Zebra Class Blog (Y1)

Welcome to our new blog for 2023-24! We hope to share all the wonderful things we are learning about in Year 1.

Our Class teachers are Mrs A. Rockey (Mon and Tues) and Mrs L. Channon (Wed-Fri). Mrs E. Millard will be in class on alternate Wednesday mornings for Mrs Channon's PPA. Our teaching assistant is Ms C. McVeigh.

We have indoor PE every Thursday and outdoor PE every Tuesday, children need to come to school on both days in their PE kit please.

YR Curriculum Overview 2023-24 Y1/2 Curriculum Overview 2023-24

YR Writing Curriculum 2023-24 Y1/2 Writing Curriculum 2023-24

School Reading Spine 2023-24

Thursday 25 April 2024 Our trip to Noah's Ark This week we went to visit Noah's Arc Farm Park. We had an amazing day and were able to see the animals up close. We were amazed by how big the elephants were and we were really lucky to have our lunch while we watched them. We loved seeing the Zebras and watching them move across their field. We all had different favourite animals, Mrs Channon loved the giraffes and Miss McVeigh loved the bears. It was a wonderful day out and the children were really well behaved.
Friday 19 April 2024 Swimming begins! Welcome to Term 5 Zebra Class! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter break and didn't eat too much chocolate!!
Wednesday 27 March 2024 Happy Easter Zebras Thank you to all the parents that came to our parent event at the start of the week. The children always love sharing what they have been learning about and having time with you in their classroom. We hope you found the phonic session useful and enjoyed making some flowers with your children.
Friday 22 March 2024 Plants and Rosie Red! This week in Zebra Class, we have continued to work really hard.
Friday 15 March 2024 Zebra science This week we have started our new topic about plants. We have already thought about the parts of the plant and labled it and then on Wednesday we had a visitor from a garden centre to show us lots of different plants and explain how they grew. We learnt that plants can grow from a seed or a bulb. We then had a chance in our classroom to explore different seeds and bulbs and think about how they were different.
Friday 8 March 2024 Capacity and World Book Day We have had another busy week in Zebra Class. The children have worked exceptionally hard in Maths this week. We have been thinking about capacity (the maximum amount something can hold) and volume (how much is actually inside). The children have used water and pasta to explore the terms 'full', 'empty', 'half full', 'nearly full' and 'nearly empty'. They have also started to compare and order the capacity of different containers.
Friday 1 March 2024 Medieval music This week we had an exciting music duo showing us different examples of medieval instruments. They played different tunes on them and explained what they were made out of. It was fascinating to hear the different sounds that could be made by a piece of willow, a cows horn and a piece of bone. They also talked about how the strings were made from horses hair. The children clapped along to the beat and learnt actions to the oldest song recorded as the duo played and sang along.
Friday 23 February 2024 Term 4 Welcome to Term 4 everybody! We hope you had a really lovely, restful half-term break.
Wednesday 7 February 2024 Zebra Parent event We had a very successful parent event this week, thank you so much for everyone that was able to attend. The children loved sharing with you what we have have been learning in our history topic. I am amazed at how much they have remembered and can recall about Florence Nightingale and Mary Secole. In fact lots of you told me the children have taught you new things, which is great!
Thursday 1 February 2024 Zebra Workshop visit This week the children have had a fantastic experience. The Trowbridge Museum came to us with a workshop to bring our learning to life. Florence Nightingale came herself to speak to us about her life and what she did to help improve the hospital conditions during the Crimea war and how those changes have made an impact on our hospitals today. We also saw how Mary Seacole would have made her medicines and learnt how she traveled from Jamaica to England and beyond.
Friday 26 January 2024 Florence and Haikus! This week, we started our new history topic called 'The Nurturing Nurses!'. The children found out about Florence Nightingale and how she was so important in the Crimean War. She helped the injured soldiers and taught everyone about the need for clean, sterile hospitals. Florence ('The Lady With The Lamp') really did change nursing forever! The children looked at old photographs of Florence and used their historical enquiry skills to find out about her life. They asked questions and acted like detectives to find clues about what her role might have been like. The children then carried out some role play, pretending to be both wounded soldiers and Florence.
Friday 19 January 2024 materials This week we have continued to explore different materials, we used feely bags this week to describe what we could feel and then think about what material it could be. We used some great scientific vocabulary including rigid, flexible, smooth, hard, soft, rough.
Friday 12 January 2024 Happy New Year Zebras Welcome back everyone, has it only been 1 week? I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are ready for a new term of learning.
Friday 12 January 2024 Happy New Year Zebras Welcome back everyone, has it only been 1 week? I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are ready for a new term of learning.
Thursday 14 December 2023 Christmas in Zebras Well the count down to Christmas is well and truly on. The children delivered 2 fantastic performances this week using their big voices and beautiful singing. It was wonderful to see them confidently taking part with the other classes.
Friday 8 December 2023 Shape Sorters This week we have been learning to sort shapes and look at different patterns using them. We made repeating patterns and symmetrical patterns. We used playdoh to press in patterns and the 2d shapes.
Friday 1 December 2023 Chair drumming This week we have continued to explore the beat of a tune and we have had a go at chair drumming. The children had a great time using the beaters to follow the beat to the tune of The Wellerman and We will rock you. They kept time well and followed the notes on the screen. It was lots of fun but Mrs Channon had a bit of a headache by the end of the session :-)
Friday 24 November 2023 Aquarium visit The children have had a wonderful visit to the aquarium today. We looked at all the different fish and where they lived. We had a tour around the aquarium and got to feed the fish. We loved walking through the tunnel and spotting sharks, rays and a big fish called Shirley. I expect the children will sleep well tonight.
Friday 17 November 2023 How do we stay fit and healthy? This week we have continued to learn about what animals and humans need to stay alive and how they can stay fit and healthy. We carried out an experiment to find out what happened to our pulse after exercise and found out that your heart beats much faster. Your breathing becomes quicker too and you can become hot and sweaty. This is because your body (muscles) needs more oxygen as you exercise and so your heart has to work harder to pump the blood around your body.
Friday 10 November 2023 Science This week we have started our new science topic about how animals survive. They have loved looking at different animals and identifying their babies. We discussed how not all babies look like the grown up and we have discussed how they arrive, whether they are born or hatch from an egg. We have thought about how humans grow up and the different things we need as we change. We had fun acting out the different stages and guessing what we were doing. Some of the pictures are below.
Thursday 9 November 2023 How do we grow? This week we have started our new topic on animals and how we survive. This week we have been thinking about how babies arrive. Are they born or do they hatch from an egg? We also thought about how some babies do not look like their adult. We then spent time doing some drama acting out the different stages of our lives as we grow. The children had great fun doing this.
Thursday 9 November 2023 Music This week we have been looking at different musical instruments and learning the names of them. We then listened to a piece of music and used the instruments to play along. We tried hard to keep in time and follow the beat.
Wednesday 18 October 2023 End of term parent celebration event! We have reached the end of Term 1 and what an amazing term we have had. The children have worked so hard, not only settling into the routines of Year 1, but also in terms of their learning. They have loved our habitat topic and particularly enjoyed our 'Marvellous Minibeasts' workshop at Westonbirt Arboretum. It therefore made sense to have a minibeast-themed parent celebration event!
Wednesday 11 October 2023 Glass workshop The children had a wonderful experience this week taking part in a glass workshop run by Alex Compton an artist from Trowbridge. The children each made a mini-beast using pieces of glass that would then be fused together in the kiln. The children listened well and found the whole process fascinating. The finished art pieces are going to be put together in a collaborative mobile piece to link with the work we have been doing on Alex Calder.
Wednesday 4 October 2023 Westonbirt Arboretum Trip On Tuesday, Zebra Class had the most wonderful day at Westonbirt Arboretum. Our tour guide, Karen, led a nature session for us. We looked at different types of trees and their leaves, we talked about deciduous and evergreen trees and we found many interesting things on the forest floor, such as conkers, acorns and even droppings from animals that live in the forest. We have brought many of these things home with us so that we can create some natural art with these items. We were amazed by how many different creatures live in the forest and even tried to find some badgers, although we decided they probably did not enjoy coming out in the daytime. We did find evidence that they had been digging and burrowing though.
Thursday 28 September 2023 Busy Zebras This week, we have been very busy again and working hard. The children have been enjoying composing their own Bog Baby stories in English and we have been planning our ideas, focusing hard on writing sentences that have a capital letter, full stop and finger spaces. The children have been looking at 1 more/less in Maths and have been working practically to count on and order numbers.
Friday 22 September 2023 Busy, busy, busy What a busy week we have had! The children have been working really hard ordering numbers and making number lines thinking about which number comes after or before another. We have made numbers with chalk, on our tables and with number cards on the carpet.
Thursday 14 September 2023 Maths, Minibeasts and lots of learning! We have had another wonderful week in Zebra Class. The children are trying so hard and they are settling well into the new routines of Year 1. We are very proud of every single one of them!
Thursday 7 September 2023 Busy Zebras What a wonderful week we have had! It has been wonderful getting to know the children and getting into the swing of things at school. We have been thinking a lot about Zebras this week and writing facts about them. We hope you enjoy looking at some of our writing about them.
Monday 4 September 2023 Welcome Back We are looking forward to meeting you all o Tuesday for an exciting new year at school!

Zebra Class Blog (Y1)

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