Class 2

This half term Class 2 will be trying to warm up with a topic to answer the question of ‘What happened during the Great Fire of London?’ We will begin with a week of Poetry work to use our knowledge of different word types to write fantastic firework poems ready for 5th November.

ENGLISH: We will be creating our own story maps after learning to perform an oral story that we have written together as a class. Linked to our history work on the Great Fire of London, we will imagine that we are there through some hot seating and interviewing – see us become journalists from 1666! By writing our own diary entries we will use first person and include thoughts and feelings about a scary event. Our findings will be presented in a newspaper article.

MATHS: We will work on addition and subtraction word problems, length and measure and interpreting and constructing graphs.

ART/DT: Firework Art and constructing of the front of a Tudor house will see us fully immerse ourselves in our Topic and hopefully inspire some future Historians! Geographers will enjoy learning about the city of London and how it compares to where we live. All of the above will be accompanied by us learning how to sing ‘London’s Burning’ as a round.

RE: Festival of Light – Christmas/Christingle/candles

PE/GAMES: Gymnastics

SCIENCE: Exploring Sound

ENGLISH: We will be writing our own fairy tale inspired by the story ‘Rapunzel.’ Following this we will be creating poetry about an aspect of life in a Castle linking this to our topic work. Finally, we will create Non-Fiction booklets about the life of someone that lived in a Castle in Medieval Britain organising our writing carefully for the reader.

MATHS: This term we will be developing understanding of place value, partitioning numbers into hundreds, tens and thousands. Addition and subtraction calculations will support our use of inverse operations. We will then move on to solving addition and subtraction word problems using a range of maths vocabulary.

SCIENCE: Children will be investigating every day materials and their uses, as well as looking at how materials change when you heat them. Also, linked into our Castles topic, we will compare our diet with those living in the middle ages.

Finally, seasonal changes will continue to be observed looking at change over time.

HUMANITIES: ‘What was life like in a castle?’ is the question that we will be answering. We will look at the different roles people had and differences between the rich and poor.

ART/DT: We will be drawing the exterior and interior of a medieval castle. We will also plan and construct 3D models of castles.

PE: We will be working on our gymnastic skills with the gymnastics coach on Tuesdays, as well as improving our co-ordination by improving our throwing and catching using a range of balls.

ENGLISH: This half term we will be immersing ourselves in the book ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’. We will make potion adverts, write nonsense poems and diary entries which will link to different chapters of the story.

MATHS: We will be consolidating our understanding of time on digital and analogue clocks. Children will learn the difference between capacity and volume and make practical measurements when making their ‘Wonderland Potions’. We will also begin to learn our 3 and 4 times tables in preparation for next year.

SCIENCE: Would you drink the shrinking potion? Our Science work will include learning the importance of being safe around medicines. We will also investigate forces including speed, strength and gravity. We will investigate how different forces can change the shape and properties of everyday materials.

HUMANITIES: We will study the life of Lewis Carroll and the impact the Industrial Revolution had on aspects of his career. We will use Geographical landmark terminology ‘valleys’, ‘cliffs’, ‘beach’, ‘mountains’ etc. to create our own Wonderlands.

PSHE: Our values this half term are Resilience & Perseverance. Linking to the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party we will be thinking about manners and which rules we would like at our own table.

ART/DT/MUSIC: In Art we will be finishing our African masks, before beginning a DT topic on puppets. This will link to the ‘Cinderella’ production by the puppet theatre. We are hoping that Class 2 will be making an exciting trip to Capital Culture Gallery to see the exhibition of original block prints of the illustrations in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Sir John Tenniel. We will create a Wonderland song using a range of instruments.

COMPUTING: Children will use a sketching programme to create their own illustrations for a chapter from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. We will also record videos for our potion adverts.

Topic: Class 2 will be studying a Gardening topic. Hopefully some lovely weather will allow us to get outside to learn and enjoy our beautiful school grounds. We are very lucky to be involved in potato and sunflower growing in association with the Aldborough Flower Show. This will be hugely exciting and will allow the children to become expert observational Scientists and gardeners.

English: This will be linked to our topic and will include enjoying the true story ‘Seeds of Change’ which is based on the life of the founder of the Green Belt Movement Wangari Maathai. We will also explore the traditional tale Jack and the Beanstalk and The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Children will write their own extended stories using story language while linking and developing ideas.

Art/DT: Linked to our English work, we will create Scratchboard artwork in the style of the illustrations from our class book and also make floral patterns in the style of William Morris. Our Design and Technology work this term will be focussed on designing and creating our own puppets to then write and perform our own shows.

Maths: We will be revising various areas of Maths with a strong focus on Number and using the four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) to accurately solve calculations and word problems. It would be hugely helpful if you could encourage your child to practice their 2,5, and 10 times tables over the next few weeks.

PE: This will further develop our throwing and catching skills before we move on to some team games.

KS1 SAT assessments take place throughout May. At Aldborough assessing children’s learning is a daily process to ensure their learning matches their needs so children will no doubt approach the tests with their usual confidence and positive attitude to learning.

After a successful half term studying Asia, we will enjoy immersing ourselves in another culture: Africa. Our first week back at school was Africa Week and the whole school were involved in a number of exciting workshops: listening to tales from the storyteller; drumming workshop; tasting African foods.   

English: We will be reading the African story ‘The Hunter’ then have a class debate based on the question ‘Should hunting be allowed?’ We will then move on to study some African fables including ‘Why Anansi has eight skinny legs.’ After enjoying and deconstructing the moral behind this fable we will write our own using the story structure, description and redrafting to further improve our stories.

Maths: Money will be our focus, including working out change and then moving on to learn about the properties of 2D and 3D. We will also experiment with pattern making and how to describe position, direction and movement which links in with our Dance lessons in P.E. 

Science: We will learn more about our nervous and cardiovascular system and how this links to a healthy lifestyle and diet. The children will also investigate what microbes (germs) live on our hands and learn the importance of good hygiene when trying to keep healthy. 

ART/DT: We will use the Africa week as a starting point for our art lessons about African masks. We will create clay and paper mache masks. Also we will find out about how masks are used in different tribes and what they represent.

PE: On Tuesdays we will continue to be taught Dance as well as enjoy PE games sessions.

I hope you have had a great break and you are all looking forward to our exciting topic ahead. If you have any books or artefacts linking to Africa please bring them into class so we can discover more together. Thank you.

This term Class 2 will explore the continent of Asia. Our class will become Geography experts, learning lots about Asian Culture to include where countries are located on earth and how their climates compare to where we live.

ENGLISH: When we stop off at the tropical paradise of Papua New Guinea, we will enjoy folk tales, writing one of our own based on the books that we will be reading: The Turtle and the Island, Six Suns and How the Moon was Created. Lots of shared reading at home is always valuable and really supports our love of books at school.

Following this, on route to China, Japan and India, we will read and explore information books, reading them and creating our own fact files. This will lead into Africa week straight after half term, when we will focus on African food and recipes, creating our own instructions for a delicious dish. Yum yum.

MATHS: We will be studying time which will be helpful for us to calculate flight times between our destinations. We will then be moving on to fractions which will help us with our Recipe work during the upcoming Africa Week. Addition and subtraction, linked to word problems, will continue to be developed. At home it would be really helpful if you could practise recalling number bonds quickly and accurately.

Dance and learning to play games from around the world will be part of our PE this term. We will write instructions to support this. On top of all of this, a trip to the Sainsbury’s Centre will inspire our Art this term which will be based around the five holy animals of India.

Do you have any Asian artefacts or knowledge you could share with our class? If so, speak with Mr Caston who will be grateful of your support.

This term in Class 2 we will be studying ‘Fire in the Sky’ to include delving into Firework poetry and Artwork creation and The Great Fire of London.

English: We will be reading Toby and the Great Fire of London. After reading the story we will be writing postcards and letters as different characters. Inspired by Samuel Pepys’ we will be creating diaries and adding diary entries imagining we have witnessed and survived the Great Fire of London. As part of our non-fiction work we will be writing a set of instructions for surviving the fire based on accounts from 1666.

Group Reading continues to take place on Wednesdays. We are encouraging the children to read as frequently as possible, developing their confidence and enjoyment in a range of books.

Maths: We will be solving addition and subtraction calculations and word problems using bar modelling, before measuring and estimating length. We will then use our data to construct graphs and pictograms. This will also include understanding multiplication and using arrays to solve calculations.

Art: Taking inspiration from things that light up the sky, we will create works of art based on fireworks, the sun and stars, lightning and the Great Fire of London.  We will also design and make wood and cardboard Tudor houses.

DT: Our art and design project will be linked to the work of the artist Wassily Kandinsky. The children will explore shape, colour and line.

Humanities: Children will learn all about the Great Fire of London, exploring London in 1666 and today. Fire and firework safety lessons will be linked to this.

In class 2 this half term we will be stepping ‘Into the Wilderness.’

English: We will be using drama to support our writing based around texts including ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ by Maurice Sendak and ‘Into the Forest’ by Anthony Browne. Our non-fiction texts will teach us about the Saguaro Cactus and how to survive in the wilderness!

Maths: We will be continuing with Maths Mastery and will study Numbers within 100 and addition and subtraction of two- digit numbers. We will then move onto tackling addition and subtraction word problems.

Humanities: We will be learning about the different biomes of the world including Ice Sheet, Tundra, Forest, Grassland and Desert. Using maps and atlases to identify their locations will make us experts!

This term Class 2 will be finding out who Ranulph Fiennes is and all about his explorations. Comparing his journeys to those of Christopher  Columbus will be very interesting and exciting.

Art/DT: We will design and collage a set of paper plate habitats and study the work of Henri Rousseau. With Mrs Goldsmith we will be learning all about playgrounds and we hope to have a visit to The Green to look at the design, materials and safety of the different pieces of equipment.