Term 3

Week 1

Week ending 11.1.19

Happy New Year and welcome back to the Spring Term!

Dear Parents,

Below is a guide outlining what your child will be learning in Willow Class this term. If you have any queries, please contact me.

LITERACY

We will be learning to read and spell words with long vowel digraphs, i.e.: ‘air’, ’ere’, ‘are’, ‘ear’; ‘or’, ‘oor’, ‘aw’, ‘au’, ‘ore’; ‘er’, ‘ur’, ‘ir’; blends, e.g. ’wh’, ‘ch’ and ‘ph’; prefixes, e.g. ‘un’, ‘re’ and ‘dis’’; antonyms, e.g. pretty and ugly, cheap and expensive; compound words, e.g. playtime, homework and icepack and suffixes, e.g. ‘ing’ , ‘ed’ and ‘ful’. We will learn to count syllables and phonemes. The reading and spelling of high frequency words is an ongoing priority. At the beginning of each week the children will be given spellings to learn, these will be tested on Friday. We will be investigating the use of commas and speech marks and using them in our writing. We will also try to make our writing more interesting by using connectives, such as suddenly, unfortunately, luckily, etc. We will be looking at grammatical agreement and using the standard form of verbs. Our text work will be based on fiction and poetry, by significant authors and we will use non-fiction to look at instructions. Good letter formation is a priority and we will continue to perfect our cursive style. The children will be looking at different ways of presenting their work, including using word processing. Writing is encouraged and practised at every opportunity and this term we will be focusing on the structure of a story and key elements, such as setting, character, the use of adjectives, alliteration and onomatopoeia. Children are invited to take home an Accelerated Reader home reading book as often as they wish- please fill in the title and date in their home reading book, together with any comments about their reading.

NUMERACY

Children are becoming familiar with reading and writing numbers up to 100 and above. They will count on in ones, twos, threes, fives and tens. They will practise recording in number sentences, using +, -, x and division. They will learn to recall pairs of numbers that total 10 and 20 and addition doubles to at least 10+10 together with corresponding halves. Year 2 children will become familiar with multiplication facts of the x10, x5, 3x and x2 tables and deduce corresponding division facts. These will be tested on Fridays. They will recognise odd and even numbers. We will also be looking at: length, 2D and 3D shapes, time, money, capacity, weight and position and the associated vocabulary. We will recognise halves and quarters and investigate maths problems and puzzles. We will look at ways of handling data, including bar charts and Venn diagrams.

HISTORY

We are finding out about toys and games and how modern toys are different from those in the past. If any parents or grandparents have a favourite toy, from when they were little and would be willing to share it with the class (we promise to be careful and not to touch!), I would be most grateful.

SCIENCE

We shall be investigating materials and their different properties. We will continue to explore the changing seasons, linking this to compass and map work in GEOGRAPHY.

R.E.

This term we are studying the teaching of Jesus and the Easter story.

I.C.T.

We will learn to use a paint program to create artwork. This will include saving and loading work, editing and printing. We are learning to program a Bee Bot.

P.E.

We will practise ways of travelling in gymnastics, e.g. jumping, rolling, hopping, twisting and turning. We will contrast our movements, controlling the speed, height and direction. We are going to explore movement in dance and drama, looking at rhythm and using space individually and cooperatively. P.E. is on Wednesdays and Fridays.

MUSIC

Mrs. Hickman will continue to teach the ocarina and we shall investigate the sounds we can make: loud and soft, short and long, fast and slow and how these affect the rhythm of a piece of music.

ART/DESIGN

We will be investigating weaving, printing and moulding techniques, exploring texture, shape and colour, using a variety of natural and man-made materials. We will be making puppets for our Design and Technology project.

PSHE

This will be an integral part of our R.E. project, investigating the need for rules in our lives. We will also discuss social problems as they arise naturally in the group.

If anyone can be of assistance with any aspect of the curriculum, we would be delighted to welcome you into school! The parents and governors, who help in Willow Class, make a real difference to the children’s knowledge, learning and skills and are highly valued members of the team.

Yours faithfully,

Genevieve Ferguson

Spring Term 2019

Our topic this term is 'Toys' and we will be comparing and contrasting toys we have today, with toys our parents, grandparents and great grandparents might have played with.  It would be great if the children could bring in to school a favourite ( inexpensive, robust) toy, which they could talk about and paint a picture of.  It would also be lovely if parents have any toys they would allow to come in to school, so we could set up a 'Toy Museum' in class ( strictly 'no touching'!).  Thank you.

On Monday, I start a Book Club for K S 1, in Willow Class at lunchtime.  Children can bring in their favourite books to share and write reviews and illustrate them. They can read books from the Book Corner and library and I will read my favourite stories and poems to them - I can't wait!

What have we learned this week?

'I learned my 5x table.'

'I learned the 'y',' i-e', 'ie', 'igh' phoneme/grapheme.'

'I learned to give change.'

'I learned to find equivalent values of money.'

'I learned to write money as a decimal.'

'I learned what a 'material'is.'

'I learned about Jackson Pollock.'

'I made a Jackson Pollock painting, using a dribble, flick and spray technique.'

'We discussed what it is to be wise.'

'We did gymnastics.'

Star of the Week;  Sam for being kind and helpful and trying hard with his work.

Special commendation to Riley, who has broken his finger. He has worked all week using the computer, saving and printing his work, by himself - what a star!

Term 3

Week 2

Week ending 18.1.19

What have we learned this week?

'I learned how to use an apostrophe for contraction.'

'I learned with words ending in'le', if you have a short vowel, you need two consonants between it and 'le'.

'I learned with words ending in 'le', if you have a long vowel, you only need one consonant between it and 'le'.

'I identified uses of wood,plastic, glass and metal out on the playground.'

'I talked about my favourite toy and drew a picture of it.'

'I could say what material my toy was made of.'

'I made arrays on a peg board.'

'I can write two multiplication number sentences to go with an array.'

'I can draw an array to go with a multiplication number sentence.'

'I can say my 5 x table.'

'I can write a character description.'

'I can write a' rule of three' to describe a character.'

'I learned to make a story map for 'Fantastic Mr. Fox'.'

Star of the Week:  Libby for a great improvement in her handwriting and super multiplication arrays.

Term 3

Week 3

Week ending 25.1.19

What have we learned this week?

'I learned my 3x table'.

'I learned to add 'ing' to verbs ending with 'e'.'

'I learned to compare old and new toys.'

'I learned to talk about the gifts God has given us.'

'I learned to write the story of 'Fantastic Mr. Fox.'

'I learned to write a 'rule of three'.

'I learned to tell the time to the hour and half hour.'

'I learned to tell the time to a quarter past and a quarter to the hour.'

Term 3

Week 4

Week ending 1.2.19

On Thursday morning the temperature was -7 degrees c and it snowed overnight.  We woke to an inch of the white stuff, however, everyone made it to school safely on the slushy roads!  The children were very excited - in their six or seen years on this planet they haven't seen much snow!

What have we learned this week?

'I learned my 3x table.'

'I learned the 'ey' phoneme and grapheme.'

'I learned to write a character description.'

'I read 'The Wolf's Story' - a rap poem.'

'I learned to write sentences with a capital letter and full-stop.'

'I added food and drink together to make money totals and recorded it as a money decimal.'

'I can add 'ing' to verbs.'

'I learned verbs are doing words.'

'I can compare old and new toys.'

'I did a science investigation to see if all paper is good to draw on.'

'I learned about minus numbers.'

'I learned to subtract on a minus number line.'

'I wrote a promise for our Promise Tree, using our School Values.'

'I learned how to use an array to work out two division number sentences and two multiplication number sentences.'

Star of the Week:  Belle, for working really hard on her Maths and English all week.

Term 3

Week 5

Week ending 8.2.19

It has been Children's Mental Health Week and we have been looking at ways to keep our bodies and minds healthy.  It was also Safer Internet Day on Tuesday, and we have learned not to talk to strangers on the Net.

What have we learned this week?

'I learned my 3x table.'

'I learned silent letters - 'w', 'g' 'b'   and 'k'.'

'I learned to weigh using kilograms and grams.'

'I learned how to make rock cakes.'

'I quickly learned how to use adverbs.'

'Quickly, I learned how to use adverbs.'

'I learned how to use adverbs quickly.'

'I learned how to write a list, using commas between items and 'and' between the last two items.'

'I learned that = means 'the same as.'

'I learned how to find a missing number if it is at the beginning of a number sentence.'

'I learned how to rap!'

Term 3

Week ending 16.2.19

Week 6

What an exciting week it was! On Monday we had our parents in class to help with our maths' lesson.  It was lovely to see them and they were a great help!  A huge 'Thank you'  to Mr. Peter Ireland, who came in to Willow class in the afternoon; he talked about different toys , he had had or made. The children were very interested and he set them a challenge of making their own jigsaws.  On Tuesday, Ian from Kic Theatre visited us and did some drama based on the different materials toys are made from.  This was brilliant,  as it brought together our two topics 'Toys' and' Uses of Materials' and the children were able to show off and extend their learning.  Mrs. Keeble, who helps with reading on Thursday afternoons, kindly brought in  her beautiful  and much loved, china doll, 'Pamela' and a really old rag doll, plus several lovely dresses and her favourite books from childhood.  On Thursday we also had our class assembly in front of the school and parents. The children had worked really hard and were amazing!  They deserved two marbles for the jar and Annie had a Gold Award for carrying on the singing, when the music cut out - fabulous!

What else have we learned?

'I learned my 2 x table.'

'I learned that if a verb has a short vowel followed by one consonant, you have to double the consonant before you can add the suffix, e.g. 'run' becomes 'running'.'

'I learned how to rotate a shape a quarter, a half, three quarters and a whole turn.'

'I made a picture by rotating shapes.'

'I learned clockwise and anticlockwise.'

'I learned a right turn and a left turn.'

'I learned to compare the suitability of materials.'

'I wrote the story of the wolf, in 'The Wolf's Story.'

'I practised for my assembly.'

'I wrote my Learning Journey.'

Star of the Week:  Andrew for trying really hard with his handwriting.