Year 1 science lesson plans: What kind of superhero do I want to be?
Lesson plans to support children's exploration of autumn and seasonal changes using their five senses
The six lesson plans in this pack deliver National Curriculum requirements for Year 1 relating to Animals, including humans and Seasonal changes. They build on children’s learning about their bodies and their senses, and seasonal change in the EYFS.
Over the course of six lessons, children are invited to explore the season of autumn and the local area using their five senses, and to observe the weather associated with this season. There are opportunities to learn in Nature and the pack includes supporting resources and ideas for adapting the learning to suit the needs of all learners. Links between the learning and the school’s Climate Action Plan are also highlighted.
This teaching sequence has been developed as part of the Year 1 learning enquiry What kind of superhero do I want to be?, linked to the principle of Diversity.
Which areas of the National Curriculum are covered?
The lessons in this pack deliver the following National Curriculum statutory requirements for Year 1:
Animals, including humans
- Identify, name, draw and label the basic parts of the human body and say which part of the body is associated with each sense
Seasonal changes
- Observe changes across the four seasons; observe and describe weather associated with the seasons
Lesson 1: How do my hands help me identify things by touching them?
In this lesson, children explore a range of natural, autumnal objects (such as fallen leaves, conkers, acorns, seeds and seed heads) placed in a feely bag. They describe how they feel and make the connection that our hands and our skin help us to feel things through our sense of touch.
Lesson 2: What will I see in Nature today?
The second lesson in this pack focuses on the sense of sight. Children work in pairs to complete a series of challenges outdoors, listing all the things they can see in a given area, hunting for different coloured natural objects and searching for as many different shaped leaves as they can.
They link our sense of sight with our eyes.
Lesson 3: What different sounds can I hear around our school?
In the third lesson in this sequence, the children explore our sense of hearing. They spend time in an outdoor space listening carefully to the world around them and collecting sounds to put in their ‘sound sack’. They associate our sense of hearing with our ears.
Lesson 4: Which part of my body helps me to taste?
The focus for the fourth lesson is our sense of taste. The children try a selection of seasonal fruits and vegetables, such as apples, pears, blackberries, kale and sweetcorn, describing how each one tastes.
They learn that different parts of our tongues help us to taste, and that our sense of smell plays a part, too!
Lesson 5: How good am I at identifying smells?
In this lesson, children learn about their sense of smell by taking part in a game. They explore and try to identify different natural things, such as onion, mint, orange and garlic, by smelling them. They make the link between our noses and our sense of smell.
Lesson 6: What are the different parts of my body called?
The final lesson in this sequence brings the learning together. At this stage, they have explored different parts of the human body linked to our senses. In this final lesson, they put this learning into the wider context of the human body. Working in groups, they use chalk to draw a lifesize outline of the human body on the playground, or on large sheets of paper, before labelling this with as many parts of the human body as they can.
