North Somercotes CE Primary School
‘Make your light shine so others will see the good that you do’
Year 1
Welcome to Year 1
In Year 1 our teachers are Mrs McDonnell and Mrs Knott. Mrs McDonnell teaches us on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and Mrs Knott teaches the class on a Friday. Our teaching assistant is Miss Arundel.
Routines
Reading books:
Phonics books will come home on a Thursday and must be returned on a Tuesday where the children will get a new book. Their reading packs must be in their book bag every day.
Spellings:
Spellings will be sent home on a Friday and they will be checked on the following Friday in a spelling test.
Homework:
Homework is sent home on a Friday and is to be returned the following Thursday.
PE:
On a Tuesday we have JB Sports coaches in school to teach our PE lessons; on this day we need to come to school in our PE kit.
PE kit should be:
- Plain white t-shirt
- Black/navy shorts.
- Trainers or Plimsolls can be worn for PE lessons.
- Black/Navy tracksuit bottoms for colder weather/outdoor PE.
- Black/Navy tracksuit top for colder weather/outdoor PE.
- No Football/Sports shirts
Shine the light...
This term we are shining a light on Vincent Van Gogh - he created some beautiful pieces of Art including Sunflowers and The Starry Night.
At North Somercotes CE Primary we follow the Monster Phonics scheme
to support the teaching of early reading.
What is Monster Phonics?
Monster Phonics makes learning to read and spell through phonics easier, by
categorising the 44 sounds into 10 categories and each of these 10 categories are
represented by a Monster. Each Monster is a different colour, and this colour
represents that way of spelling the sound. This makes learning to read and spell
much easier and more fun.
Why does Monster Phonics improve learning?
The child learns through the assignment of colour and the linkage of the sound, as
well as seeing the colour, creating more ways of remembering the spelling.
The games, songs and activities within the programme continuously reflect this way
of learning, so that structure is constantly seen, heard and experienced by your child.
This consistency is critical in ensuring that a complicated language is learnt in the
most simplistic way.
High-frequency words are learnt much faster with Monster Phonics. These words
make up 65% of the words used in reading.
1. Once colour-coded, high-frequency words can be taught in easy to learn sets
of similar words. This significantly improves spelling.
2. With colour-coding non-decodable words become decodable. Children are no
longer told that words like ‘they’ and ‘my’ are tricky as they can be decoded.
To find out more about how Monster Phonics works visit https://monsterphonics.com/how-it-works/
Reading
We will listen to each child read in small groups three times a week. On a Tuesday, the children are shown their new Monster Phonics book and they read the same book on Wednesday and Thursday. On a Thursday, the children will bring this book home to share with you. A brief explanation of how to follow the activities is included in the books. Children will be able to feel confident about reading and will be able to read this book with fluency and speed. They will have a good understanding of this book and will be able to talk about it to an adult.
In the Monster Phonics books there are two pieces of text: one in a larger font and, at the bottom, a more detailed text in a smaller font. The child only has to read the large text. The smaller text is for the adult to read to provide the children with context and a story to match what they have read. Repeat reading helps familiarise words and phrases and improves the speed at which they decode words.
For more information on how to support the reading of Monster Phonics books at home please go to: https://monsterphonics.com/guide-to-reading-monster-phonics-books/
Please make sure that you sign your child's reading diary every time they have read. To encourage reading at home children will be given tokens in class every time they have read and it has been recorded in the reading diary.
Library books - Can be changed every Wednesday.
This is a ‘free choice’ book to encourage reading for pleasure to ensure that children have access to a rich and balanced reading diet. It will be entirely up to the children which book they choose and we would expect them to read their library book with an adult at home. This book will include high quality vocabulary for children to be exposed to. It is really important that children have opportunities to listen to high quality texts that are modelled by adults. This text will create discussion around language, vocabulary and related experiences.
Our first day in Year 1!
Year 1's Indian Experience!
We posted letters on our walk!
We made our own flags in Design Technology!
Look at our Superheroes!
Great Fire of London in Year 1!
Mothering Sunday Assembly - I love my mummy because...
