Year 1

Central idea: The weather can affect how people live. 

This week, the children have been exploring Line of Inquiry 2, focusing on different climates around the world. We began by looking at a UK weather report, discussing local climate and adding weather symbols and key locations to a map. The children then explored global climate zones, using atlases and globes to carefully select colours and create their own world heat maps, thinking about the Equator and the North and South Poles.

In science, the children investigated why we have day and night and why the seasons change, recreating the Earth’s orbit around the Sun using tennis balls and torches. We were shocked to discover that the world is always spinning and that some people are sleeping while we are awake!

Using our five senses, the children explored music linked to different climates, sharing ideas such as, “I can hear the wind in the desert” and “I can hear the rain and thunder in the rainforest.”  The children then used instruments to recreate the sounds they could hear.

The children worked together to create graphic scores, using symbols to represent music. This allowed them to perform their climate soundscapes to their friends. They also had lots of fun creating climate shoeboxes, selecting their favourite climate to recreate. “I used lots of green because it is the rainforest and there are trees. The rainforest is hot and wet and there are waterfalls, so I painted a waterfall.” “I made a polar bear because they live in the snow. Did you know they are camouflaged? That means you can’t see them because they are the same colour as the snow.”

We have been exploring the text The Snail and the Whale. We quickly learned how many different climates the characters experienced as they journeyed across the world. The children particularly enjoyed the rich adjectives in the story and felt inspired to write their own sentences and stories. “Listen to this sentence. I am going to write that the snail and the whale went on a journey where they saw shimmering ice and coral caves, and they saw lava erupting from a volcano.” The children have been working really hard to include adjectives to create exciting and descriptive sentences.

In maths, we have been learning about number composition. We began by learning about the number 10 and discovered that 10 ones make 1 ten. The children explored how many different ways they could make 10, using a range of strategies. Some children used tens frames, others wrote number sentences, and some used objects to support their learning. We were very surprised to see how many different ways one number can be formed! We then explored the composition of 11, 12 and 13, learning that “11 is 1 ten and 1 one, and 12 is 1 ten and 2 ones.”

We enjoyed visiting the church, exploring why it is a safe and special place for Christians and spotting the Christian symbols around the building. The children shared their ideas, including, “The cross is there because Jesus died on the cross,” and “The Bible is the book Christians read. It has stories about Jesus.” We would like to extend our thanks to Reverend Nicky for welcoming us and for giving her time to support our learning.