Year 1/2 Willow

Welcome to Year 1/2 Willow class

Teacher: Mrs Lewis
Teaching Assistants: Mrs Rogers and Mrs Woolley

Year One begins the children’s journey into Key Stage One, so it’s a very important year and Year 2 prepares children for Key Stage 2! We do lots of hands on leaning through our inspiring and creative curriculum.

We are learning to read using Read, Write Inc. phonics. We are learning lots of new sounds and how to blend sounds to read words. We are also working on our reading fluency. We love to write! We write ‘golden sentences’. These are sentences that begin with a capital letter, have finger spaces between words and a full stop at the end.

Teamwork makes the dream work! Please listen to your child read for 5-10 minutes every night where possible. It will help children with all areas of the curriculum.

Please talk to your child and encourage them to listen and speak in full sentences.

We count daily. We are working on writing numbers correctly and addition, subtraction, time, money, shape and measure.

Homework is given every Friday, either paper copies or via dojo.

We have lots of fun in the afternoons doing PE, RE, History, Geography, Art, DT, Music, ICT, and PSHE. Please see the curriculum page for more information.

We want your children to be happy in school so that they learn and reach their full potential. If you have any concerns or questions please do not hesitate to ask.

Thank you for your support.

We look forward to sharing our new and exciting news with you about all the fantastic things that happen in our Year 1/2 class.

Please visit our Year 1/2 Willow

ClassDojo Page

Class Story is the easiest way to share classroom moments, photos, and updates with parents. Here you will be able to see the children’s amazing work.

What to expect in Year 1:

Year 1 at primary school (age 5–6) – Oxford Owl

What to expect in Year 2:

https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/at-school/year-2-at-primary-school/

Reading

Discover the joy of reading with your child.

Please visit: Free eBook library | Oxford Owl from Oxford University Press

If you have a child in Year 1 and 2, this is a great place to find out about how they are learning to read and what you can do to help at home.

Get some fresh ideas for encouraging your child’s reading at home, check out our online eBook library with access to over 130 free books and find out more about how reading is taught in school.

There’s also a handy guide to understanding phonics and information on the reading schemes used in schools.

TALK, TALK, TALK!!

Parents can help at home by:

Hearing your child read at least three times a week and reading stories to them. Talk about characters and setting. Ask lots of questions to ensure they understand the text. Discuss the vocabulary with your child and ask them to spot adjectives, verbs, adverbs and nouns in the text.
In Year 1/2 Willow we are really trying to promote the idea of every child reading ‘a book a week’. Children are expected to read at least 3 times per week with an adult and this must be recorded in your child’s reading record. It would be great if they could read every day. This is monitored on a daily basis by your child’s class teacher/teaching assistant and rewarded using our new bookmark incentive scheme.

In Year 2 (age 6–7), your child will learn to:

form lowercase letters of the correct size relative to one another
start using some of the diagonal and horizontal strokes needed to join
letters and understand which letters, when adjacent to one another, are best left unjoined
write capital letters and digits of the correct size, orientation and relationship to one another and to lowercase letters
understand which letters belong to which handwriting ‘families’ (i.e. letters that are formed in similar ways)
We use . If you would like any handwriting practising sheets so your child can practise at home please ask and we will print some of for you.
Discussing what is in the news
X2, x5 and x10 times tables
Telling the time
Names of 2D and 3D shapes. How many sides, corners and face they have.

WANT YOUR CHILDREN TO ROCK AT THEIR TIMES TABLES?

You know how important it is for your children to learn their times tables, but it’s hard work for you and for them. Are you looking for an easy way that just works?

Times Tables Rock Stars is a maths programme that takes all the worry out of learning times tables and has a proven track record of boosting children’s fluency and recall in multiplication and division.

WHAT IS TIMES TABLES ROCK STARS?

In either paper form or online, Times Tables Rock Stars is a carefully sequenced programme of daily times tables practice.

Each week concentrates on a different times table, with a recommended consolidation week for rehearsing the tables that have recently been practiced every third week or so.

This format has very successfully boosted times tables recall speed for hundreds of thousands of pupils over the last 7 years in over 4500 schools – both primary and secondary – worldwide.

Ask you child’s class teacher for details.

https://ttrockstars.com/

The second emphasis for homework is rapid recall of times tables. The rapid recall of number facts is the foundation for virtually every aspect of primary maths. Without a good knowledge of number facts, then progress in these areas is always going to be slow. The teaching and learning of number facts can be greatly enhanced with the support of parents and carers as part of children’s home learning. Even a few minutes spent learning and recalling number facts three times a week will make a huge difference to your child. In order to practise rapid recall of tables, tables could be chanted, learnt as songs or action rhymes. Copy writing tables is another approach which may not appear very exciting, but children do often quite like the practice of doing it. Please also remember to use Times Tables Rockstars (https://ttrockstars.com/). This is a great website which children can log into to practise their times table facts on a daily basis. This website is idea for boosting maths ability, fluency and confidence. Teachers will carry out daily times tables tests to ensure that children are regularly learning their tables and they will also give a short activity for children to complete at home to reinforce the times table which they are learning in class. Year 2 will receive login details for this. From Reception to Year 2 we would recommend getting the White Rose app. This is a free resource and supports the building of firm number foundations:

1-minute maths app | White Rose Maths (whiteroseeducation.com)

General information:

During the Autumn term PE will take place on Thursdays. Please ensure that your child arrives to school in their PE kit on both days.
Reading books and records will be sent home daily. Please return reading books and reading records on a daily basis as we try to hear children read every day. Can you please make sure you sign and write how many pages your child has read. The children will also have a RWI booklet to read at home. They will be reading this once a week in class during a guided reading session.
Homework and spellings are given out every Friday. Spellings are tested the following Friday. Homework is to be handed back in by Thursday.
Please inform the school office if your child is going to be off for any reason. Please don’t message teachers on Classdojo regarding your child’s absence.
Please see the Curriculum pages for what we will cover each term.

The Y1/2 Maths curriculum for this year for your child is below: