Your 5 to 6 year-old child in Year 1: Science

What should my child be doing in school?

In year 1, your child should learn the basics of how animals, humans and other living things function - feeding, moving and using their senses. He should be taught how to ask questions and test how things work. For instance, he might plant a seed and record how it grows.

Your child should learn to name the main parts of her body, including sense organs, and the main parts of a plant (leaf, stem etc.). The class should discuss the common features of animals (e.g. the type of coat they have) and should learn to recognise common animals such as robins and goldfish.

Year 1 children explore simple scientific phenomena (like how ice melts when put somewhere warm), how substances differ (e.g. water v. oil) and hence why certain substances are more suitable than others for a given task (e.g. wood is a good material for a door, wool for a scarf).

Your child should be taught to do simple tests of comparison such as how a pair of shoes made of cloth or of plastic fares in the rain. He should also be asked to decide whether the comparisons are fair.

6 year olds should begin to use reference material to check their ideas and find out more, and should be taught to record their own findings in simple pictures, words, charts and tables.

Light is one of the year 1 science topics, so your child should learn about the main sources of light (sun, lightbulb, candle) and how they change in different circumstances (e.g if the sun goes behind a cloud).

What should my child be able to do?

By the end of year 1 your child should be able to:

• Observe and ask questions about living things, different materials and scientific phenomena, such as melting and heating
• Begin to work with other pupils to collect evidence to answer simple scientific questions
• Evaluate the evidence collected from experiments and think whether the experiments were fair
• Use simple reference material to find out more about scientific ideas
• Talk about his ideas using simple scientific language, drawings, charts and tables
• Recognise and name external parts of the human body and of plants
• Talk about animals and plants in terms of common features
• Recognise and name common animals
• Recognise a range of properties such as the textures and appearance of objects and talk about them in terms of these properties
• Discuss how or why changes in light, sound or movement occur, and recognise that sound and light come from various sources

For details on how you can help your child, including online learning activities, click here.