Our Topics– Once Upon a Time and The Great Fire of London.
This half term the children will explore a mixture of traditional and non-traditional fairy tales. Fairy tales will allow the children to engage with storytelling, patterns and making predictions. This will lead to other areas of learning where we are developing our knowledge of exploring and comparing materials. In our next half term, we will be exploring the great fire of London which gives children the opportunity to progress in their learning by exploring nonfiction texts and developing their vocabulary.
Reception– We will be working on understanding numbers to 10, addition, subtraction, and simple problem solving activities. We will learn through many practical, fun activities and rhymes. We will be learning about the composition of each number to 10 so that your child can find all of the possible ways of making each number using addition and subtraction number bonds and can represent them using play toys and a variety of maths equipment. Please provide opportunities to practise your child’s early counting skills: counting up to 20 and back, using the language of ‘one more’, ‘one less’. This can be done through activities such as laying the table or counting how many grapes they have in their lunch box. Another area where you can help out is by playing games with your child such as cards, snakes and ladders, bingo or dominoes. In addition, you could help your child to notice shapes in the environment or find hidden numerals to order from smallest to biggest.
Y1/2– All of the above still apply to Y1 and 2 children but can be extended to numbers 50/100 and counting in 2’s, 3’s, 5’s and 10’s. We will explore how collections of objects can be sorted in different ways and children will be encouraged to come up with their own criteria for sorting objects into sets.
Please help your child at home by providing practical situations where they can apply their learning to real life contexts such as estimating how much three items at the shop would cost, playing board games or helping your child to tell you the time
YR1 Will be focusing on numbers to 20 during the first half term. You can support your child by practising counting to twenty, writing numbers in numerals and words, finding one more and one less than a given number (great for car journeys), and accurately counting objects up to twenty – it helps if they move them as they count.
YR2 During the first half term the children in year 2 will be learning about money and multiplication and division. Experiences with money will help them apply their learning to real life situations, these could be playing shops at home or looking at prices when out shopping, working out totals and how much change they would get from 50p, £1 or £10.
Useful apps include: Glowburst, Numberrun, Addition & subtraction– daydream education and squeebles (all the squeebles apps are amazing). Useful websites include: www.primarygames.com/math.php, https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zjxhfg8, https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/homeTimeLadybirds/
Phonics/reading/spelling: This year we are introducing a new phonics scheme called Read Write Inc. RWI is used widely across the country to give infants a flying start in their mastery of language. The children will be having daily phonic lessons in small groups and sharing decodable storybooks in order to develop reading fluency and to read with comprehension. The storybooks can also be shared at home. We will also use this time for the children’s spelling and writing activities to help them spell and write with confidence, develop co-operative behaviour and articulate their ideas and understanding. Look out for an information letter about how you can help your child at home in the next couple of weeks.
Reception: We will be reading fiction and non-fiction with a variety of themes to encourage a love of books and reading. We will be learning about the structure of stories and practising retelling them orally and saying sentences clearly, counting the words within them and noticing the finger spaces between them. We will move onto hearing and writing sounds within words and practising forming our letters correctly. It is vitally important that our children learn to hold their pencil effectively and form their letters correctly, starting and finishing in the correct places.
Y1/2: As well as their phonics work children will gain opportunities for speaking and listening and enjoying a wide variety of books. We will be ensuring that all children are forming their letters correctly before moving proficient writers onto simple handwriting joins. Children will be encouraged to increase their stamina for writing over the coming weeks as we get back into the swing of school, making sure our sentences make sense and contain capital letters and full stops.
Please read with your child each night if possible as well as practice their weekly spellings. Our spelling quizzes take place on Mondays so please ensure your child has their spelling book in their bag.
Useful apps include: Squeebles Spelling (great for inputting weekly spellings to learn), Look, Cover, Write Check and our favourite, Teach Your Monster to Read.
Useful websites include: www.topmarks.co.uk/english-games/5-7-years/letters-and-sounds and www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/literacy/
PE will be on Mondays. Please send your child into school with their PE kit on. In addition, reception children will have 20 minutes of PE each morning, focusing on fundamental movements (no PE kit required).
Reception children will be focusing on developing good control, coordination and confidence in a range of small and large movements. We will be practising basic throwing, catching and kicking techniques.
Y1/ Y2 children will be developing their running, jumping and co-ordination skills though a variety of games. We will be refining our ball skills, throwing, catching, kicking and playing a variety of games using these skills.
In Reception, we will be setting up lots of fun activities where children can explore early concepts of science. We will be encouraging children to verbalise their thoughts and ask questions to further their understanding of a concept. You can help at home by talking through activities yourself and asking/encouraging questions.
Y1/Y2 Children will be exploring materials through this term. We will experiment with how the shapes of solid objects can be changed by squashing, bending, twisting and stretching. Children will then develop their understanding by comparing and grouping a variety of everyday objects to determine their suitability for different needs.
We will be linking a lot of subjects into our topic including;
Geography We will be focusing on maps, linked to our Once Upon a Time theme. Children will learn about human and physical features and create their own maps.
DT Children will be making their own wolf traps linked to our Once Upon a Time topic. They will be using the knowledge they have gained through a range of lessons to support and help them design and make their own trap thinking in detail about the mechanisms needed. Children will then evaluate their traps looking carefully at how successful they were and the changes they would make next time.
ICT Children will use technology purposefully to create, organise, store, manipulate and retrieve digital content. We will also explore the common uses of information technology.
MUSIC Our learning is focused around one song: Hands, Feet, Heart where we will explore the dimensions of music (pulse, rhythm, pitch etc). As well as learning to sing, play, improvise and compose with this song, children will listen and appraise different styles of South African music.
PSHE (Personal, Social, Health Education) During our PSHE lessons, we will be looking at how behaviour affects others and how we can be polite and kind. We have written our own class rules to support this in our classroom and will develop the skills we need to be a successful team. We will also be developing our understanding of the roles of different people and how to keep ourselves safe.
RE Linking with our PSHE unit, we are going to be learning why it is important to be respectful of beliefs and how we will show respect when learning about different cultures and religions. We will start this journey by exploring Islam and finding out who is a Muslim and how do they live? After half term, we will start to explore why is Christmas important to Christians. We will also look at where we belong and how we are special.