Year 1     Learning Update

Central idea: People have a responsibility to understand how to look after plants.

This week, we have been busy writing shape poems about a plant of our choice. We used our knowledge of the different plants we have learnt about so far to select verbs and adjectives to bring our poems to life. We thought carefully about where we had to write the words in our poem to write in the shape of the plant we picked. 

"I am going to say the trunk of the coconut tree is hairy".

"I am going to write that the sunflower sways in the wind. 

We spent some time learning about what a plant needs in order to survive and discovered that plants have a life cycle. 

"The seed grows roots. The roots get bigger and bigger in the soil".

"The soil has to be wet and warm for the seed to grow".

"The stem pops up through the soil and it gets strong and tall. It grows leaves and then a flower. The flower blooms and makes seeds. 

"The seeds and the petals fly away in the wind and the seed lands in soil then it starts all over again. It grows again. It's the life cycle!"

After creating our own life cycles we decided to create a plant diary. To do this we needed something to plant! We worked together in pairs to plant our cress seeds, thinking carefully about the amount of soil and water we needed when planting. We recorded the planting process in our plant diary and waited to see what would happen next. We couldn't believe how quickly the cress started growing! We are going to measure our cress each day, adding our measurements and observations to our diary. 

Next week, when the cress is ready, we will design a sandwich. When the cress is ready we will be using it in our sandwiches. We can't wait to taste them!

In Maths we have been busy partitioning numbers into tens and ones. 

"52 has 5 tens and 2 ones". 

We have also been exploring money, understanding the value of a penny, pound and why notes are worth more than a penny. We are beginning to recognise different coins, ordering them from the smallest value to biggest. 

We will be visiting Kent Life on Monday the 7th of July.