Welcome to Year 1

Our Teachers

• Teacher: Mrs A Shippen
• Teaching Assistant: Mrs J Curtis
• PPA cover: Miss A Robson

Our Learning

This term our topic is Pirates and the Seaside. We will be finding out about the lives of famous pirates and where in the world they operated. We will explore pirate ships and what life would have been like on board. Exploring keys, we will create maps. We will compare different seaside locations and find out about features of the seaside including the role of the lighthouse and its keeper.

Our Class Books

• The Scarecrows’ Wedding by Julia Donaldson
• Tattybogle by Sandra Horn
• The Giant Jam Sandwich by John Vernon Lord
• Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers
• The Emperor’s Egg
• The Runaway Train by Benedict Blathwayt
• Oi! Get off our Train by John Burningham
• I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen
• Frog life cycle – Nosy Crow App
• Pirates Love Underpants – Claire Freedman and Ben Cort
• The Pirates Next Door – Jonny Duddle
• The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch – Ronda and David Armitage
• The Snail and the Whale – Julia Donaldson

Class Useful Information

• One piece of homework will be given out on Friday to be returned the following Wednesday.
• Spellings will be handed out on Wednesday to be tested the following Monday.
• Reading books need to be brought to school every day. They will be changed on a Monday and Friday as well as being checked mid week.
• P.E. will take place on Tuesday afternoons. Please can P.E. kit remain in school as extra sessions will also take place.

Class Work & Events

Visit to Marina

We spent a fantastic day at Hartlepool Marina imagining what it would be like to be pirates aboard the HMS Trincomalee!

Sports Day

Thank you to Friends of the School for our Lego workshop. It was great fun! We particularly enjoyed our competition to make the tallest tower and making a vehicle to see how far it could travel.

We had a fantastic taster session with Glynn Fidgeon from FIJ-Sportif Judo.

In Design and Technology, we investigated wheels and axles and made our own moving trains.

We had a great day at Locomotion, Shildon learning about the life of George Stephenson and exploring the trains.

We have worked hard to produce a gymnastics sequence. Take a look at the video of us performing it at Spennymoor
Leisure Centre as part of a County Gymnastics Festival.

Last term’s topic was Food and Farming. Take a look at our photos from our trip to Hawes. We visited the Wensleydale Creamery and made cheese. We then went to the Dales Countryside Museum to become farming detectives. We learned about the uses of old farming artefacts. After that, we made butter and ate a farmer’s lunch.

We had fun making jam sandwiches. We combined them together to make a giant jam sandwich, just like the one in our class story. We will be writing a set of instructions based on them.

 

We were lucky enough to have our photo taken with children’s author Tim Hopgood at Durham Book Festival. We enjoyed listening to him read’Wow Said the Owl’. He told us about how he writes and demonstrated how to draw an owl. We had fun trying to draw our own.

 

We had a lovely walk through the village to look at natural and man-made features. We found lots of evidence of farming in our area. We even had a little time for 5 minutes at the park.

We have adopted an elephant from Chester Zoo and named him ‘Iron Man’. We read the story of Elmer and made our own patchwork versions. It was sticky work!