Helping your child at home Important information W E S T T H O R N TO N P R I M A RY AC A D E M Y Reading PE Curriculum Newsletter Please read with your child every night and sign/date their yellow reading record. Learning logs/handwriting Children will receive a learning log question and some handwriting practice every Friday which will need to be completed and returned to school by the following Wednesday. We ask for Learning Log homework to be your child’s work as far as possible and ideas are presented in a creative way (printed pictures, drawings, sentences, making mini books etc). Our PE day is Thursday It is very important that children have the correct PE kit in school, consisting of a white tshirt, navy shorts and plimsols. In cold weather, children are allowed to bring in jogging bottoms and a jumper to wear outside. Letters will be sent home if children fail to bring in their PE kits Academy Year 1 area The year 1 area has equipment to be used by the year 1 children. Please leave the year 1 area promptly once you have collected your child so it can be cleaned ready for the next day. Reading for Pleasure Children will be read with three times a week in class. We aim to read from a variety of sources including books, newspapers and digital media. Children take will take home a book of their choice on a daily basis. Blogging All children now have their own logins and passwords, please logon and post comments. The blogs can be found at West Thornton Academy blogs. Building Futures Year 1 Team Miss John Year group leader/Class 1.1 Teacher Year 1 Mr Chamberlain Class 1.2 Teacher Miss Starnes Class 1.3 Teacher Our Teaching Assistants Mirs Gabriel, Miss Beck, Mrs McDermont, Mrs Hasnein, Mrs Morris, Rosecourt Road Croydon CR0 3BS Phone: 0208 684 3497 E-mail: office@westthornton.croydon.sch.uk This half term Thank you for your support and well wishes over the Christmas period, your gifts and kind words were greatly appreciated. This term year 1’s first learning challenge will be ‘Would it be good if dinosaurs had not died out?’ Through this topic we will be exploring historical events in history including prehistoric environmental research. Children will have the opportunity to find out about dinosaurs and extend their learning in a number of ways, including; museum visits, resident expert in paleontology and carrying out their own historical investigations. Children will be using ICT facilities in school to create their own content including fact files and multi media presentations to share what they have learnt. In art we will use the subject of dinosaurs as a basis of development for still life, sculpture and paint technique. In Literacy we will be covering various genres including recounting our trip, diary writing and creating Jurassic fact files. We will be developing questioning skills in preparation for interviewing Dino Dan. Our main focus in numeracy will be measuring, children will be measuring using standard and non-standard measures and looking at statistics concerning all different dinosaurs shapes and sizes. Dates for your diary In the second half term year 1 will be learning about history through toys , children will be discussing toys that their parents and grandparents played with which will lead on to creating a timeline. In science children will be sorting toys and investigating pushes and pulls, they will then make their own moving toy. Children will think up philosophical questions and have discussions based on the Toy Story 3 movie. Children will be organizing a bring and buy sale to raise money for charity. Our bring and buy sale last year was very successful and £165 was raised for the Special Care Baby Unit at Croydon University Hospital. Our numeracy will involve data handling where we will be finding out which is the most popular toy in the class. As the space in the year 1 corridor is very limited we ask that children do not bring their belongings to school in back packs. If your child does not have a school book bag or PE bag they can be purchased from the school office. As usual if you have any questions or problems please do not hesitate in contacting us. Teachers are available to speak to parents after school, or if this is not convenient, please phone and make an appointment. Please note that it is extremely difficult to speak to parents after the morning bell has gone as we are legally responsible for the children in our class. Thank you for your continued support. Thursday 15th January 2015 Natural History Museum visit Friday 13th February 2015 Inset day Monday 16th February– Friday 20th February 2015 Half term holidays Thursday 26th March Parents consultation evening Friday 27th March End of Spring Term