Grade 1

Reading

In Weeks 5 and 6, students continued to build their phonics skills through explicit teaching, hands-on practice and daily revision. In Week 5, they focused on identifying and using key digraphs, including ‘th’ (both voiced as in feather and unvoiced as in thumb), ‘oo’ (long as in moon and short as in book), and ‘ng’ (as in swing), while also revisiting previously learnt sounds. Students practised segmenting and blending using sound boxes, oral blending, Stop and Spell activities, and sentence work. Tricky words were regularly revised to support fluency and automatic recognition, with a focus on words such as some, where, should, would, and could.

In Week 6, students consolidated their learning through review lessons, reading passages and word hunts, and were introduced to compound words, learning how two smaller words can be joined to make a new word (e.g hand + bag = handbag).

Through modelling, games and independent literacy tasks, students demonstrated growing accuracy in recognising digraph patterns, distinguishing between similar sounds (such as the two ‘th’ and ‘oo’ sounds), and applying their learning in both reading and writing.

Maths

In Week 5 and 6, continued to build on their learning about two-digit numbers and place value. They used hands-on materials such as ten-frames, pop stick bundles and base-10 blocks to represent numbers and understand how numbers are made up of tens and ones. Students consolidated their understanding by grouping objects into bundles of ten, matching numerals to different representations and recording numbers using place value charts and number bonds. They also learnt to read, compare and order numbers to 99 and to regroup ones into tens. These activities supported the students in building a strong foundation in place value and in developing confidence with larger numbers.

Writing

In Weeks 5 and 6, students continued to build on correct letter formation using our sky, grass and dirt lines, ensuring they start letters in the correct place and form them neatly. They consolidated their understanding of capital letters by exploring when and why they are used, including at the beginning of sentences and for proper nouns such as names. Through explicit modelling and guided practice, students identified capital letters in shared texts and edited sentences that were missing them, building confidence in applying this skill independently in their own writing.

Through our shared text A Year on Our Farm, students engaged in rich discussions, explored new vocabulary (mend and spread), and participated in Think-Pair-Share activities to deepen their understanding of the text. They analysed how the story unfolds across a year in connected episodes, identifying it as an episodic narrative. Students explored key narrative concepts, including narrator, audience, structure, and purpose, discussing why the author wrote the text and what they want readers to learn, feel, or enjoy. At the sentence level, students revised the difference between complete sentences and fragments, identifying missing elements and adding a subject (who/what) or verb (what doing) to create a complete thought. They also practised expanding sentences with additional details, such as when or where something happens, to make their writing clearer, more engaging and more informative.

Home Learning:

Reading

Reading using take-home reader books or the MultiLit online library
Read simple words, short sentences and short passages together, encouraging your child to point to each word as they read.
Try re-reading familiar books to build confidence, fluency and expression.
Practise digraphs such as ‘th’ (thumb/this), ‘oo’ (moon/book), ‘ng’ (sing), and ‘wh’ (whale), along with tricky words (such as some, where, should, would, could).

Mathematics

Using straws, pop sticks, pencils or icy-pole sticks. Students can bundle them into groups of 10 with a rubber band and count how many tens and ones there are
Counting everyday items such as socks, Lego, or snacks. Grouping them into tens and leftover ones, then writing the numeral.
Looking for two-digit numbers around the house or outside (letterboxes, clocks, calendars, prices) and students reading the number and identifying the tens and ones.
Students writing two numbers (e.g. 42 and 57) and identifying “Which is bigger? And explaining how they know?”