Bumblebee Class

Welcome to Bumblebee Class, where we always strive to BEE inquisitive, determined and resilient!

Bumblebee class is one of the Year 1 classes here at the Isle of Ely Primary School. From browsing this page, you will be able to read all about our engaging curriculum for the half term and see all of our fantastic learning activities which have occurred each week. The children in the Bumblebee class will have PE on Wednesdays (outdoor) and Thursdays (outdoor). Children will be bringing home 3 books (RWI bookbag book, RWI storybook and a library book) each week. Phonics books on Fridays and library books on Mondays. The children will only receive a new book if they have been returned. Additionally, the children will be assessed at the end of each half term to be moved in to their new phonics groups.

The adults in our classroom are:

Miss Kirsty Palmer Miss Lisa Stacey Miss Chantelle Miller

Class Teacher L.S.A. L.S.A

Our curriculum

Subject	Content
English Including: phonics, reading, writing and GPS (Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling)	Children will continue to learn their sounds this half-term, and work on their fluency to improve their speed and comprehension. On top of their phonics lessons we will be having a range of English lessons, which will extend their writing skills. We will use the story ‘Lost and Found’ as the basis for our Talk 4 Writing lessons which will focus on character descriptions. We will also have weekly comprehension lessons which will help the children learn how to interpret and understand what they are reading. Twice a week, we will have SPaG lessons focused on the core punctuation and grammar skills required in Y1 and we will teach the common exception word spellings.
Maths	In Maths, we are moving onto multiplication and then division. We will be introducing the children to multiplication by revising counting on in 2s, 5s and 10s and looking at doubling. Children will be introduced to arrays and we will also be using concrete resources and pictorial representations to support their understanding. Later in the half term, we will introduce fractions by exploring halves and quarters. We will also be using short burst maths sessions to revise the content taught in the first and second term of Year 1.
Science	This half term in science we will be exploring plants, we are going to investigate what plants need, how they grow, their seeds and the ways in which seeds reproduce. We will also explore the plants we eat and different parts of a plant. Finally we will look at evergreen and deciduous trees.
History	In history, we will be building on our learning from Spring 1 when we explored the formation of the first parliament in England. During this unit we will discover what parliament does and look at some key figures. We will find out about the first prime minister, Robert Walpole, the first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, and our current prime minister, Rishi Sunak, as well as learning about the election process.
Art	This half term we will be learning all about the language of art, the 4 main focuses will be content, form, process and method. We will be looking at some famous pieces of artwork and some local, identifying the 4 aspects.
Physical Education (P.E.)	On Wednesdays, we will be doing Team Building. In this unit pupils develop their communication and problem solving skills. They work individually, in pairs and in small groups, learning to take turns, work collaboratively and lead each other. They are given the opportunity to discuss and plan their ideas to get the most successful outcome. On Thursdays, Mr Smith will be introducing the children to the basic skills required in Net and Ball games. Pupils will learn the importance of the ready position. They will develop throwing, catching and racket skills, learning to track and hit a ball. They will learn to play against an opponent and over a net. They will begin to use rules and simple tactics when playing against a partner and they will be encouraged to demonstrate good sportsmanship and show respect towards others.
Religious Education (R.E.)	In RE, we are continuing to explore Sikhism, focusing on some of the celebrations and beliefs important to this religion. We will look at Khalsa (the term for the Sikh community and a group of specially initiated Sikhs), Sewa (the willingness to serve others without thought for your wellbeing) and The 5 Ks: Kara (a steel bracelet): Kesh (uncut hair): Kangha (a wooden comb): Kaccha (cotton underwear); Kirpan (steel sword).
Personal, Social and Health Education	This half term we are looking at personal safety and will be concentrating on who to ask for help and how to express ourselves when we are worried about something. The unit of work builds on a Protective Behaviours approach. As such it is underpinned by two key principles: we all have the right to feel safe all the time; and we can talk with someone about anything, even if it feels awful or small. Through the series of lessons, children will learn how to recognise their Early Warning Signs, which help them to know if they are feeling safe or unsafe. The children will be encouraged to consider the qualities they would look for in a ‘network’ person and decide who are the trusted adults that they could talk to about anything, big or small, good or bad.
Music	In Music we will be looking at pitch and tempo with the theme of Superheroes. We will be learning how to identify high and low notes and to compose a simple tune, they explore some different instruments, as well as investigate how tempo changes help tell a story.
Computing	This half term we will be learning about pictograms. We will be exploring pictograms, collecting data for a pictogram and creating our own. Once we have finished this we will be moving on to looking at sorting and organising data.
Design and Technology (D&T)	This half term in D&T., we will be taking a look at wheels and axles. We will use what we learn about how to ensure wheels move freely to help us design a vehicle. We will also troubleshoot mechanisms where the wheels don’t turn.

At the Isle of Ely Primary School, we use knowledge organisers as a tool to help our children learn more and remember more and to allow parents and carers to support their children's learning. In our knowledge organisers, you will find essential knowledge, key dates, important vocabulary and key figures. The knowledge organisers can also be used as a fun assessment tool which will help children to see what progress they have made.

Weekly Newsflash - What have Bumblebees been up to this week?

Week commencing 22.05.23

And so another half-term comes to a close! We finished in style with a jam-packed week full of workshops and, for many children, their first school disco. Highlights included learning how to be illustrators, an acting class, singing lessons, dance classes and making our own stained glass windows. The children have thrown themselves into each workshop and seemed to really enjoy them all. We also took the chance to do extra art in our class including mindful colouring and illustrating the letters of our own names. When we return after half term our focus for the first two weeks will be the phonics screening check so over the holidays please do continue to read with and to your child and if you want to do any additional practise look out for the email with further information.

Week commencing 15.05.23

This week we completed our hot writes in English. This is when the children use all the skills we have taught them throughout the unit to write their own story based on the model text. The children were really creative with their ideas and using Lost and Found as our starting point came out with a wide range of stories featuring aliens, cats, frogs, kangaroos and pigs among other things as their main characters. Some were lost, some were lonely and others needed help finding things. It's wonderful to see the progress the children have made since their early writing endeavours in Year 1. Next week is arts week and we are excited for the workshops we will be attending. We also look forward to seeing those of you who can attend our parent share session on Monday.

Week commencing 08.05.23

Another short, but packed, week for Year 1. We finished our introduction to fractions in maths by looking at quarters. In English, we completed our class innovation of Lost and Found and we looked at how to improve our discriptive writing about settings as well as learning about the suffix -er. In history we found out more about our current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, and then we wrote a list of list of questions we would like to ask if we met him. They included 'How old are your children?', 'What do you like about being Prime Minister?', 'How much tax will you take?' and 'What is your favourite soap?'. Quite a range as you can see! In science, we looked at methods of seed dispersal and in RE we completed our introduction to Sikhism by learning about the 5 Ks.

Week commencing 01.05.23

It's been another busy week in Year 1. We've continued to innovate Lost and Found in English and we have been working on using the conjunction 'and' to extend our sentences. In Maths, we have just started our new topic, fractions, by looking at halves. We've continued to monitor our cress and we're noticing more differences between the seeds depending on their location and conditions. In history, as well as learning about our current Prime Minister we also took the opportunity to recap our knowledge of coronations so the children should be able to spot and name some familiar items on Saturday if they are watching. We also re-watched a bit of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation and next week we will compare it to King Charles III's. Have a lovely long weekend!

Week commencing 24.04.23

This week we have continued to learn our model text based on Lost and Found as part of our English lessons. We then started innovating the opening of the text as a class. In maths, we moved on to looking at sharing and grouping, using cubes to see how we could group a variety of numbers. In history we are looking at Parliament and Prime Ministers this half term. So far, we have explored what parliament is and where they meet and we have looked at Robert Walpole, the first British Prime Minister. See if your child can remember where Prime Ministers live. We have been checking our cress seeds regularly and are seeing differences in growth, and this week in science we started another experiment to see what happens when we put red food colouring into a vase of white flowers.

Week commencing 17.04.23

It's been lovely to have the children back in school and telling us all about their holidays. We have started all our new units this week and we have also managed to fit in a trip to the school garden to plant carrot seeds. This will complement our learning in science where we are looking at plants. As part of this we planted some cress seeds and put them in different conditions. One is in a dark cupboard, some are in sunlight and others are either being deprived of water or given too much. One is even in the fridge! Over the next few weeks we'll see what happens to them all.