Spring 1 2026

This half term we'll be answering the question: What changed because of the Great Fire of London? We began our learning by finding out when the fire happened and how it started. We discovered the fire started 360 years ago, in 1666! It started on a street in London called Pudding Lane, in a bakery. We looked at some pictures of the Great Fire of London and thought about how different things looked 360 years ago. Making links to our science learning about materials, we realised that the fire was able to spread quickly because the buildings in London were made out of wood, which is a very flammable material. We noticed the houses were also built very close together, meaning the fire could spread from one house to the next very easily.

English

In English our story for this half term is How to Find Gold. The story is about a brave little girl called Anna, and her friend Crocodile (who is slightly less brave), who decide to set off on an adventure to find gold. We started our learning about the story by stretching our noticing muscle and writing down all the things we could see on the front cover of the story. We then wrote sentences about the things we could see with a focus on using size as an adjective in our writing e.g. I can see a short girl, I can see a tall crocodile, I can see a gigantic tree etc. We're also great at using colours as adjectives in year 1, but for this half term we're expanding our vocabulary to include a wider range of adjectives! We've also been stretching our imaginations and making lists of what we might need to take on an expedition to find gold of our own, one of our ideas was to take a map with us so we had a go at designing our own.

Maths

To start our maths learning this half term we've been looking at teen numbers (numbers between 10 and 20). We began by looking at what a teen number actually is, using base ten as our starting point and adding on from there. We made teen numbers in multiple ways, using equipment like numicon and dienes to show how we can use groups of ten to start and add ones to make up the number. From there we have been learning about what the '1' in a teen number actually means, we've been learning that the '1' in a teen number actually represents a 10, and have began to break numbers down into tens and ones.

Science

As scientists this half term we'll be exploring materials and their properties, and will use this knowledge to make links to other areas of our learning. We began our science lessons by looking at our classroom environment and seeing how many materials we could identify already. There are lots of materials we were already familiar with, like glass and plastic, but also watched a video to discover what other materials we may find in the wider world e.g. ceramic, rock and fabric. As a class we went on a material hunt to find different materials in our classroom and then filled in a chart matching different items to different materials. We found that some items might be made from more than one material at a time (our school scissors are both plastic and metal) and that some items can be made from different materials depending on where you find them (we realised that straws used to be made from plastic but are often made from paper or metal now!).

RE

Our RE learning this half term is all about what makes Jesus special. We began our learning by thinking about what makes a good friend because we know Jesus was a good friend to everyone. We thought about how friendship is a give and take, it takes both people in a friendship to care about each other and be respectful of each other. We thought about how being a good friend is not always having the same opinions as our friends, but loving them and respecting them anyway. Having love and kindness for other people is something Jesus encouraged of his friends and of everyone he met. We thought about how we can be good friends to each other throughout the day, and came up with lots of ideas, like sitting with our friends at dinner time to helping someone if you notice them feeling sad.