Auckland (FS2)

Mrs Dale

Class Teacher

Mrs Blair

Class Teacher

Mrs Phelps

Teaching Partner

Mrs Cary

Teaching Partner

OUR TOPIC FOR TERM 3: DIGGING FOR DINOSAURS

Self-initiated Learning

We value play very highly as a vehicle for learning and social development. A large variety of exciting resources are prepared in the classroom and outdoor area that are designed to stimulate creativity, curiosity, problem solving and imaginative play.

The children have access to areas such as role play, sand and water exploration, construction, art and technology. We encourage the children to select their own activities, ensuring that their experiences are wide-ranging and educational. The adults use questioning to develop language and vocabulary and to assess and further the children’s understanding. The children are encouraged to recognise and record their own learning.

Reading

The children read individually to a member of staff each week.   We also have a number of volunteers that kindly come into the classroom to hear readers. Your child has their own reading book, and a Link Book to record their progress, and these will go home with them each evening in a book bag. Every morning the children are able to choose a new book. The children move at their own pace through the reading levels.
Click on the PDF below, Reading at Home, to find out about the structure of our reading levels and how you can support your child with reading.

We also offer ‘Read Together’ books for your child to take home, story and non-fiction books that you can both enjoy as a bedtime story or at a time to suit you.

If you would like to hear readers in the classroom, please let us know.

Reading At Home.pdf

Literacy

This term our guided literacy work will focus on our topic, Space, through stories and factual information. The children will continue to develop their writing skills by orally segmenting words into single and blended sounds and recording those that they can hear, referring to the sounds mats when necessary. The children will build on their segmenting and recording skills throughout the year, independently selecting and writing the sounds they can identify. This term we will

  • create alien names
  • write interesting facts about space
  • explore story writing
  • retell familiar stories
  • learn about the use of adjectives for descriptive writing.

The children will also be writing evaluations of their model making and using the laptops to write phrases and sentences.

Our ‘Talk for Writing’ book this term is ‘Whatever Next’ by Jill Murphy.

Understanding the World

This area of learning broadly covers science, geography, history and culture.
During our science sessions the children will be exploring the concept of space and many of the intriguing phenomena it holds.
They will be:

  • investigating simple electrical circuits
  • using an app on the iPads to look at the positions of the stars
  • discovering how we experience night and day
  • finding out about other planets in our solar system

The children will be also be looking at other countries and continents around the world in order to appreciate a variety of locations and cultures. They will be:

  • finding out about different countries around the world
  • looking at similarities and differences of children's lives in other countries and their own
  • discussing past events that have happened in our own lives and others
  • exploring events and artefacts from the past.

Art and Design

The children take part in one art session a week and have a range of activities and mediums available to them during self-initiated learning.

This term the children will be looking at the artist Kandinsky, and recreating his style with their own designs through printing and sketching. They will be using a variety of art materials and mediums.

The children will be developing their artistic skills by

  • exploring different art mediums
  • understanding that different media can be combined to create new effects
  • using their imagination to create their own artwork
  • describing their work to others

PSED and RE

Our RE will be centred on the theme of Easter for Term 4. We will learn about the Easter story and what it means to Christians, and explore how it is celebrated today.

We will also continue to have circle times which will explore how to reflect on the person we are and our achievements. We will discuss what feeling proud means which will give the children an opportunity to recognise their own achievements. This will encourage and support their skills of personal reflection and talking about themselves in a positive way.

Through Philosophy for Children, they will be given the opportunity to make choices and decisions and express their reasons for these selections.

The children will be

  • listening to what others say
  • asking appropriate questions of others
  • speaking confidently to others about their own accomplishments
  • being aware of, and respecting, the opinions of others

Phonics

Phonics is taught four times a week. The sessions last around 20 minutes. This term we will complete and consolidate Phase 3 of the phonics programme.

We will be focusing on sound blends. As with the individual sounds, these have a jingle in order to help your child remember the phoneme and the letters involved. You can find these in the first section of your child's Link Book. In all there are four consonant blends and fourteen vowel blends to learn.

We will also be looking at rhyming words, applying both the single sounds and blends that we have learnt. 

Each phonics lesson is broken down into four sections: revising previously taught sounds, teaching a new sound, practising writing and reading the sound, and applying the sound to read and write words. This structure provides a comprehensive routine that the children quickly get used to and enjoy.

Phonics Play

Maths

Every week we will have a different maths focus, all of which builds on problem solving, reasoning, shape, space and measure and key number skills. Whilst the children are learning independently there are other opportunities outside of mathematics lessons where they can develop their skills and understanding.

Three times a week the children take part in Number Sense sessions. These involve working on our formation of numbers and recognising quantities through dot pattern and animations. We also create number stories applying the language of addition and subtraction, using a variety of physical and abstract representations.


This term, during our maths sessions, we will be learning to:

  • understand addition and subtraction as a part, part, whole concept
  • recognise number bonds to 10
  • create number stories
  • appreciate the vocabulary and properties of 3D shapes

Topmarks

Computing

There are a variety of digital devices available in school and the children use these during their self-initiated learning and through maths and literacy activities.  The laptops are accessible at all times and we will also be exploring the iPads and the BeeBot floor robots. This term the children will be developing their technology skills by:

  • logging onto the laptops and selecting programs
  • creating digital music in the form of repeating patterns
  • inputting commands into a floor robot
  • producing simple pictograms
  • taking photographs and presenting information on an iPad 
  • operating a cd player.

Physical Education

Each week the children take part in two PE sessions. Both of our PE sessions this term will be outside, so please make sure your child has a warm PE outfit to wear.

This term we will be exploring a range of ball games using different equipment. We will be building on the children's own gross motor skills by

  • developing awareness of others around us and space
  • controlling direction and speed and using them for a purpose
  • practising catching, throwing and using bats
  • developing tennis skills
  • throwing underarm and aiming at a target.

Music

Music is a fundamental tool in developing language, maths and social skills. Throughout the week we will sing songs and use simple percussion to enhance the children’s confidence and motor skills. They will become familiar with a number of topic related songs and rhymes in the classroom as well as taking part in whole school singing every day. 

This term we will be incorporating digital music as a way to record our compositions. The children will be learning to

  • explore body percussion combinations
  • compose a simple rhythm pattern
  • recognise the different sounds that instruments can produce
  • combine percussion sounds to create layers of sounds