Year 1 Blackbird

July 2026 - Minibeast Mayhem day at Carymoor

Year 1 have had a fantastic day today at Carymoor Environmental Centre.

We spent the day exploring the forest and pond habitats to find the minibeasts that live there. We played games, did some pond water dipping, and used magnifying glasses to have a closer look at what was hiding in the forest. Some of us made clay creatures to take home and some of us will have the opportunity to do this at school, using treasures found on the forest floor as decorations.

It was a brilliant day - we learnt a lot and had lots of fun. We will all sleep well tonight - some of us even had a little nap on the coach!

July 2026 Diversity Day

Blackbird Class had an exciting day exploring the culture and traditions of Romania.  We began by finding Romania on a map and making our own flags. We found out lots of information about the country, such as the food that is eaten, the language, the wildlife, the landmarks and the traditional clothing. We learnt some Romanian words, made some fact cards and designed our own clothing inspired by the special occasion outfits we were shown. We also tried some traditional Romanian folk dancing. 

We were very lucky as we have some Romanian children in our class, and in other classes at school, who were able to tell us some more information about the country. We also had a visit from one of our parents who is from Romania. She shared stories about living in Romania and brought in some teddies for us to look at - one dressed in traditional Romanian dress and one dressed as the Romanian vampire, Dracula. Here are some photos from our day.

June 2026 Health & Sports Week

We have had such a fantastic Health and Sport Week!  It has been wonderful seeing the children engage in all the lovely activities including tennis, dance, road safety, a mini marathon and sun safety. Here are some photos of our enjoyable week!

 

 

 

June 2026 - Sports Day

We have had a fantastic afternoon and are so proud of all the children. They enjoyed many activities including- jungle parachute games, bean bag toss, pounce the tiger and a water sponge race. It was great to see all the children trying their best and demonstrating their teamwork skills. We then ended our afternoon with some fun races, finishing with the running race. Here are some pictures from this afternoon.

June 2026 - Wow Starter English!

Today we started our Minibeasts topic in English. We began by sharing our ideas about ‘What is a Minibeast?’ before going on our own minibeast hunt around the school grounds. We took a check-list with us to record all the different types of minibeasts we could find and magnifying glasses so that we could see any details.

We loved being explorers, here are some photos of some of our hunt!

April- English- Lets celebrate our amazing instruction writing!

Last week we followed some instructions and planted our own beans in class. We had to think about the resources that we needed and the order that we needed our instructions to be in so we could plant them successfully. We started by drawing our own text maps and we used these to help us write our own instructions. We had to include our time connectives and some imperative ( Bossy) verbs. Some of us even included some adjectives to make our instruction writing sound more interesting.

Here are some samples of our amazing instruction writing in Blackbird class!

April 2026- English- Jack and the Beanstalk.

Wow Starter

Today we found a huge suitcase in the middle of the classroom. We wondered where it came from and if we should open it. 

We carefully opened the suitcase and took out the items that were inside one by one. We noticed that everything inside was much bigger than normal.  We tried to guess who it could belong to. Maybe a giant?

We realised that the story of ‘Jack and the beanstalk’ had a character who was a giant and decided to read it. We all joined in with the fun bits ‘Fi Fi Fo Fum’!

We thought of some words to describe the giant objects, these are called adjectives

 

We also made some amazing giant props at home, they truly are fab! Here they are for you all to see. Thank you for helping us with making them.

April 2026- Wow starter-History - Nurturing nurses.

Today we have had a visit from Natasha from Southwest Heritage Museum and we travelled back in time over 200 years ago. We were back in the Victorian times. This half term we are going to learn about two famous ladies- Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. We were asked why we thought these ladies were important and if we had ever heard their names before. They were both famous nurses. Natasha told us all about Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. and how they both helped to nurse soldiers in the Crimean war. They both came from very different backgrounds and had very different upbringings. One thing they had in common was that they both wanted to be nurses. and wanted to help others. We learnt that hospitals , medicines and conditions were very different from the care that they receive today.

Today we had the opportunity to dress up as both nurses and wounded soldiers and to experience what life was like back then. We then designed a meal for a sick soldier and looked at some resources and had to decide if they belonged to Florence Nightingale or Mary Seacole. We also played a matching game where we had to match pictures of objects to their descriptions.

February 2026 English- How to make jam sandwiches?

Today we made jam sandwiches!  Our teacher made us laugh because she got the instructions muddled up the first time. You can’t cut the sandwich before you’ve put the jam in!!

We were able to follow and explain the instruction map step by step and read it through with a partner before retelling to the adults. We discussed the layout of the instructions and key words, (or time connectives), that were needed to start each sentence.

We used the instructions to make our sandwiches. We even got to taste them at the end!

We will use this experience to write instructions in our next lesson.

 

February 2026 English Wow starter- Making porridge.

Today Sparrow and Blackbird Class made porridge! The children were able to follow and explain the instructions step by step. We read the instructions together and added sign and gesture to support our retelling. We discussed the layout of an instruction text and discussed why they are important. 

The children worked in groups to create their porridge. They even got to taste it at the end!

We will use this experience to write instructions on  how to make porridge.

 

January 2026 - History Wow Starter! Toys from the past

This morning we had a lovely visit from Sam from South West Heritage Trust who delivered a toys and games workshop. Sam brought lots of old and new toys and games with her for us to sort and play with. Some of the toys were really old and children from the Victorian times would play with them. Some looked similar to the toys that we play with today and some were very different. Most of the old toys were made from wood, metal or china whereas many of todays toys are now made from plastic.

We engaged in a range of activities and could even dress like Victorian children and we got to make our own moving pictures. It was very exciting. 

Here are some pictures from our session.

 

January 2026 - English Wow Starter! Goldilocks and the Three Bears

This morning we came into school and saw that our role play area had been cornered off with police tape. The chairs had been knocked over and there was porridge all over the floor. What could have happened? 

We watched some video clips from our cleaning team and Mrs Warner who had discovered the mess. We used our detective skills to try to work out who it could of been. They had blonde hair, They were a child, They left a red ribbon and wore a blue dress. Who could it be?

Here are some pictures from our session.

 

December 2025 - Christmas Craft Afternoon

There was a lovely atmosphere in Blackbird Class this afternoon as we took part in some Christmas activities. We were very busy and made elves, paper plate Santa's and Reindeer, a snowflake sun catcher and some paper chains. We can't wait for you to see all our festive creations, here are some photos for you to see.

Thank you to all the parents who came in and helped with the Christmas Craft, it was much appreciated.

 

November 2025 History- Wow starter! First Flight.

Today we began our new unit of work on First Flight by acting out the life story of the Wright brothers. We dressed up and took on the roles of the different characters. We learnt about how and where the Wright brothers grew up. The jobs that they had and how they persevered and never gave up on something that they believed they had the ability to achieve. That was to build and fly the first powered aircraft.

Wilbur Wright was born on 16^th April 1867, and Orville was born on 19^th August 1871. They were brought up by their loving parents Milton and Susan Wright in Ohio in America. They were two brothers of seven children. We learnt how the brothers would often help their mother to care for Katherine their younger sister whilst their father was working away as a minister.

Whilst they were growing up the boys would often squabble, and both liked to be right. They were both really interested in the world around them and they loved to read and fix things. At a very young age, they had dreamt of flying, this love came about from a gift that their father brought back from one of their trips. A toy helicopter that was powered by an elastic band. They played with it endlessly until it finally broke. As they loved making things they worked hard and even managed to build their own new toy helicopter.

Although the boys squabbled as children, they did everything together. In 1889 They opened their own newspaper called The Westside News. Orville was the editor and Wilbur the publisher. The paper wasn’t very successful, and this career path didn’t last long.

The Wright brothers had a love for fixing and making things, so in 1892 Orville and Wilbur opened their own bike shop, where they sold and repaired bicycles and in 1896 they even built their own bicycle.

The Wright Brothers had a keen interest in flight and studied endlessly to learn all they could about flying., they spent most of their time in the library and studied the work of a German glider pioneer Otto Lilienthal and contacted Octave Chanute, a leading civil engineer in aviation who became a good friend and colleague to the Wright Brothers. The brothers persevered and designed and adapted many plans to achieve their dream.

Wilbur flew their first aeroplane on 14^th December 1903. The flight lasted for only 3 seconds. Orville attempted his first solo flight which lasted for 12 seconds. However on the 17^th December 1903 the Wright flight, as it was named lasted for 37 minutes. The Wright brothers had succeeded and invented and flown the very first powered aeroplane. 

Her are some pictures from our amazing afternoon learning about the Wright brothers. We even learnt a new song about an aeroplane.

 

October 2025 - Diwali celebrations

What an amazing start we have had to our day. Mrs Malhi one of our parents came into year 1 this morning, to talk to us about how her family celebrate the Hindi festival of Diwali. 

We learnt lots from her fantastic visit. We discovered that it is celebrated a little bit like Christmas where they have a lovely family meal, dress in their best clothes ( Mrs Malhi's dress looked very different to the clothes that we wear), they share sweets and gifts, they decorate their homes and even have fireworks.  We were very lucky as we got to make our own Diva lamps to take home. We then created some of our own pictures and patterns using some Rangoli powder and Mrs Edwards and Mrs Leach even had a Mendi pattern drawn on their hands. Mrs Malhi even gave us some sweet treats and the staff some freshly backed spring rolls and samosas which tasted delicious.

Here are some pictures from this morning visit.

Happy Diwali to you all!

 

October 2025 - Autumn Senses Walk English Wow!

Today we went on an Autumn senses walk around the school grounds to look for signs of Autumn using our 5 senses. We discussed what these senses were and the types of things that we thought we might observe. We took collection baskets and magnifying glasses, so we could have a closer look at some of our findings and brought some of them back into the classroom to examine further. We talked about how taste was one of our 5 senses, but we were not allowed to eat anything that we found during our walk. When we returned to the classroom, we had a good look at what we had discovered and thought of some adjectives to help describe our collections. Our teacher then shared some Autumn poetry with us.

 

September 2025- Geography- Walk in the local area.

This morning we went for a walk in our local area to see what features were around our school. We had our clipboards with some pictures of things to look out for. whilst we were on our journey. We were very lucky the sun was shining and it was nice and warm. We saw a hairdressers shop, a post box, the Salvation Army and St Francis Church and some other shops whilst we were out and about. Here are some pictures from our local walk.

 

September 2025- English-Wow Starter- Funnybones.

Today we got a letter from a new friend! He is called Dave and he is a skeleton!

In his letter he told us that unfortunately he and his friends have got broken up and need help to put themselves together again.

We worked in groups to hunt for the parts of Dave and his friends and put their skeletons together again.

After that, we heard a story about skeletons, it was called Funnybones and was written by Janet and Allen Ahlberg. It was funny!

We talked about our favourite parts of the story and retold it to our friends.

We are going to listen to some more stories by these authors because they wrote lots of stories.