Autumn Newsletter

During the first half of this term we had a visit from 'Bog Baby'.  We enjoyed listening to the story and decided Bog Baby would need somewhere comfortable to sleep. However, we would need to follow and write some instructions on how to make a new home. We learnt about imperative verbs and other key features before using these in our writing. 

To begin the second half of this term, we were surprised to find some clues in the playground which lead us to believe the wolf from 'Little Red Riding Hood' had visited us. This gave us the idea that we needed to the story. We drew story maps, retold the story using actions and innovated the setting. We then independently wrote our innovated stories , remembering to include all of the basics skills we have learnt. These basic skills include:

Full stops

Capital letters

Finger spaces

Listening to sounds in words and writing all the sounds we can hear

Checking that our sentence makes sense.

This term, we have enjoyed sharing a variety of fiction and non-fiction books during our Skillful Reading sessions. We discuss key vocabulary found within the texts, make predictions based on what we have read and enjoy using role play to retell the stories.  Some of the books we have shared during Skillful Reading include:

The Everywhere Bear 

The Gigantic Turnip

Plant Finders

The Go-Away Bird

Catch that Chicken

The Gunpowder Plot

In phonics, we have been using our Super Sonic Phonic Friends to help us read words containing basic 3 digraphs and trigraphs and also read basic 4 words. The skills we have learnt in phonics have helped us to read our decodable books in school and at home. 

This term in our Maths lessons we have been learning about addition and subtraction.  We have shared number stories, represented them in different ways and written mathematical statements involving the '+', '-' and '=' signs.  We have solved problems practically, using everyday objects and resources in the classroom, as well as developed our recording skills. 

We have ended this half term by learning about shapes. We have recapped the names of 2d and 3d shapes, sorted them into groups based on their properties and have used these shapes to create patterns.

In Geography this term we learnt about what maps are used for and discussed their key features. We looked at simple compass directions and was able to use these when describing the location of things on a map. We ended our topic with a walk to College Park, where we were able to identify human and physical features. 

In History this term we learnt about the Gunpowder Plot. We learnt some key facts about the event, enjoyed asking questions whilst hot seating Guy Fawkes and discussed how the Gunpowder Plot is remembered today. 

In Science we have enjoyed learning about materials. We were able to name everyday materials and use appropriate words to describe their properties. We discussed why some materials are more appropriate to use for particular purposes and especially enjoyed exploring this when carrying out an experiment to see which material was best to hold our chips.