Year 1 (2022 to 2029)

This Term Year 1 read stick man, defrosted stick man from ice, using fine motor skills with pipettes, seeing how the state of materials changed with water and they made their own little stick people from natural materials.  Some chose to make a boat from sticks, others paint brushes (and natural…

Last week, Year 1 finished creating autumn leaves from their marking-making paintings.

Earlier in the term, the children explored mark-making but not with traditional tools; instead they used household objects and considered what their marks could describe – the texture of crocodile skin,…

We had some very excited Year 1 children going to the woodlands for the first time (many rounds of 'The wheels on the bus' were enjoyed by Mr Taylor!). Luckily the weather was on our side - no storm but the sun was shining for us. 

We hopped on the minibus and walked up to the clearing in…

Mark-making inspired by ‘Billy and the Beast’. 

This term, Year one pupils have been reading the book ‘Billy and the Beast’, by author and illustrator Nadia Shireen. Within art, we looked at Nadia Shireen’s illustrations and as a class discussed how she used her marks and lines to describe…

Summer is here (or so we thought) in our Term 6 Forest School. The Year 1 children explored how to tap on different materials, scrape them and blow with a blade of grass between their thumbs. Particularly Elias has shown incredible resilience and kept trying until he managed to make a sound. Well,…

Rowan class have been drawing self-portraits. Each child first warmed up by making a quick pencil sketch of themselves and their hobbies. They asked themselves, who am I?

As a class, we discussed how to observe your own face in a mirror; how to begin drawing facial features and…

Over the last two weeks, Year one designed and made their own fruit salads. Yum!

The first step was to explore fruit by conducting a ’taste test’ and to decide which 4-5 fruits to add to their fruit salad; this was their design. Within week two, the children learnt all about hygiene and…

Year one continue to explore fruit and vegetables this term. Last week, the children used their observational skills to draw and paint red peppers.

As a class, we discussed scale (drawing the peppers larger to fill their A3 paper); oil pastels and how they resist paint (used for the…

Using inspiration from two books, Oliver’s Vegetables and Oliver’s Fruit Salad, children in Year one used their observational skills to draw from microscopic photographic images of fruit by the artist Rob Kesseler. These images are really funky and abstract. Within the lesson, the children learnt…

We were lucky this term as someone passed on a bird's nest they had found, which still had a light blue egg in it. This was a rare find and very exciting to see close up. Year 1 children have been very busy getting the polytunnel up and running, moving soil, bark chip and planting our new…

In Term 4 Year 1 have learned about life cycles of frogs and butterflies- we acted them out in our fire circle and read stories. The children found leaves that have been eaten by caterpillars and other insects. We sang an insect song and learned about the parts of the body and that every insect…

Year one pupils have been drawing plastic animal toys from observation this week. As a class, we discussed: how to carefully look at the objects and drawing what they see; the importance of referring back to the object regularly when drawing; sketching lightly with their pencil in case they need…