Ashton Under Hill First School

Shaping Bright Futures Together


Holly Class w/b 6th February 2023

This week the Holly class aeroplane brought us to Japan. We have been exploring the story of Snow White, set in a Japanese Temple. We have decided that Japan is still not the right place for Pog! In our whole class Geography lessons we have been looking at where Japan is on a world map. This led us onto comparing aerial views and maps and then creating our own aerial views of familiar places.

In our literacy lessons we have been exploring instructions. Year 1 have been using 'bossy verbs' (imperative verbs) to write instructions about how to get onto a bus. We watched videos about bus journeys to help us with our instruction sequencing. Reception have been learning about descriptive words to support them with expanding their oral vocabulary.

In phonics this week, the Year 1 children have recapped their 4 new graphemes for the phoneme 'c'. They have also been exploring spelling rules related to the sounds 's' and 'z'. The reception children have learnt 4 new phonemes this week; z, zz, qu and ch . See if you can spot any of these when you are reading at home!

In maths this week, Year 1 have been exploring number bonds to 20 and have been introduced to doubling and near doubles. The Reception children have been looking at cardinality and ordering numbers. They have done this using blocks, songs and physical movements.

This week was Mental Health Week across the school. Holly class have enjoyed participating in many school activities alongside class activities. We learnt about what mental health is and how our feelings affect us and others around us. We went on a whole school walk with our buddies from across the school and enjoyed some time in the meadow together. We took part in lots of yoga and have learnt a flash mob dance that we showed to our parents on Friday afternoon! We have also learnt about safe spaces and have used Lego to build our own. 

We have had a very busy week in Holly class, and look forward to seeing where our aeroplane's final destination is next week!