Class 1 Spring Term Newsletter
Welcome back to school, I hope you have had a relaxing Christmas break and on behalf of Mrs Martin, Mrs Abrahams, and myself, I would like to thank you all for your generous Christmas gifts, they were much appreciated.
Class One have made a great start to the term and are continuing to develop into independent learners. We have also welcomed back Miss Cho and Miss Pavey who will be with us until half term.
English
In English, we will continue to work on developing confident independent reading, correct letter formation and simple sentence structure. We will be learning how to write instructions based around the book The Deep Dark Wood by Algy Craig Hall and Ali Pye. We will also be learning about labels lists and captions, writing poems about the senses and studying the book Mrs Mole I’m home.
Through their English lessons children will continue to develop their use of capital letters, full stops, question and exclamation marks, use simple conjunctions as well as learning spelling rules relating to adding plurals ‘s’ and ‘es’ adding the prefix -un and suffixes.
Phonics
In phonics, we will be consolidating all the Phase 3 and 4 sounds and continuing to learn our phase 5 digraphs. and 5 sounds already learnt and moving onto alternative pronunciations of many graphemes (letters that denote a sound) and alternative spellings for certain phonemes (sounds).
Maths
In Maths, we will consolidate place value, addition and subtraction with numbers 1-20 before moving onto numbers 1-50. We will focus on 2-digit numbers and tens and ones along with counting, ordering and comparing numbers. This will progress to counting in multiples of 2, 5 and 10. Further on, class 1 will be introduced to the units of measure for length, mass and weight.
Science
Our science topic is the human body. We will focus on identifying and naming many body parts and linking some of these body parts to their 5 senses. We will also continue to learn about the seasons as we experience them throughout the year.
Geography
Our Geography topic will explore the countries of the UK. This will include their capitals and key features and characteristics of the countries.
History
Our history topic sees us journey from the past to the present looking at the changes to nursing over the years. We will give particular attention to Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole and Edith Cavell. They were significant figures of their time, immensely improving the nursing profession.
RE
In RE we will be learning about Judaism specifically exploring Shabbat. We will learn what it is, how it is observed, and different items used within the day. We will also be learning about the significance of the cross to Christians in the lead up to Easter.
Music
We will be looking at a variety of songs in the Blues, Baroque, Latin, Funk and Folk styles. Songs include, Into the Groove, How Blue can You Get by B.B King and Let the Bright Seriphim by Handel. We shall continue to develop our understanding of pulse, rhythm, and pitch.
DT
We will be covering a food technology topic this half term learning about preparing fruit and vegetables, this will involve tasting and trying techniques like washing, peeling, and chopping. We will be using these techniques to design and make our own fruit kebabs.
Art
During the second half of the term, we will be exploring aboriginal art and different artists known for the style.
Computing
In computing we will be transferring our artistic skills and using different programmes to create artwork. We will also be exploring how to make an eBook.
PSHE
This term we will focus on belonging to a community, media literacy and digital resilience and money and work. This will include learning about inclusion and belonging; sameness and difference, challenging gender stereotypes, learning how to make good viewing choices and the value of money.
PE
PE will be on a Monday and Tuesday for this half term. In PE we will be covering gymnastics and target games, followed by invasion games and basic yoga after half term.
Reading
Please continue to encourage your child to develop a love of reading by providing as many opportunities as possible for your child to read to you, ideally this should be daily. Please use their reading diaries to record their reading at home and provide a comment where relevant as this helps us to support them further during school time.
Homework
One piece of homework will continue to be set on a Friday and will be due in the following Wednesday.
Homework is set to provide further practice and to consolidate phonics learning from the week. Later in the term new subjects will be introduced to children’s homework e.g maths, English.
Spelling
This term the children will begin to have spellings set. These are based on assessment undertaken at school and will be set on a Friday and tested the following Friday. Tests will be taken in the back of their home spelling book so please try to ensure that this is in school on Friday-it can stay at home the rest of the week. Groups will be regularly re-evaluated but please bear in mind that this will also be based on the application/use of learnt spellings not just consistent high scores in their tests.
Forest School
We will continue to attend Forest School this term, please see the dates below. Please may I remind you to lift share where possible and to minimise traffic/disruption around Mr Cook’s house by parking on the verge along the road. Children will need to arrive at 9.20 and be collected at 11.30 before being changed and returned to school. Please make sure the children are wrapped up warm!
20th January
3rd February
24th February
10th March
24th March
Thank you for your continued support. Please do not hesitate to contact me via the school office or over the fence at the end of the day should you have any queries.
Best wishes
Mrs Tokeley