Spring 2023

Welcome back after a fantastic festive break. We hope you had a wonderful time making magical memories and cannot wait to hear all about them!

This term we will be beginning our learning with a Trip to ‘Stocks Wood’ Forest School. We are very excited as this will allow us to engage the students and dive deeper into our learning about Magical Mapping for Geography and Habitats for Science. We know it will be really beneficial to spend time in the woodland exploring and getting closer to nature.

In Science as mentioned, we are looking at Habitats. Throughout the module we will explore the difference between things that are dead and alive and look at life processes. We will identify plants and animals in their natural habitats. Following on from this we will look at features of a microhabitat. We will learn how to understand which plants and animals are best suited to their surroundings based on adaptation. And finally we will take some time to look at food chains and how they impact plants and animals of today.

In Geography we are going to be looking at Magical Mapping. We will devise our maps and construct basic symbols, use simple compass directions (North, East, South West0 to describe positions and directions, use an Atlas to identify the UK and Countries within it. We will then look at Aerial photos to recognize human and physical landmarks. Its going to be really exciting using some of those skills on our trip too!

Literacy this half term is based around the text ‘The Deep Dark Wood’ by Algy Craig Hall. Children will be writing setting descriptions, learning how to correctly use question marks, be able to describe a character, sequence a story, as well as use and write instructions. Following on from this we will also be looking at ‘What the Ladybird heard?’ by Julia Donaldson. Our read aloud this term is Enid Blyton ‘Enchanted Woodland’. Alongside this we will of course be continuing with our amazing progress in Read, Write, Inc during phonics time. 

Year One Maths will start with consolidation and extension work on addition and subtraction within 20.  We will cover counting on, making number bonds, subtraction crossing ten, related facts and comparing number sentences.  Year Two Maths will start with Multiplication and Division.  We will look at recognising and making equal groups, multiplication sentences using images and also using the symbol x, we will look further at arrays and cover 2,5, and 10 times tables.

RE sessions will focus on Baptism in Christianity. We will look at the story of John Baptising Jesus in the river and the significance water has to a Baptism. As a class we will investigate special objects and have discussions surrounding the importance of the objects to others. We will have opportunities to share our own experiences and also visit the Church.

In French we will continue using the ‘Language Angels’ programme to help us with our French. This half term we will be covering Colours and Numbers, as well as recapping over greetings and responding to how we are feeling.

PE days will continue to be on a Monday and Friday this term. Please can you ensure that children bring to school a named PE kit as it is important they get into good habits changing into sports clothing ready for the sessions. We will be covering two modules this half term ‘Dance’ and ‘Dodgeball’. Dance we will work on a piece to ‘Just Can’t Wait to be King’.

In DT we will be focusing on Textiles and making ‘Explorer Pouches’. We will learn how to do a running stitch, tie a knot, using a template, make a pouch and then decorate it.

We are so excited to begin these wonderful learning experiences with your children, and cannot wait to welcome them back for another fun filled half term!

Week One - 06.01.2023

The children have worked really hard this week settling back into routines and beginning new topics. 

In Literacy we have begun to look at our new text 'The Deep Dark Wood' by Algy Craig Hall. Year 1/2 exlpored the idea of woodland scenes by creating their own setting using natural objects. They then used these settings to create a story about a character. Each group retold their stories, Myself and Mrs McVitie were very impressed at the stories told. 

We also started our RE quest beginning with a 'Chatter Box'. The box sparked alot of thoughtful questions about Christians and Baptism.  

This half term we are moving on from the value of 'Hope' to 'Friendship'.  Children talked about what makes a good friend, complimented thier friends in class and then decorated a person filled with things that are special to them before we interlinked them in a friendhship banner. 

Spring 2

Welcome back after half term. Hope you have had a wonderful break. This half term is a short but busy one! Year 1 / 2 are going to be looking predominantly at ‘The Great Fire of London’. We will be using this theme as part of our Literacy through the text ‘Toby and the Great Fire of London’ by Margaret Nash. We will also be investigating this further through our History topic, looking at the cause of the fire, how it spread and how it was eventually stopped. In Maths year 1 will be covering measurements and year 2 will be investigating properties of shapes. Children will be creating box weave frames in art sessions and producing their own weavings using a variety of techniques.  Science this term will be celebrated during science week. We look forward to seeing our journey this half term.

This week we have begun our History topic. We have looked at photographs and drawings from 1666 and present day so we can compare and contrast similarities and differences between London now and then. Then children collaborated well and were very eager eyed at spotting differences, and asking questions.

During world book celebrations we focusses on Roald Dahl activities, we enjoyed rotating around school working with all the different teachers in a variety of subjects. With Mrs Pieroni we decided to do something based on our current favourite story ‘Matilda’ and created ‘Trunchbull’ sponge cakes. We thought this would be a fantastic way to repay the Headteacher for all the unkind she has done! I am sure you will agree that we would have found them tempting if we hadn’t known they were made from sponges.

Year 1’s have managed to create their own box frames ready for their weaving projects. We took time carefully marking out where to cut slits, then wrapped the wool in between the cuts, it was a little bit challenging to keep the wool tight but the outcome looks fantastic! We can’t wait to see how these progress over the up and coming weeks.

In Literacy we have started our new text ‘Toby and the Great Fire of London’ we completed a jigsaw of the front cover and then used this as a base for our VIPER discussions.

Year 2’s have been investigating properties of 2D and 3D shapes, they have been learning about vertices, sides, faces and how to categories these into groups.

We have been getting ready to delve into our new theme in RE ‘Easter’.  We revisted the Easter Story and cresated some wonderful crusification artwork.

This week we have enjoyed starting the process of  creating  our houses for our 1666 fire simulation.Children have worked in pairs to design and building the main structure of their houses. We will add straw roofs next week before we witness how the fire would have begun and spread in 1666.

Great British Science Week begun this week. In class we have started an experiment to watch how not washing our hands can spread germs. We will be monitoring the progress of this in the following weeks.  We enjoyed exploring change of state in gloop, the push and pull of magnets, finger prints and have even started our ‘Hairy Caterpillars’. 

In RE, we continued looking at recalling events from the Easter Story.  Children acted out key events from Holy Week and worked in pairs to order pictures.  Shouts of Hosanna could be heard throughout school. Well done Year 1/2! 

 In English, we learnt about a new type or poetry- Haiku.  We began by clapping syllables in our names and key phrases related to the Great Fire of London.  Children identified the pattern for number of syllables in a Haiku (5,7,5) and used their senses to develop their own lines.  
Here are some fabulous examples-