topic for this school year is Fantastic Families.  Within this topic we will explore different families, respect, our new class family and how kindness makes others feel through our PSE curriculum. We will also set up and begin to use our online learning platform Natterhub to support this. Natterhub will also form part of our computing curriculum as we create our own avatars and begin to explore online safety. In History, we will be learning about significant people from the past focusing on Florence Nightingale and Mary Secole.

In science we are beginning our learning journey by furthering our knowledge of the human body. We will learn the name and use of different parts of the body and link this to our five senses which we will explore deeply through a range of different practical activities. Alongside this, our art work will focus on portraits, using different media and then the portraits Picasso created.  

This term our RE focuses on Christianity and considers the question “What do Christians believe about God”? During this unit of learning we will explore the meaning of different parables and different types of Christian prayer.

We also have many carefully selected high quality texts for story time that link to Fantastic Families, we cannot wait to start reading them. These include Elmer, Avacado baby, Burglar Bill, We’re going on a bear hunt, Five minutes peace, The Singing Mermaid and Perfectly Norman.

We will also be doing PE, sessions with the sports coach and beginning our Forest School journey.

English

Children are continuing to practice correct letter formation in their handwriting, ensuring that letters are the correct size and are all facing the correct way. We are continuing to look at the sizing of our letters, focusing on ascenders and descenders and beginning to join some letters.      

Through Talk for Writing, our focus story is ‘The Enormous Turnip’. We will become very familiar with the story through re-telling it orally and using a number of different writing styles to put our own spin on the story! We will also be developing our understanding of spelling, punctuation and grammar, the use of adjectives and writing carefully composed sentences.

Maths

In Year One we follow a maths scheme called White Rose Maths. This term, we will cover:

Place Value and Addition and Subtraction. These units of work will further develop knowledge and skills in sorting, counting, comparing numbers and ordering numbers. We will also use and understand part, part whole models, number bonds and fact families to further develop our understanding of addition and subtraction.

Each term the consolidation of pervious knowledge is also planned into the curriculum as needed for the individual class.

We will also start our “Mastering Number” programme, using short, practical activities to develop pupils’ confidence, and understanding of number. These are 10 minute daily sessions and are in additional to our maths lessons.   

Phonics information and reading

As always, we place huge emphasis on the importance of regular reading practice both in and out of school. Every child will be allocated a Reading Practice group and will read three times with their group each week. Books will be changed each Monday.

Please ensure that your child brings their reading practice book and reading record to school each day so that we can assess and record their progress appropriately. Hearing your child read at least 3x a week is very valuable in developing their reading skills and their love of reading! We cannot emphasise this enough!!

As we start the school year we will begin the next step in our phonics journey. Our daily lessons will take the same format and build on the phonics teaching from Reception. This progresses quickly and so practicing new sounds and spellings is vital. More information about our expectations for reading and spelling and how you can support your child at home will be sent home in a separate letter.

Extra helpful info

Children will be doing PE on different days throughout the term, so it is important that your child has their PE kit in school every week so that they can fully engage in activities.

All children will be taking part in Forest school this year. We will inform you when it is your child’s turn through a separate letter, along with any clothing they may need, so please keep an eye out for this!

Homework Challenges

These can be handed in at any point up until half term and be done in any format – photos, videos, writing, drawings, or any other type of artwork. Please choose from the following:

• Create a family tree of your own family.
• Find out about other amazing people from history and what kind things they did for us!
• Create a healthy meal with your family and share it together.
• Create a family portrait using the knowledge you now have from creating self-portraits in school.

Explore your senses at home by tasting new food, creating a dark den or going on a listening walk.

For further homework ideas please see our newsletter.