Year 1 - Tomlinson Class

Welcome to the Tomlinson Class Page.

Our Class Teacher is Miss Athow.

Did you know we are called Tomlinson Class after the author Jill Tomlinson? Jill Tomlinson has written  lots of books including 'The Owl who was Afraid of the dark' and 'The Cat that wanted to go home'.

Our first half term in Tomlinson Class

The children have settled into Tomlinson Class really well and have completed lots of lovely learning so far this year! Our topic for this half term is ‘Engineers’ and the children have loved learning what an engineer is and also the type of work that they do.

In English we have been learning the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The children were really surprised when they found a broken bridge on our school field, with a letter. The letter was from the troll and he was asking the children for their help. Someone had broken his bridge so he wanted the children to use their knowledge of bridges, from our DT lessons, to design him a new, sturdy bridge. The children really enjoyed doing this and then loved creating the bridges using junk modelling.

In Art we have been looking at different modes of transport. The children were set a challenge of making a mode of transport using only paper, glue and sticky tape. Some of the designs that they children came up with were great!

In Science we have been looking at materials. When we were designing a bridge for the troll we had to think really carefully about what material would be the strongest, to prevent the bridge from breaking again. We also complete a fun experiment on what materials float and what materials sink. We did this outside in our Forest school area and we looked at what natural materials float and sink also.

At Icknield we are really proud that we are ‘Growing Amazing Children.’ Each week in assembly with Mrs Cooper, the children are introduced to a new virtue/ school rule. So far we have looked at being kind, being respectful and staying safe. If the grown-ups in the school notice a child showing any of these virtues, they have an apple written for our class tree. The apple details exactly what the child had done and if it is for the virtue that we are focusing on that week, the child gets to take their apple to assembly and it is shared with the rest of the school.

We have really enjoyed our RE learning this half term. We are looking at the religion Christianity and we have been looking at the special symbols used in Christianity. Recently, we looked at what is typical found in a Christian church and we drew a pictures to represent this. We have also looked at the different groups that the children belong to, whether it is our school itself, cubs, beavers, swimming or football!

Finally, I wanted to say a huge well done and thank you for the effort that you are putting into your child’s reading at home. For the last three weeks we have had over half of the class, reading at home, five times in a week! This is amazing and the children love receiving their sticker and Marvellous Me. Keep up the fantastic reading at home, it will really pay off for your child.

Keep up the amazing work everyone, I look forward to seeing the learning that we all achieve next half term.   

Autumn Term 2 in Tomlinson Class

The children have worked very hard throughout this half term. It has been a very busy, festive half term, full of lots of fun Christmas activities.

Our topic this half term has been ‘Explorers.’ The children have really enjoyed learning about famous explorers in history and we have added any important dates onto our class timelines. We have also practised asking and answering historical question. After being learning about the Famous explorer Captain Scott, we then asked and answered who he was, what he did, where he went, why he went and when it all happened.

In Science, we have been learning about the different seasons. We looked at the transition between autumn and winter and then we will continue to compare seasons as we progress through the year. The children used their Working Scientifically skills whilst making rain collectors and over the last few weeks of term, we have monitored and measured how much rain we have had!

Christmas has been in full swing throughout December and we were really proud of the children when they performed their Christmas assembly. The children spoke beautifully and really enjoyed sharing their assembly with all of the grown-ups and the other children in the school. In Tomlinson Class we have also had a very special visitor. On the 2^nd December we had an Elf arrive from Santa. We used our Maths skills and used a pictograph to vote as to what the Elf’s name should be. The most popular name was Jingle! We have also really enjoyed making Christmas cards, calendars, hats, having parties and wearing Christmas jumpers / party clothes!

I hope that you all enjoy a well-deserved break. Merry Christmas everyone!

Our first Spring half term...

The children have absolutely loved our superhero topic that we introduced after the Christmas break and are looking forward to continuing this learning after half term.

We were really proud of the children and the courage that they showed when they did their class assembly. The children were really excited to share it with their grown ups and they did an amazing job!

In Literacy, we have been looking at the text Eliot the Midnight Superhero. The children really enjoyed learning the text using our Mighty Writer and wrote their own version of the story, using their own superhero.

We have continued having weekly Forest School lessons and our focus this half term has been fire! The children really enjoy learning in our outside environment. We spent the first few lessons looking at safety around a fire and playing games to help make us aware of the correct conduct. We have also linked many of our topic lessons to Forest School and had these running alongside the session. We are looking forward to more Forest School after half term!

In PE the children have loved putting together a Superhero dance. We have looked at different movements and poses and incorporated these into a routine. We have also linked this learning to music and listened to different types of superhero music, focusing on the tempo and pitch of these songs.

We cannot believe that we are already half way through the academic year! We are looking forward to seeing what next half terms brings and all the lovely learning that we will participate in!