*Our Learning for this term*

Summer Term 1 2026 

Home Sweet Home!

 Welcome to Summer Term one, the year is flying by and our Year One children are working so hard!

Our fabulous topic for this half-term is ‘Home Sweet Home’. 

Our Geography focus will be learning about our local area. The children will use fieldwork and observational skills to study the geography of our school and the grounds. We will be learning about the key human and physical features of our surrounding environment: the West End of Lincoln. We will be furthering our understanding of the differences between photographs and maps. We will be reading and following maps, noting the symbols, before creating a large scale map of our local area.

In Art, the children will be taking inspiration from the artist Angela Harding, discussing her work inspired by the landscape. We will explore materials, using different pencils for sketching and learn about lino printing. We will then design and make our own house lino print!

In Science, we will be finding out about carnivores, herbivores and omnivores. We will find out about their key features and be able to name some examples. We will use this and our previous learning to sort and classify different animals, using their features. We will also once again look at seasonal changes and the reason for these.  

In PSHE, we are learning about physical health and mental wellbeing. This includes keeping healthy; food, exercise, and hygiene routines. We will also be learning about how rules and age restrictions help us to keep us safe online. Our computing links with our PSHE, and the children will take part in three Natterhub lessons.

For RE this term we will be considering different festivals and how stories play a part in their meaning and celebrations. Although much of the focus will be on Easter and Passover we will be looking at similar celebrations as part of other festivals.

In PE, we will be continuing our gym sessions, working on movement and rotation. We will also be using equipment to send and receive, control and practise our response and reactions through a variety of games. 

Our Forest School journey will also continue throughout the term. Please ensure that your child has their forest school things with them on their days.

We are so excited to be visiting The Lincolnshire Life Museum and Mrs Smith’s Cottage in Navenby with the children this term.

We have many carefully selected high-quality texts for story time that link to ‘Home Sweet Home’, we cannot wait to start reading them. These include The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Sharing a Shell, On my way home, A Squash and a Squeeze and The whale who Wanted More. Please feel free to bring in any books from home that have a similar theme, as we would love to share these during our story times!

New vocabulary will include: carnivore, herbivore and omnivore, sketch, printing, human features, physical features, being unique and a healthy lifestyle.

English

In English our Talk for Writing focus story is ‘The Storm Whale’. We will learn how to retell the story, write detailed character descriptions and explore new language.  We will also learn all about the suffixes ‘s’ and ‘es’ and use these in our writing.  We are looking forward to writing in a range of different styles, including instructions and descriptive poems.

Maths

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

Multiplication and Division and simple fractions, such as half and quarter of shapes and objects. We will continue to incorporate flashbacks to consolidate our previous learning.

New Vocabulary: multiply, divide, half, quarter, whole, left, right, clockwise

We will continue 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!!

Our daily lessons will take the same format and build on the phonics teaching from last term. This progresses quickly and so practicing new sounds and spellings is vital.  Please practise reading both tricky words, words with our new sounds in and also spellings at home. If you have any questions, please just ask your child’s class teacher.   

 

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:

• Go for a walk in our local area and show where you walked on a real map or draw a map of the route. Why not create a map to use to travel to school or to the park? Make sure you add any symbols.
• Tell us about a different town or city that you visit where your friends or relatives live. Why not create a fact file or leaflet about it?
• Take photographs of different landmarks in Lincoln. Could you use sketch them, or create a model of a landmark, either out of junk modelling or construction? Why not add some labels too?
• Design the ideal home – this could be anywhere in the world! What makes it special?
• Research a carnivore, herbivore or omnivore. Why not display your information like a top trump card? Or a 3 clue quiz?