Emerald Class

Welcome to Year 1

Our names are Miss Routledge and Miss Redpath. We will be your class teachers this year.

Mrs Finnigan will also be in class to help us each day!

Spring 1

Spring 1 overview

Please watch our dance showcase that we learnt for Valentines Day!

Friday 13th February

Infantasia at East Rainton Primary School

The children were invited to take part in "Infantasia" at East Rainton Primary School today. This is an event organised with local schools to celebrate singing. They were required to learn a song as a class and then perform it to a number of other schools. I was so proud of them!

Friday 6th February - NSPCC Number Day

Week 5 - 05.02.2025

Today in English, Year 1 learned how to tell the difference between a story and an information text.

The children explored a page from Beegu alongside non-chronological reports about animals. Together, we discussed which texts tell a story and which give us facts and information. The children looked for clues such as characters and feelings in stories, and headings and factual sentences in information texts.

They then worked with a partner to sort sentences into story or information, helping them recognise that stories describe events and emotions, while information texts tell us facts about the world.

Week 4 - 29.01.2026

Today Year 1 had a visit from the School Nurse, who talked to the children about looking after their teeth. They learned how to brush their teeth properly and why it’s important to keep them healthy. The children really enjoyed the session.

Week 3 - 23.01.2026

Today the children practised their cutting and joining skills within their DT topic.

As a class, we talked about the importance of safety when using scissors:

- pointing the blades away from you

- carrying them holding their metal blades together in your hand

- placing thumb in top hole

- using the middle of the blades to cut, carefully opening and closing the blades.

The class then thought of ways we can join materials together:

- string

- tape

- glue

When considering which method was best we thought of various ideas; strength, suitability as well as cost.

Week 2

The children have shown great understanding in Maths this week! They have been looking closely at numbers 10-20 - thinking about what they are made up of and how to represent them in different ways.

Part-whole models were used in order to allow children to see the tens and how many ones were needed to "build" the number. They then used various resources such as Dienes and Numicon to represent these.

Well done Year 1.

Week 1

The children have had a wonderful week back at school! They are very eager to learn!

This week the children have started their new history topic of toys. They were asked to bring in their favourite toys so that we could discuss what the toy was made of and the reasons why they have chosen that toy as their favourite.

Autumn 2

Autumn 2 overview

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Thank you for a wonderful term! Your children have worked so hard and have earned a well-deserved break! Stay safe! We look forward to seeing you in 2026!

The Year 1 Team x

16.12.25

Christmas Party Day! The children had a fantastic time this afternoon at their Christmas party! They showed off some fabulous dance moves and I am sure you'll agree that they looked amazing!

11.12.2025

🎄 Christmas Jumper & Lunch Day! 🎅

School has been full of festive fun today with everyone rocking their Christmas jumpers and tucking into a lovely Christmas dinner. The children looked brilliant and the excitement was unreal.

We’re officially in full Christmas mode now! ✨

05.12.2025

BREAK THE RULES DAY!

Thank you for all your donations!

05/12/2025

Christmas season has begun!!

The children enjoyed the performance of "Red Riding Hood" today... on no they didn't!

WB 24.11.25

This week the children have had a busy week. We have carried out lots of assessments; phonic screen, arithmetic assessments as well as handwriting. The children are all showing huge progress!

This week the children have been working on matching upper case and lower letters.

In addition to this, we have been working on recognising and naming 3D shapes. The children were fantastic at this when showing their knowledge during a shape hunt in school.

Tree planting - November 2025

Today the children were each given a tree sapling to plant. They added a tag with their name on to watch how much it grows over time.

Children in Need 2025

11.11.25

Today the children blew my socks off!

We have been thinking about what a sentence needs (other than the expected punctuation). We have talked about the fact every sentence needs a subject/noun as well as a verb.

Today the children used our focus text "Billy and the Beast" to find nouns within the pictures! They were absolutely amazing at this! Well done Year 1!

11.11.25

Today the children observed 2 minutes of reflection to remember those we have lost during war/conflict around the world.

The children first watched a very short animation that helped explain why we wear poppies during this time of year. We then sat quietly and listened to The Last Post.

10.11.25

Year 1 won the attendance award last week! The children chose doughnuts as their treat!
What a start to a Monday!

10.11.25

Odd Socks Day to raise awareness of Anti-Bullying week!

WB 03.11.25

We celebrated Outdoor Classroom Day this week! Please see the photos below! The children had so much fun!

Autumn 1

Emerald Class - Year 1 - Autumn 1 Overview .pdf

WB 20.10.25

This week the children have used all of their RE knowledge about promises. We have been looking at promises that are made across religions (Christianity, Islam and Sikhism). We have talked about what a promise is and how this might be shown within weddings and baptisms.

The children then thought about promises they could make within friendships...

- sharing

- kind with words and actions

- helping one another

To represent the promises to one another, the children used pasta to create friendship bracelets!

WB 13.10.25

This week we are using pictures from our focus text "Cave Baby" to orally rehearse sentences in different ways. We have been using "my turn, your turn" to copy a modelled story voice that uses expression and change of tone - the children have been fantastic at this! We are continuing to focus on the use of capital letters at the beginning of a sentence as well as finger spaces between words and full stops to mark the end of a sentence. The children continue to need practise with this but are making good progress!

I have attached a photo below of the pictures from the story that the children will be using. Ask your child to have a go at orally rehearsing it with you!

Exploring Autumn in Geography

This week in Geography, Year 1 ventured outside to look for signs of autumn. The children were excited to become little explorers, noticing how the world around our school is beginning to change with the new season. They spotted colourful leaves falling from the trees, berries growing on bushes, and even noticed how the air felt cooler. Back in class, we talked about how the seasons change and shared our favourite autumn discoveries.

08.10.2025

This week in Science, we became animal investigators! We started by looking at some mysterious animal poo and tried to work out which animal it could have come from. Then we talked about what different animals eat.

We matched a range of animals to the foods they might like and discussed what this told us about their diets. We learned that:

Carnivores eat meat.
Herbivores eat plants.
Omnivores eat both plants and meat.

By the end of the lesson, we could explain whether each animal was a carnivore, herbivore or omnivore—and we had lots of fun being scientists along the way!

Week beginning 29.09.2025

What a busy week in Year 1!

This week, the children have been brilliant geographers. They interviewed teachers and staff members around school to find out more about the different jobs people do and why each role is so important to keeping our school running smoothly.

In maths, we’ve been blown away by the children’s progress! Everyone worked incredibly hard on their place value assessments and achieved some fantastic results. We’ve also been practising our number skills using number lines and filling in missing numbers.

In English, we focused on sentences—especially spotting where full stops should go. The children loved using post-it notes to build their own sentences and show what they’ve learnt. We also went on a capital letter hunt around the classroom, matching capital and lowercase letters together.

To finish off the week with some fun, we learnt a new song in music all about dinosaurs wearing baggy pants—it definitely brought a few giggles to the classroom!

Week Beginning 22.09.25

Today the school nurse came into school to talk to the children about the importance of hand washing. They discussed when it was important to wash their hands and observed effective handwashing!

The children have really impressed me with their maths skills today. We were comparing numbers and identifying which number is greater than or less than another number and then using symbols between these. We discussed the importance of reading the numbers from the left first, as we do when we read and then choosing the appropriate symbol to sit between them! We used the language of "greater than" / "less than" and "equal to".

Week beginning 15.09.25

The children have had a fantastic week this week!

Within English we have been looking at matching upper and lower case letters, as well as naming capital letters. We sing the alphabet daily using the song shared on dojo.

The children have been continuing their work on "The Three Little Pigs" and have been beginning to write simple captions. Next week they will work on retelling the story through oral rehearsal initially and then furthering their work on pictures and captions.

The children have worked hard in PE! They are currently working on their fitness levels through the use of pirate stories! Ask them to remember some of the exercises they had to follow in order to locate the missing treasure from the naughty pirates!

Within Art, we have been exploring lines. We have considered how to make thick lines and thin lines and looked at artists such as Matisse to investigate these further. We have looked at patterns/lines within Art such as wiggly lines, wavy lines, loopy lines, straight lines and zig zag lines. Ask your child to practise these at home - it will in turn help their handwriting!

Thank you for a wonderful week Year 1!

Monday 15th September

Today the children have been continuing their work on 'The Three Little Pigs'. They are working towards retelling the story through pictures and captions. In order to support this, the children have today been sequencing images from the text. They will use these later in the week in order to support their oral rehearsal of the story with their peers.

Well done Year 1!