Welcome to Year 1

Project – Rainforests

We hope you have had great fun and found out lots of interesting facts about the rainforests. This was a two-week project as we sent you so many different activities, however, we have added another comprehension and an exciting art activity to complete the investigation.

  • Find a box, about the size of a shoe box if you have one. Create your own rainforest within the box. You can choose how you would like to do this. You could use different materials or natural things, such as leaves, grass, twigs and moss from outside. You could use a mixture of items. Have fun with this and when you have completed it take a picture and send it to us if you can.

Comprehension Task

Rainforests are made up of four layers. The forest floor is on the ground and is a dark, damp place. Creatures such as insects, snakes and anteaters live here. The understory is the second layer and many big cats such as jaguars live here. The canopy is next. It acts as a huge umbrella as it is made up of tree branches. Monkeys love to live here as they can swing from the trees. The emergent layer is made up of very tall trees that rise above the others. They get the most sunlight so this is an ideal place for birds, butterflies and other flying creatures to inhabit.

The animals that live in the rainforests move between the layers.

There are so many beautiful, colourful creatures in the rainforests. The birds are particularly colourful. The toucan has an enormous yellow beak and the macaws are bright blue and yellow.

The trees and plants in the rainforests give out oxygen which humans and animals need to breathe.

We also get many foods from the rainforests, such as bananas, chocolate, nuts and coffee.

Many medicines come from plants in the rainforests.

It sounds like an amazing place and so useful in so many ways.

  • How many layers are there to a rainforest?
  • What creatures may you find on the forest floor?
  • What layer is known to get the most sunlight?
  • Do the creatures who inhabit the rainforest stay on one layer all the time?
  • Describe a bird that can be found in the rainforests
  • When we are unwell how may the rainforests help us?
  • Why are the rainforests useful to humans and animals?

 

I hope you have enjoyed this topic at home as much as we have at school.

 

Please view the following clip: English

 

Spellings

Hippos                                  Rhinos                                   Elephants

you                                         where                                     calling

went                                       when                                       sound

want                                        why                                         found

                                                 come                                       people

                                                 came                                        because

                                                 they                                          before

                                                 there                                         trying

                                                                                                    flying

                                                                                                    amazing

                                                                                                    beautiful

 

Maths

I hope you are finding it easy to access ‘Oak National Academy’ for the maths each week.

Go to Oak National Academy – schedule – Year One – Maths – Week beginning 29th June.

Watch the following clip: Maths

Lesson One

To share a total equally and find numbers in groups

Lesson Two

To share a total equally and find the number of groups

Lesson Three

To explore arrays - Part One

Lesson Four

To explore arrays – Part Two

Lesson five

To develop understanding of halves and quarters of quantities

 

If there is anything you need help with or if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me.

Ms Davis

  

Music/Singing Assemblies

Please see this week's message from our music teacher, Mrs Lawrence:

Hi everyone,

I hope you're all well and happy!

This week I have some dancing for you to do. When singers perform, whether that is in pop music or musical theatre (or many other genres of music), they very often have to dance too. Here are three short dance tutorials from Disney. Each section of choreography* is taken from one of their Broadway musicals and taught by cast members. I'd like you to choose one to learn.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Avf5QyUY1Bo Lion King 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSEUR2gZUFc Seize the Day (Newsies) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PA_t0pSYJc Arabian Nights (Aladdin)

*Do you remember the word 'choreography'? its just a fancy word for dance moves. Someone who makes up dance moves is called a 'choreographer'.

I’d also like to introduce you to Oti Mabuse’s dance classes. She and her husband are both professional dancers and her specialism is ballroom dancing. However, she has made lots of videos for kids, teaching routines to pop and musical theatre songs. Here is a fun and simple routine to a song called ‘Believe’, by Cher. If you like it, do check out her other dance classes. Perhaps that might be a fun thing to do over the summer holidays. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWD_l2k4ZFA Oti Mabuse (Believe - Cher) 

If you enjoy dancing, maybe you could take another song you like and make up some dance moves to go with it. Perhaps you would like to watch one of the musicals the songs are from. I watched the new version of 'Aladdin' recently, with my children. I love Princess Jasmine's new song 'Speechless'. 

I hope you all have a fun week!

Best wishes,

Mrs Lawrence 

Here are the previous attached letters about our singing assemblies and ideas: 

Singing assembly songs

Music activities KS1

 

Please click on the links below for previous work:

Week 10, week commencing 15th June

Week 11, week commencing 22nd June

Week 12, week commencing 29th June