Class Teacher: Miss Lodge

Term 1 and 2 

 

This term our learning theme is ‘What am I?’.

We are very excited to welcome the children back to our lovely school to begin or continue their journey at West Huntspill Primary Academy.  

The children will be learning through play, so each experience is fun and exciting as well as educational. We will spend a lot of time learning the school routines and getting to know our new friends. The children will practice getting changed for PE in school, so they will need their PE kit to stay in school. We will spend a lot of time teaching the children how to look after their belongings in school so that we all come home with the right clothes, shoes, lunch box and drink.  It is essential that all of your child’s belongings are named so that this can be a positive experience for them. Our PE days will be Tuesday and Thursday. If you feel that your child needs spare clothes in school, in case of an accident, please put these in their PE kit/book bag.

In school, the children will be learning letter sounds through the phonics programme, ‘Read, Write Inc.’ They will learn a new sound every day and explore things that begin with each sound.  They will learn to blend sounds to read words, with the help of our friendly frog, ‘Fred’, who only speaks in sounds.  We call this ‘Fred talk’. We will also focus on learning ‘red ‘words, which are words which cannot be sounded out and must be learnt by sight. There is lots of information about this programme and how you can support your child at home with phonics, on our website. We will be holding a Phonics meeting to give you more information about Phonics and how you can support your child. We will regularly share video links to Phonics lessons. Please use these with your child at home to support their journey in learning phonics.

Once the children have begun the Read Write Inc. Phonics Programme and are able to blend words, they will bring home a reading book which they have read in school. They will also have a phonically decodable book related to the same theme as their reading book. It is a school expectation that children read 5 times a week. They will have their own reading record for you to sign once they have read. Please don’t feel that you need to finish every book each night. Reading a few pages each night will give your children the regular practice they need to become good readers without overwhelming them. All children will choose a storybook from our class library for you to read to them.  Please ensure that your child looks after the books they bring home and returns them on time. We change books weekly on a Friday. It is really important for the children to see reading as a pleasurable experience and a time for sharing stories with their grown up and enjoy talking about the stories they hear and read.

Below, you will find more detailed curriculum information about this term. You will also find the ‘Tell me about sheet’ which we will use with the children in school to help prompt discussions. Please use this with them at home as well to find out more about what they have been learning. We will also send home a paper copy of this. 

We are really excited to be back at school and are looking forward to a super year ahead! 

Miss Lodge 🙂

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Our learning in Terms One and Two

This term, the children will be exploring the big question: “What am I?”

To help us investigate this, we will work through a series of mini enquiries:

• Who am I and what makes me special?

• What does each part of my body do? (including the senses)

• What makes me similar to animals?

• What makes me different from animals?

• What makes other people special?

• What has changed over time?

Through stories, class discussions, and shared experiences, children will explore the concepts of comparison, purpose, identification, pattern, fairness, cause and effect, strength, phenomena, evolution, inheritance and impact.

Phonics 

We follow the Read Write Inc. phonics programme. This term, the Reception children will begin learning their set 1 sounds and special friends. They will begin to orally blend  sounds together to start their reading journey. They will also begin to practise their mark making skills, and eventually letter formation. 

Year 1 children will continue learning Set 1, 2 and 3 sounds and building their skills of reading and writing words containing these sounds. We encourage children to apply their phonics skills across all areas of learning.

Families can support at home by engaging with the Virtual Classroom films wherever possible.

English 

We will be doing daily reading and writing lessons based upon a new story each week. These are: Ruby’s Worry, Owl Babies, Love, The Colour Monster, The Koala Who Could, Leo and the Octopus, The Invisible, The Squirrels Who Squabbled, Where the Wild Things Are, The Lion Inside and The Jolly Christmas Postman.  These lessons will explore new vocabulary, grammar, comprehension skills and provide opportunities for children to learn how to form letters correctly and how to write a sentence. We will explore lots of other stories within our daily storytime sessions.

Maths

Across the term, the children will develop themselves as mathematicians. Reception children will be taught the following units: Introducing subitising, comparing amounts and patterns and making patterns. Year 1 children will work on the units: Numbers 0-10, part-whole relationships and shapes. The children will explore counting songs everyday.  The children will also have a daily 10 minute ‘Mastering Number’ maths session. They will be given lots of opportunities to explore mathematical concepts through the provision.

R.E

In R.E we will be exploring The Harvest Festival, Diwali, Hanukkah and Christmas. 

PSHE

The children will explore class rules and expectations, identifying their feelings, coping strategies, describing their feelings and facial expressions. They will also be exploring anti-bullying week. 

PE

Our P.E. days are Tuesday and Thursday. Reception and Year 1 children will get changed in their PE kits at school, so please ensure your child brings one in during the first week. We will focus on Real PE sessions, gymnastics and dance.

Home learning

For home learning, children should be doing the following every week: 

• Reading as often as possible - ideally 5 times a week

• Practising Maths on Numbots

• Spelling shed- Year 1 (Stage 1 first)

Numbots: https://numbots.com/

Spelling Shed: https://www.spellingshed.com/en-gb/

Teach your monster to read is a fun resource for your children to use at home. Please use their login details to access the school account.

Children have logins for the websites above in their reading records. Please let your child’s teacher know if the children need another copy of their log-in details.