Year 1 Update – Wk 21

This week the children really enjoyed their 100th day of school. Thank you to all the parents who helped with the organising of bringing in 100 items. The children had a lot of fun showing off what they had brought and proving that they had 100 items by grouping the items into groups/lots of 10. Every time the children group items into 10, it really helps support their understanding of place value (tens and ones) and helps them to visualise in their head in the future because they have seen the pieces, physically moved them themselves and solved problems. When the children learn to group items practically with manipulatives they are practising counting in tens, working out how many tens and ones are in a number and showing their working out. Our eventual aim is for all our students to be able to count out 100 items into 10 groups of 10 and many of our children said they had practised doing this at home before they brought the items in. If your child struggles to do this by themselves, practising at home for 10 minutes at a time (no longer unless they carry on by themselves) regularly would be a good way to help them improve their number sense. Working with an adult or on counting out a smaller number is a good way to start. You can use anything to group, you might choose lego, cars or knives and forks.

We have also started a two week unit on Pattern and Function. We have looked into the concept of repeating patterns and the children have had the opportunity to explore pattern through a range of practical activities.

Next week we will be starting a new focus on data handling. We will be collecting data and learning how to represent it in graphs and tables.