Class Teachers: Mrs Partington and Mrs Bakary

Terms 1 & 2

Our enquiry is: How did Brunel make a difference?

Our big themes are Impact, Purpose and Inheritance

This term, the children will be exploring the big question: “How did Brunel make a difference?” To help us investigate this, we will work through a series of mini enquiries: What is a Historian? Who was Brunel? What is an engineer? How did Brunel make Bristol beautiful? Who else made a difference? Through talk, looking at artefacts and maps and by visiting the Clifton suspension bridge, children will develop skills as historians and geographers.

Phonics

Some children in our class follow the Read Write Inc. phonics programme. Children are assessed regularly and work in groups that closely match the sounds that they need to learn.

Families can support children at home by reading the books that are sent home multiple times across the week so that the children become fluent story-tellers.

English

Those children who have completed the RWI programme will be doing daily handwriting, first ensuring that letter formation is accurate and then beginning to join when children are ready. This term’s reading lessons are based on the books ‘Iron Man’ by Ted Hughes  and Poems to Perform by Julia Donaldson. These lessons will develop children’s retrieval skills and help them to understand new vocabulary.

All children’s writing lessons will be based upon the books ‘The Dragon Machine’ by Helen Ward and ‘Tom’s Magnificent Machines' by Linda Sarah. These lessons will explore literary techniques as well as grammar, and will provide opportunities to create fiction and non-fiction pieces of work. The class will be reading Rosie Revere Engineer by Andrea Beaty and Izzy Gizmo by Pip Jones as our class texts.

Maths

Across the term, the children will develop themselves as mathematicians. We will work on place value and addition and subtraction (2-digit numbers (Y2) and 3-digit numbers (Y3). The children will also have daily mastering number lessons. Families can support at home by encouraging children to complete short sessions on either Numbots or TTRockstars.

R.E.

In R.E., our unit is ’What makes us Human?’. Children will be thinking about these key questions:

• What makes us special?
• What is the soul?
• What do some people think makes us human?
• What is spirituality?
• What do some Buddhists do to focus on the inner self?
• Does anyone know what makes us human?

PSHE

This term we will be learning about families and friendships as well as courtesy and manners, change and loss, emotions, developing a growth mindset, healthy diet, looking after our teeth and gender stereotypes.

PE

Our PE days are Mondays and Fridays.
This term, we will focus on coordination, footwork and static balance on one leg. To apply these skills we will be doing multi-skills and team-building games.

Science

Our Science this term is uses of everyday materials. Children will learn to identify and compare the suitability of different materials. They will also learn how solid objects made of some materials can change shape by bending, twisting, stretching or squashing them. We will discuss how different materials can be used in more than one thing. We will also learn about the different properties of materials and why a certain material is suitable for its purpose.

Music

This term, children will be exploring a unit of work called "Inspired by India: Musical Improvisations". They will listen, play instruments, compose and perform their own pieces whilst developing their knowledge of musical terms that include pitch, rhythm, tempo and dynamics.

DT

In DT, our focus will be cooking: nutrition and a healthy balanced diet. Children will learn about all the different food groups, what makes a balanced meal, how to prepare ingredients and plan and create their own balanced sandwich/wrap.

ART

In Art, our unit focus is painting and mixing media. Children will be exploring primary and secondary colours, using secondary colours for a purpose, using colour in different ways and applying colour mixing skills.

Computing

This term in our first unit we will be learning about what a computer is and how it works: computer parts, inputs and recognising technology. Our second unit is creating media: stop-motion. We will be learning about animation and creating one of our own. We will also do some E-Safety lessons this term focusing on being safe online, posting online and recognising if posts are true or not.

Home learning

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

• Reading as often as possible - ideally 10 minutes daily. Please make a note of which book and which pages your child has read in their reading record (older children can do this themselves).
• Practising number sense and number bonds on Numbots. This is mainly for Year 2 children, although some Year 3s will benefit from additional work in these areas.
• Practising times tables on TT Rockstars . This is mainly for Year 3. (Go into Garage to practise at the right level).
• Spelling Shed  Complete spelling games and complete the assignment (specific words) set by Mrs Bakary and Mrs Partington.

Numbots: https://play.numbots.com/#/account

TT Rockstars: https://ttrockstars.com/

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

Children have logins for the websites above in their reading records. Please let Mrs Partington or Mrs Bakary know if the children need another copy of their log-in details.