Blackfell Primary School

Our First Week in Year 1!

We have had an exciting first week in Year 1! We have been learning all about the rules and routines in our new classroom, finding our way around key stage 1, playing on the yard, and completing lots of PSHE activities all linked to 'New Beginnings'. We can't wait for the fantastic year ahead! 

Science - Material Hunt!

Our first Science topic is ‘Everyday Materials’. In our first lesson, we explored lots of different materials including: wood, plastic, glass, metal, water, and rock. To help us identify which materials are around us in the classroom and our outdoor area, we went on a material hunt. When we found an object, we discussed the material we thought it was made from and why we thought it was this material by discussing its properties. We then stuck a label on the object to identify what it was made from.  

World Mental Health Day

On Friday 8th October, we celebrated World Mental Health Day in school. We all arrived at school dressed in Yellow which represents happiness! We started the morning with a visit from Y6 who read us some inspirational quotes they had written. We then completed some Cosmic Yoga to help us relax, and get ready for the day ahead. After that, we tasted some yellow fruits such as melon, pear, mango, pineapple and banana; having a healthy diet is an important way to support your mental health and wellbeing! Once we had eaten our fruit, we discussed objects we had brought in that makes us feel happy and calm such as teddies, dolls and photographs of important times in our lives, and placed these in our class box. We also placed in pieces of paper on which we had written things that makes us happy; we can look at these whenever we feel we need to.  Later in the morning, we visited the library where we read some more quotes from Y6 and had our photograph taken with some of the yellow props - we had lots of fun! In the afternoon, we designed our own superhero to support children's mental health. We decided the power of love, animals, friendship and colours were important! We had a great day and learnt lots about ways we can calm down, feel happy, and relax. 

Art - Mixing Colours

Year 1 have been learning all about how colours are created in Art this term. We have learnt about the primary colours - red, yellow and blue - and used this to help us mix colours to create the secondary colours. We found out that when we mix red and blue we can make purple, when we mix red and yellow we can make orange, and when we mix blue and yellow we can make green. We practised this and created our own colour wheels to demonstrate our mixing skills! 

Music-Similarities and Differences!

We listened and appraised the song The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air by Will Smith. We listened to the song and moved our bodies to the pulse. We learned that the song was an old school hip hop style. We then discussed the on screen questions. Did we like the song? What could we hear? What style of music was it? We thought about why we liked or did not like the song. We also discussed how many different voices we could hear and if they were male or female. We then decided which instruments we could hear and learned about the use of synthesizers and decks that would be used to mix different songs together. Finally we listened to both songs again and discussed what was the same or different in ‘Hey You’ and ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel Air’. Great work everyone!

Maths- Number Bonds to 10!

Year 1 have enjoyed doing practical activities to learn about number bonds to 10. We used a song to help us. We raised each arm as we shouted the numbers then showed 10 fingers to represent the whole number. eg: 6 and 4 make 10. We repeated this for each number bond. After that, we were split into groups of ten and we arranged ourselves into groups when the two numbers were shouted out then came back together to show the whole number 10. Well done Year 1!

Children in Need

Year 1 have been showing their support for others by coming into school dressed up in Pudsey Bear accessories for Children in Need. We each donated £1 to charity to come into school in non uniform. We also spent some of our free time colouring in pictures of Pudsey, and Phoebe even set up a 'Pudsey Bear Shop' outside on the yard! 

Reading Suitcase

Well done to Harrison who was our Star Reader this week and took home the reading suitcase with a book to share, hot chocolate, biscuits, a teddy bear, and a journal to write in. Harrison has really impressed us with his fantastic sounding and blending skills during phonics lessons, which he was then able to use to help him decode words in a new reading book. We are very proud!

Computing

In our first Computing lesson, we learnt how to login to both the laptop and Purple Mash using our own logins. We then created our own avatar and discussed why they are used - to recognise our own profile and ensure we are accessing our own work. 

PSHE - What do we share and what do we keep private?

In our PSHE lesson this week, we discussed the things we can share and the things we should keep private in a bit more detail. We were given 2 hoops – red for things we should keep private, and blue for things we can tell others. As a class, we decided we can tell others information such as the name of our favourite superhero, our favourite food, and songs we enjoy, but that we should never share our name, address, telephone number or passwords. Miss Henderson then asked us, “Is there anyone you can ever share the information in the red circle with?” We discussed only ever sharing this information in an emergency such as getting lost, hurt or in trouble, and seeking help from a police officer, teacher, medical professional, or close friends and family that we trust.

Music - Hey You!

We listened and appraised the song Hey You! By Joanna Mangona. We learned that the pulse is a steady beat that doesn’t change and is the heartbeat of the song. First we discussed if we liked the song. The children told me they liked the rhythm, it made them feel happy, it had a good beat. We listened to the song again and decided which instruments we could hear. We then enjoyed doing warm up activities such as finding the pulse, pretending to be the animals and copying their actions, doing facial exercises, clapping back rhythm patterns and learned about pitch.

Book Fair

Year 1 went to visit the book fair while it was in school. We explored the books that were on display, and talked about which ones we liked based on the cover and the blurb. We were very excited to see all of the new stories we could read! 

Reading for Pleasure!

Today we have visited our key stage one library. We listened very carefully to the rules that we needed to follow whilst choosing a new book... eg: Do we talk in a loud voice? Do we speak to each other in a quiet voice? Can we point to the title? Can we find the blurb,? Do we find the book interesting by looking at the cover? Will we like the book judging it by it's cover? We then shared our books with our friends and discussed the characters and setting of our new books. We also found capital letters, full stops and speech bubbles.  We can't wait to share our new book with our families. Happy reading everyone! 

Snuggle up with a book!

Sephora was our 'Star Reader' this week for trying really hard to sound and blend new words. She was so happy to be presented with the special box to take home. The box includes: a book, some biscuits, a teddy bear and a hot chocolate. The children are encouraged to draw a picture of the front cover and share with the class where they chose to read the story. We will be displaying any pictures in our reading area in class. Congratulations Sephora! We are so proud of you!

Music - The Rapper's Delight

We listened and appraised the song Rapper’s Delight by The Sugarhill Gang. We listened to the song and we were able to find and move our bodies to the pulse. We learnt The Sugarhill Gang were an American hip hop group during the late 1970’s. The songs opening lyric says “I said a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie to the hip, hip, hop’ which is world famous. We discussed the on screen questions. Did we like the song? What instruments can you hear? How many voices can you hear? We revisited the style indicators of ‘hip hop’ and the children wrote down what they could remember using previous knowledge of ‘hip hop’ songs... ‘Hey You’, ‘Me Myself and I’ and ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’. We practised the song ‘Hey You’ and the children are becoming familiar with the lyrics and the ‘hook’ in the song. They are looking forward to performing it at the end of the module. Year 1 even created their very own composition as a whole class to the song ‘Hey You’ using the given notes. We decided which notes sounded the best then reshuffled the notes until we were happy with the tune. We played the song again along with our composition and the children were so pleased that they had been able to contribute something else to the original song and enjoyed listening to it whilst finding the beat. Now read some of the comments the children noticed about the song... ‘The Rappers Delight’.

Great work everyone!

Investigating Materials

Year 1 have been investigating materials and testing some of their properties. We investigated which materials are bendy and not bendy, which materials are transparent and opaque, which materials are waterproof or not waterproof, and which materials are absorbent or not absorbent. Some of our findings are as follows:

"Plastic rulers are not bendy" - Riley

"The window is transparent so we can see through it" - Harrison

"Wellies are waterproof because the water just slid off but paper isn't because it ripped" - Phoebe

"Paper is not absorbent but t-shirts and socks are!" - Charlie 

History - Timeline of Toys

We began this week's History lesson by discussing the word ‘decade’ and we found out that a decade is a period of time that lasts for 10 years. We then found out that some toys have been played with for hundreds of years e.g. cards or dolls but toys are always changing as fashions change and new toys are invented. We then looked at 5 different decades, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, to see which toys were popular. We created a human timeline and ordered ourselves by working out which decade was the longest time ago and which was the most recent. We then looked at what the toys in each of these decades were like. We were each given an image of a toy and had to decide from what we had learnt within the lesson, which decade we thought it was from, explaining why we thought this.

Outdoor Learning-Team Work!

Year 1 enjoyed taking part in their outdoor learning. They completed lots of different challenges to learn how to work as a team. First they were put into teams and had to find all the features of a face. The different parts had been hidden all over the field and the groups searched the area together. They collected the features and put the face together on the field and used the grass to create hair. They also took part in a ball challenge where they each had a piece of plastic tubing to hold and stood in a line. The idea was to keep the ball on the tubing for as long as possible and keep moving to the end to ensure the ball didn't fall off. Another challenge was to be able to move from one place to another using mats. They worked really well passing the mat from the back of the line to the front then took a step forward ensuring they did not step on the grass until the reached their destination. Finally they all enjoyed taking turns working in pairs to complete a night line challenge and helping each other to complete the course by giving each other instructions and leading each other to the finish.

Well done Year 1! You did so well working as a team!

Music-Me, Myself and I

We listened and appraised the song Me, Myself and By De La Soul. We learned that they were an American hip hop trio that were formed in 1987 in New York. We revisited the word rap and some of the children were able to tell me it meant someone was talking. We established that it was a rap song like our previously learned song Hey You. We discussed how the song made us feel and what instruments we could hear throughout the song such as drums and an electric guitar. We also established how many singers we could hear and if the voice was male or female. We tried hard to remember what the word tempo means and discussed if the song was fast or slow. The children thought the lyrics to the song were funny.

Well done Year 1!

PE - Dance

In PE, we have been learning how to dance. We have been thinking about how we keep to the beat by counting aloud whilst we move. We put together our own short sequence imagining we were trees blowing in the Autumn wind. We began as tiny seeds on the ground, created a movement to show use growing into big trees, thought up a movement to represent being blown by the wind, and finally falling to the ground. 

Beamish Museum

Year 1 went on a trip to Beamish Museum to learn about the History of childhood toys. First, we spent some time in the school learning about Victorian toys and discussing how they are similar and different to toys we play with today. After that, were given a selection of toys to play with including wooden rocking horses, dolls, and wooden building blocks. Finally, we played with some of the outdoor toys in the Victorian school yard. It was a fantastic day and helped our learning around toys come to life!

R.E - The Christmas Story!

To start this lesson, Miss Brooks showed us a book and she asked us if we knew what it was. The book was The Bible – the Christian holy book. Miss Brooks explained that The Bible is split into two sections called ‘testaments’ – the old testament which are stories about God and the new testament which are stories about Jesus. We then found out that The Bible is a special book which contains a collection of sacred texts and that these stories teach Christians important morals and lessons about life and how to be good. Miss Brooks then read us a special story called, ‘The Nativity’  to celebrate Christmas and the birth of Jesus. We were given a 'Bible' to find the story and look at the pictures more closely. We could all remember the events of the story in the correct order. We were also shown a model of the stable and characters and Miss Brooks set it out and let us take a look. We also looked at a 'cross' and talked about what it means to Christians. Finally Miss Brooks showed us jars of frankincense and myrrh. We all took turns to smell the gifts that Jesus received.

Well done Year 1.

Anti Bullying Week - Odd Sock Day!

To kick start this year's Anti-Bullying Week, Year 1 came to school wearing odd socks to show that it is ok to be different. We also designed our own pair of odd socks with colours, patterns, and pictures that are meaningful to us. 

Music-The Big Festive Sing!

We have been learning festive songs to get us all into the spirit of Christmas and to enable us to join in with the Sunderland Empire’s ‘Big Festive Sing’ on Sunderland’s Music Hub on December 15th. We practised Rocking Around the Christmas Tree, It Feels Like Christmas, When Christmas Comes to Town, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Sparkle & Shine and Merry Christmas Everyone. We joined the digital workshop to practise learning the six songs that make up the event. We a did vocal warm up before each new song to get our voices ready to sing. We listened carefully to the music teachers from the workshop as they taught us the songs line by line. They also taught us some great dance moves to go with the lyrics. We had great fun learning the ‘festive’ songs and can’t wait to perform them all again!