Summer 2

Literacy

Tadpole loves his rainbow friend, the caterpillar, and she tells him she loves everything about him. "Promise that you will never change," she says. But as the seasons pass and he matures, his legs grow, and then his arms - and what happens to his beautiful rainbow friend? As he sits on his lily pad, digesting a butterfly, Tadpole little realises that now he will never know!

Follow the predictable changes of a tadpole and a caterpillar to their natural conclusion in this award winning picture book.

Using the book we will cover a range of fiction and non-fiction forms of writing – character descriptions, speech bubbles, poetry, creating a new story ending, labelling diagrams and facts sheets.

Topic

This half term our topic is ‘The Hungry Caterpillar,’ which has a science focus.  Pupils will explore the different phases of animal and plant life cycles.  This includes butterflies, frogs, chicks, and bean and sunflower seeds.  The year band will have first-hand experience of this as we currently have two sets of live caterpillars and some tadpoles in school.  The class will watch them grow and change and record this through photos and drawings.  As a year band we are visiting Whipsnade Zoo to primarily see their butterfly house and farm, before exploring the other animal exhibits.

Link to butterfly house information and clip - https://www.zsl.org/zsl-whipsnade-zoo/exhibits/butterfly-house

Maths

In maths we will cover the key areas of number, geometry and measure through activities themed around the book Jack and the Beanstalk.

Spring 2

This half term our literacy book will be Penguin by Polly Dunbar.  Ben is delighted when he rips open his present and finds a penguin inside. “Hello, Penguin!” says Ben. Penguin says nothing. Ben tickles Penguin; he pulls his funniest face; he puts on a happy hat, sings a silly song and does a dizzy dance. “Can’t you talk?” says Ben. Penguin says nothing. It isn’t until a passing lion intervenes that Penguin finally speaks ... and when he does, Ben discovers something that was really worth the wait.

Using the book we will cover a range of speaking, listening and drama activities in our lesson starters, followed by writing in a range of different forms – character descriptions, speech bubbles, poetry and creating our own narrative.

We will follow this with non-fiction work about penguins, finding out facts such as where they live and what they eat.

You can watch the story online at ITV Signed Stories: http://www.signedstories.com/story-world/funny/penguin

Maths

In math we will continue to cover the key areas of number, geometry and

measure through a combination of practical, interactive and paper based activities.

Topic

This half term our topic is ‘Kings, Queens and all things Royal,’ which has a geography and history focus.  Pupils will explore our current Royal Family and elements of the past through looking simple family trees, buildings, costumes and transport.  The year band will round off the topic by making food and having their own royal banquet.

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Spring 1

This half term our story is The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle.  To start with 

we will focus on becoming familiar with the story and its characters.  Our initial 

activities will be creative with the children threading with wool across paper 

plates to make webs and spiders from polystyrene balls and pipe cleaners.  We 

will link this to the nursery rhyme Incy Wincy Spider by making spiders and 

drainpipes.

As the children became familiar with the story we will focus on their speaking 

and listening skills by taking turns retelling and reading the book each session, 

supported by story sticks, signing and sentence strips.  Other main activities 

will include children identifying and writing animal names from the book, tracing 

webs and writing spider poems.  The final piece of work will be a class retelling 

of the story and each child will have a page of the book to retell in their own 

way.

After this we will focus on non-fiction 

information books about spiders. The children will 

learn about the body parts of a spider and label a 

diagram.  As a class we will create an information 

tree with everything we have learned about 

spiders and use this to write information sheets.

Maths

In maths we will continue to cover the key areas of number, geometry and 

measure through a combination of practical, interactive and paper based activities.

Topic

Our topic this half term is ‘Come Dine with Me’ and we hope to give the children 

experiences of different countries foods, drinks and restaurants through visits, 

role play and cookery.  Also in this topic we have a DT focus and will make 

lunchboxes and money containers.

Let me introduce you to Gold Class…  I am Jenny the class teacher, Mandy is our TA2 and we have Charlotte, Tina, Carol and Natalie as teaching assistants.  The pupils in Diamond class are:  Cais, Daniel, David, Anna, Lawrence, Josiah, Naomi, Rhia and George

This half term our topic is Champions, which focuses on keeping healthy, exercise, the body and personal safety.  In class we’ll taste a range of healthy foods and learning to sort food into healthy and unhealthy groups.  We will be focusing on hygiene and self-care, for example hand washing and looking after our teeth.   The class will take part in different forms of exercise and looking at why exercise is good for our bodies.  Through PSHE we will be covering safety in different environments, for example the home, road safety and stranger awareness.

Our Literacy books this half term will be I will not ever never eat a Tomato by Lauren Child and Peas by Andrew Cullen.

Amazon Review:  Lola will not eat peas. In fact, she won't eat carrots, potatoes, mushrooms, eggs, sausages, cauliflower, cabbage or baked beans. And she will absolutely not eat a tomato. But when Charlie explains that peas are actually green drops from Greenland, and that carrots are orange twiglets from Jupiter, even Lola is tempted to clear her plate.

An innovative and fun-filled look at the problem of fussy eating, I Will Not Never Ever Eat a Tomato is guaranteed to make dinner time fun.

Watch the story on Cbeebies: 

Amazon Review:  It's not easy being a pea! Picked, plucked and processed, and then transported all over the world on trucks, trains, boats and planes, Pete and Penelope Pea finally find a loving family to feed. But do the little girl and boy actually like peas? Go on, give peas a chance! A book that will have children bursting with questions about ecology and the environment.

In maths we will be covering the areas of number, geometry and measure.  Keep looking at our webpage and reading the home school book to find out which strand we will be covering each week.

We have a new lesson at RHS for this year called ‘Creative Arts’ this combines aspects of art, drama, music, role play, singing, dancing and design. In Gold class we are learning the song ‘In the Hairy Scary Castle’ and using the new Soundbeam technology to produce the sound effects in our song.