What a brilliant week in Year 1! Look at what we have been doing…

Maths

This week in maths we’ve been getting stuck into pictograms, and we’ve had so much fun with them! We explored all sorts of topics, from our favourite fruits to Christmas decorations, and even our favourite school subject.

We learned how to count the number of objects in each category, sort them by quantity, and compare the data to see what was most and least popular. The best bit? We even made our own simple pictograms!

We’ve absolutely loved working with pictograms this week!

Fact of the week

Each week we will have a fact of the week. We will learn the addition fact(s) and the related subtraction fact(s). This week we have been recapping all our facts of this term!

Read, Write Inc.

The children have brought so much energy and enthusiasm to their learning this week! We’ve been revisiting some of our previously taught sounds and continuing to build those all-important phonetic reading skills. In our Read Write Inc. (RWI) sessions, we’ve been focusing on spotting “special friends” those little groups of letters that team up to make one sound. It’s been great to see how this helps the children recognise patterns and feel more confident when reading longer words.

We’ve also been practising Fred Talk, blending and segmenting, reading green words, and even starting to remember some of our red (tricky!) words. It’s been lovely watching the children use these skills more quickly and naturally during both reading and writing time.

If you’d like to support at home, you can help by spotting special friends together in everyday words, practising the sounds, and blending them to read the whole word. Little and often makes a big difference!

Alongside our phonics work, we’ve been polishing up our handwriting too, thinking about when to use capital letters, forming our letters neatly, and remembering those all-important full stops. Their confidence is really growing, and it’s wonderful to see.

We’ve also completed our termly assessments this week. After Christmas, some children may move groups, but please don’t worry! The teachers switch around as well, so everything will still feel familiar and supportive.

Reading

Every week the children will bring home two books in their reading folders, one being a RWI home book. Children are expected to try and read this three times during the week to ensure they are building on their reading fluency. The RWI home books will be changed, by an adult, every Monday.

The other book (with the coloured sticker) should be changed independently by the child themselves, first thing in the morning is a great time to do this! These books can be changed as regularly as needed.

Please encourage children to place their reading folders in the trays, so we can read with your children and ensure books get changed. Thank you for your support with this.

Please listen to your child read as much as possible at home and record this in their reading records. Every week, one child from each class will receive a reading certificate in an assembly. Children will also get a certificate for every 20 times they read so it is important that the reading record gets signed every time they read at home.

If you have any questions, please speak to your child’s class teacher.

Home Learning

This week we would love for you to continue practising your songs for our Christmas performance. Please find the links below:

No Room at the Inn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1b1WeC77F4

Let's Go, Let's Go https://youtu.be/hoO3UHgbjb4?si=MswBJVcZI5YQdSvu

Spellings
We will be focusing on the Year 1 Common Exception Words (also known as Red Words). Each week, the children will have 2–4 spellings to learn. We will also continue practising these in school during our Power Play sessions.

There is no need to record any practice in the Love to Learn books unless you would like to. Please spend some time throughout the week reading, writing, and spelling the words together at home.

Every Thursday, we will have a short and informal spelling check.

Thank you for your support.

Next week we have no spellings 😊

Thematic

What an amazing week we’ve had! We kicked things off with a fabulous winter-themed afternoon where we teamed up with the Reception children to chat all things winter. It was a brilliant chance to show off our oracy skills and dig into what we remember about the seasons, we even ended up talking about the equator! Everyone confidently shared fun winter facts: from the clothes we should wear, to typical weather, and even how chilly the temperature can get!

We also handed over some lovely little decorations we’d made especially for the Reception children. It was such a thoughtful moment and really got us thinking about kindness and the joy of giving at Christmas time.

Later in the week, we dove into an exciting computing day! Using the iPads, we explored how to create digital artwork. We tried out freehand tools, lines, shapes, and experimented with fill, undo, and lots of mark-making. We chatted about picking colours and tools carefully to match an artist’s style… and then put it all into action!

We created our very own digital masterpieces inspired by Wassily Kandinsky, choosing colours and tools independently and explaining the creative choices behind our artwork. Afterwards, we compared painting on an iPad with painting on paper and had lots of great ideas about the differences and which one we enjoyed more.

To wrap up the week, we began our new RE topic. We shared stories about our favourite gifts we’ve given and received, and talked about the warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you give someone a present. We made cards for our friends and even picked out little “presents” from around the classroom that we thought they would love. We’ll be carrying on with more RE learning next week, and we can’t wait!

Christmas performance

Please can your child come into school wearing their costumes on Monday 15^th December, if you do not have a costume please speak to your class teacher.

Additional Information

Forest school is on a Wednesday morning

PE is on a Tuesday afternoon please can children wear a plain white t-shirt, or our new Chilton PE t-shirts, black or navy bottoms and a plain black or blue sweatshirt.

Read at 3! This is where we would love to invite you into our classrooms and read with your child for the full 15 minutes. This will happen every Friday there after this term.

Please can we ask your child has their name in their coats, cardigans, jumpers etc.

Key dates

15th December – No PE this week

15th December – Year 1 Nativity at 9am in hall

16th December -Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 Christmas Parties – children to wear Party Clothes to school

Party day…

Red Romans: Sweet treats

Blue Vikings: Fruits and Vegetables

Yellow Saxons: Savoury snacks (Not crisps)

Green Normans: Crisps and dips

17th December – Christmas Dinner Day

18th December – Christmas Jumper Day

18th December – Final day at school; school finishes at 2pm and there will be no after school club

After Christmas…

Monday 5th January – Everyone back to School at usual time 

Wednesday 7th January – Year 4 swimming to begin 

Thursday 15th January – Reception September 2026 application closes 

Friday 6th February – NSPCC number day (Reception and KS1 children to come in dressed in number themed clothes/KS2 to come in dressed as a Times Table Rock Star) 

Friday 6th February – KS2 Countdown assembly at 9am (parents of year group house winners to be invited) Tuesday 10th February – Tuesday 10th February -  Safer internet day 

Friday 13th February – Non-school uniform day 

Friday 13th February - Chilton Fundraisers Winter Disco 

Friday 13th February – Last day of term. School finishes at usual time

 

If you would like to contact us, please feel free to email, alternatively we are available to catch at the end of the day or the start of the day by the door.

Team Ocean - Eloise.hall@chiltonprimary.co.uk

Team Sky - Poppy.winchcombe@chiltonprimary.co.uk and Elaine.howard@chiltonprimary.co.uk ( On a Wednesday)

Have a restful weekend and we will see you all on Monday!

Miss Hall, Mrs Winchcombe and Mrs Howard