Essential Information for Parents of children in Class 2

Dear Parents/ Guardians,

I hope you and your children have had a restful half term holiday. I thought it would be useful for you to have the following information as it outlines the work planned for this half term.

Timetable

Monday – Children will continue to have ICT with Mrs Gore and PE with Miss Jones.

Wednesday –Children will continue to have spelling tests. Children will now have PE with me.

Thursday – Children will have ICT with Miss Highfield and Music with Mr Watts. Children will also continue to have timetable tests every other Thursday.

Reading

  • Children will be heard every week by an adult.
  • Please complete the reading diary.
  • I know you will have some fabulous reading material at home of various genres, please do make use of these with your child (please record this type of book on the yellow pages at the front of the Reading Record). Please continue to encourage your child to read regularly and help them with their understanding of vocabulary and text.

Spelling

  • Children will be tested on KS1 High Frequency words, words with phonics sounds and a range of topic based words.
  • Spellings will be sent home on Fridays and tests will take place on Wednesday’s.

Basic number work

  • Children will be expected to learn their 2,3, 4, 5, 6 and 10 times tables.
  • Children will be expected to learn number bonds to 20.
  • Use and apply a range of mental strategies to work out the answers to addition and subtraction questions.

PE

  • Children will need their t-shirt, shorts and pumps this half term as our new unit is athletics. Mrs Petty will hopefully be joining us in our PE sessions this half term and we may separate into two groups. One of the groups may be working outside with weather permitting so please can you also send in tracksuit bottoms and appropriate shoes for outside.

Literacy

This half term children will be studying:

  • Narrative –‘Different Stories by the same author’. Within this unit children will be studying the work of Anthony Browne. Children will be: comparing similarities and differences and expressing personal responses to a range of his stories, finding out more about Anthony Browne, focusing on the features of his style, exploring characterisation in his books by gathering information from a range of his stories, posing and answering questions about characters from his stories, using drama to retell his stories and finally using one of Anthony Browne’s characters in their own, new story.
  • Non – Fiction – Childrenwill be using and studying non-fiction texts about our new Science topicPlants and animals in our local environment and eventually using this knowledge to create their own.

Numeracy

We will be focussing on the units outlined below. Please support your children at home by talking about measures including time and money in real life situations. In addition we will be looking at the 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 10 times tables and related division facts.

  • Calculating, measuring and understanding shape
  • Securing number facts, relationships and calculating

Curriculum Overview – Spring 2

The theme for the rest of this half term will be ‘Our Wonderful World’. We will be looking at plants and animals in our local environment so please do encourage your child to observe the signs of spring. Children will also be thinking about what is wonderful about our world and the impact humans have. If you have any items at home that may add to our display please do send them in and I will return them at the end of the half term.

Our topic will be approached from a cross curricular angle with integrated units of work across the curriculum. Curriculum areas which will be covered this half term are Design Technology, Science, History, ICT, Music, RE and SEAL.

Science

Our unit for this half term is Unit 2B Plants and animals in the local environment. Within this unit children will learn about plants and animals in their immediate environment and how differences between places very close to each other result in a different range of plants and animals being found. They will learn that like humans, plants and other animals reproduce. Work in this unit also offers opportunities to relate understanding of science to the local environment, to consider how to treat living things and the environment with care and sensitivity and to recognise hazards to themselves and to take action to control the risks from these hazards.

Design Technology

Our unit for this half term is Unit 2B Puppets. Within this unit children will be making a textile product by marking out, cutting and joining pieces of fabric. Children willlook at a selection of hand puppets and base their design on their investigations into how the puppets have been made and who they have been designed for. This unit will provide a context for our work in Literacy and offers an opportunity for children to retell a familiar story by Anthony Browne using their puppets. In Anthony Browne’s ‘Silly Billy’ one of the characters has a ‘worry doll’ to help them with their worries, if time permits children will also create a worry doll within Design Technology this half term.

History

Our History unit for this half term is Unit 4 Why do we remember Florence Nightingale? Within this unit children will look at the life of Florence Nightingale, why she went to Turkey to help soldiers injured in the Crimean War, and what happened as a result of her work. We will be thinking about how she helped shaped our World and how she helped to make it wonderful.

SEAL and RE

Our SEAL topic for this half term is ‘Good to be me’.

Our RE unit for this half term is Unit 2C Celebrations with a focus on Lent and Easter.

Music

As a class we will take part in fun singing weekly. We will also be taking part in a special Mother’s Day assembly.

Contact Arrangements

If you have any concerns about your child’s education or wish to make me aware of important issues then I am available to speak to you at a mutually convenient time after school (apart from a Wednesday evening when we have a staff meeting). I am very much looking forward to our next half term and hope that, in partnership, we can ensure that this is a very successful school year.

Yours sincerely,

Miss Highfield