Welcome to Summer 2

Hello and welcome to our class homepage!

I hope that you have had a wonderful May half term and are well rested. We are very excited to see you all, we are going to be very busy during our last 7 weeks doing lots of lovely and exciting things, learning lots and of course growing those brains!

We will start our exciting new texts including ‘Somebody Swallowed Stanley ’ and ‘The Hundred Decker Bus’’.

‘Somebody Swallowed Stanley’ will give children the opportunity to discuss pollution in the ocean and learn all about how we can look after our planet by recycling! Children will be introduced to Stanley and learn that he is a plastic bag. Lots of the sea creatures believe he is a jellyfish! But are confused on his look. Children will learn all about different sea creatures that live in the ocean and have the opportunity to watch live videos from an aquarium. Children will write some facts about a sea creature of choice and use their phonics knowledge to write some simple sentences about it. Children will also have the chance to creature some jellyfish in the craft area and other sea creatures, labelling them as they go! Furthermore, children will read the whole story and put the story in order as to what happens to Stanley! Children will also be able to write some speech bubbles and write what they think Stanley might say. They will also created some zig zag books and draw and write about the story. Here, they will share their books with their friends in Foundation 1 and place some in our book corner too for people to read.

For our second book ‘The Hundred Decker Bus’, children will learn all about vehicles including buses. Children will learn about the daily bus journey and meet the different characters that get on the bus. Children will engage in activities including junk modelling, interactive story telling and map-making. Children will write simple sentences too and write where the bus is travelling to. Here, children will use their phonics knowledge once more to segment and blend phase 3 and phase 4 words like park, farm and pond. Furthermore, children will write and match their sentences to images from the story. They will also have the opportunity to choose a different vehicle and write about it including mapping out a journey for them.

In Maths, we will start the term by grouping and sharing. Here children will revisit some previous learning but spot patterns now when they group and share. Children will have the opportunity to use the practical resources to support their learning including cubes, counters and numicon. Children will also use some natural resources too. Children will then learn about odd and even numbers and explore sharing with odd and even. Moving on, children will then learn about visualising, building and mapping which will link nicely to our second Literacy text ‘The Hundred Decker Bus’. Here, children will consolidate patterns and discuss how they can spot a pattern and create their own repeated patterns. Children will then start their journey into mapping and learn about spatial reasoning by using the construction and small world area, thinking as to where objects are in relation to each other. They will replicate and build scenes using construction and have access to pens and paper to draw out their designs too including giving instructions to build.

In Phonics children will continue their journey to becoming readers! We will begin our first week by consolidating our Phase 3 sounds once more to make sure the children are confident with their digraphs and trigraph sounds. Once assessed, we will continue Phase 4 where children will learn about consonant digraphs and learn more longer words Here, children will continue to learn how to ‘chunk’ words up to successfully read them.

Children will continue to learn how to pronounce each initial sound correctly and learn the phase to match the sound. Furthermore, children will be taught the formation phrase and play blending games in provision.

In RE this term children will learn about branch 6 ‘Dialogue & Encounter’. Here, children will learn about the first principles of dialogue which are laid out to understand how to listen when others speak, develop attitudes of respect, and embrace similarities and differences.

Many of our children will begin to encounter Christianity for the first time. They will learn about some of the religious and secular times that are part of British cultural life, for example, the importance of Diwali in some Dharmic traditions or Remembrance Day. Furthermore, children will experience diverse representations of Christianity to appreciate that it is a global faith. In learning about Jesus, children will begin to understand that Jesus lived in the past in a place called Nazareth in Palestine. Children should begin to understand that Jesus would have looked and dressed like everyone else in Palestine at that time and would have had brown skin and dark hair. Children will have many opportunities engaging in activities including singing songs about Jesus, creating friendship cards, making boats to celebrate St Peter and St Paul, drawing self-portraits to celebrate that we are all different. Children will also take a visit to their local church and meet the people of the parish and talk about their roles and why they are so important.

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Reading is key to all learning and we would encourage you all to share books daily with your children. Developing a love of reading from an early age is essential for every child. We will continue our guided reading sessions and we do this four times each week.

Book bags need to be in school every Friday so your child can have their phonics reading book changed.

Each day follows the same routine which the children thrive upon as they know what to expect. Please see below:

8:30-9:00 – Our doors open from 8.30am when the children can self-register and access Calm & Connect activities and check in with staff

9:00-9:10 – Register, Prayer and Song

9:10-9.30 – Literacy Carpet Session

9:30-10:20 – Adult led activity Literacy, Indoor and Outdoor Continuous Provision, Snack

10:20-10:40 – Maths

10:40-11.20 – Indoor and Outdoor Continuous provision, Snack

11:20-11.45 – Phonics

11:50-1.00 – Lunchtime

1:00-1:20 – My Happy Mind/RE/PE or Handwriting (each day differs)

1:20-2.50 – Guided Reading, Indoor and outdoor provision, Interventions, Adult led activities through provision

2:50-3:05 – Story/Rhyme time

We will continue to use Class Dojo to communicate with parents - look out for messages posted on here which include key dates, activities to do at home and class updates. Please feel free to send any photos in of what the children have been up to outside of school, we love looking at these photos together in class.

A few quick reminders - PE Day will continue to be on a TUESDAY, please ensure your child comes to school wearing their School PE Kit with pumps or trainers, the children will need a jacket or hoodie on top of their t-shirt please. Children also need to bring a coat every day - we do go out come rain or shine!

Children also need a water bottle each day.

Please make sure all uniform is labelled with your child’s name including their coat and water bottle.

As always our door is always open, please don’t sit at home worrying about anything, get in touch if you have any questions.

Thank you for your continued support!

Mrs Denton & Miss Ballard x