Spring Term
Information for parents and families
Knowledge Organisers
Week ending 22nd March
Our learning this week has been based around our trip to the farm and the animals that we saw. We had a great day and learnt about the cows, sheep and pigs, including why they are kept on the farm, what they need and what they produce. We also milled wheat to feed the cows and got to hold a lamb. It was a week old.
This week, the Year 1’s have begun to learn about a non-chronological report for information writing, they have explored the features and are ready to write their own about what they learnt whilst at the farm. Reception read the story ‘Farmer Duck’ and created their own farmer and sent them on a farm adventure in drawing club.
In Maths, the children have explored measurement. They begun by comparing lengths and heights and progressed rapidly to measuring in centimetres using rulers. They have been incredibly accurate with this.
This week, we also finished our windmills in DT and tested them and learnt about friendships through the Christian story ofJonathan and David in RE.
Week ending 15th March
Sunstone class have been superstars again this week. They have read the book ‘Can I be your dog?’ By Troy Cummings. It is a story told by a dog writing letters to try and find an owner. The children have looked at a variety of letters, written their own cards and letters and retold the story.
In Maths, Reception have investigated 3D shapes by sorting them according to their properties and exploring the shapes they find within them. The Year 1’s have continued with place value to 50 by partitioning into tens and ones using a variety of resources. In Science we learnt about how to take good care of pets and then made a block graph to show some of the pets we have at home.
The children have also continued to learn about friendships through our RE topic and looked at stories told in Buddhism and Hinduism to explore how to resolve a disagreement and the qualities that make a good friend.
We were also lucky to have a tennis taster session this week which the children thoroughly enjoyed and demonstrated some fantastic tennis skills.
We finished the week with a Science afternoon to celebrate British Science Week. The children investigated evolution through camouflage and tried to make a paper airplane that could fly the fastest.
Week ending 8th March
This week has been a bit different and the children have been amazing with our slightly altered timetable.
The Year 1’s have completed assessments and I have been so incredibly impressed with their hard work and determination to keep trying even when some of the parts were a bit tricky.
We have had slightly better weather which means we have got outside a bit more for some learning by exploring compass directions and looking for signs of spring. In Science, the children have continued their animal topic by learning about carnivores, herbivores and omnivores. We have also started our RE topic about friendships by thinking about what make a good friend and begun to partition numbers into tens and ones in maths.
On Thursday we loved celebrating World Book Day. We listened to so many stories read to us by adults from around the school and some of the Year 6 children.
Week ending 1st March
The children have had a fantastic week back after half term. Our focus book this week has been ‘Not Now Bernard’. The children have created their own monsters, written a sequel and learnt about speech. In Maths, the children have begun to learn about numbers to 50. They have been practising how many tens and ones are in these numbers and grouping to help them count. They have also continued to practise their number bonds to 10. We have started our new topic in Science about animals. The children have named, grouped, sorted and classified these animals brilliantly and made great observations of their features to help them. In Geography, the children have been learning about the four countries that make up the United Kingdom and have begun to learn about compasses. Finally, the children have started to investigate the functions of windmills in DT. What an incredibly busy week!
Week ending 16th February
Another week of fantastic hard work put in by the children in Sunstone. They have been learning about the celebration of Chinese New Year this week and have learnt the story of the zodiac as well as how the New Year is celebrated. The children have written about the dragon, the celebration and made some poems using alliteration. In Maths, the children have solved missing number problems. At first this was quite tricky, but they were incredibly persistent and mastered it in the end. They have concluded their History topic by learning about and playing outside games from 500 years ago. They have also practised finding the pulse of different songs and experimenting with the instruments to de which they could play the pule the best with. Finally, the children have begun to learn bout democracy by casting votes for their favourite story to listen to at the end of the day. They know the rule, you can only vote once.
We hope you have a lovely half term and will see you all back at school on Monday 26th February.
Week ending 9th February
Sunstone’s story of the week has been ‘The Everywhere Bear’ by Julia Donaldson. The children have story mapped this story and then created their own adventure for the bear about what they would do if they took the bear home. Some of their story maps have been incredibly detailed and have included a beginning, middle with a problem and an ending. In Maths, the children have been subtracting with fabulous skill using resources, number lines and their number knowledge. In science they investigating hearing with an experiment outside using their listening skills. They have also painted in the style of Clarice Cliff and begun to learn about pulse and rhythm. Another fabulous week of learning!
Week ending 2nd February
Sunstone have worked really hard on their number binds to 10 and 20 this week. They have begun to recall them quickly and know that this will help them with the trickier addition and subtraction they will move onto next. In English, the children have learnt about exclamation marks and we have had lots of drama reading and writing sentences with and without an exclamation mark at the end. In Science, the children investigated their sense of sight and smell. They smelt lots of different things and tried to identify what they were. There were some very disgusted faces at some things! They also had to direct their friends without using their sight, this was rather tricky and quite scary! In PE the children had lots of fun practising their bat and ball skills. In art, the children colour mixed hues of green by adding more yellow or blue and in computing the children debugged algorithms.
Week ending 26th January
This week our story has been ‘Toys in Space’ by Mini Grey. The children have really enjoyed the book and have taken time to think about how the characters in the story feel. They have written some great sentences with adjectives and have written their own exciting short story to cheer up the alien who lost his toy. In maths the children have been brilliant at comparing and ordering numbers using their fabulous knowledge of tens and ones. In Science they explored their senses of taste and touch. They taste tested food and discussed the taste and also played games using their sense of touch. In art we explored printing with blocks and in history we continued to learn bout toys from the past.
Week ending 19th January
We have had an incredibly busy week. On Thursday, we had our history off the page day learning all about toys from the past. The children can now confidently say they are fully fledged toyologists. They spent the morning investigating what the toys were made from and how they work, then spent the afternoon making their own versions. The day was fantastic and we had lots of fun exploring all the different toys. This week, the children have learnt about their senses in science, they have explored 20 and begun to use number lines to solve problems in maths and been learning about writing questions in English. They have also had time to recreate some artwork originally by Jasper Johns to explore primary and secondary colours.
Week ending 12th January
The children have returned to school after the holiday ready to learn and with great enthusiasm. This week we started our new topic around the history of toys. Our focus was our favourite toys. The children shared theirs with confidence and have loved talking about their favourite toys now and their favourite toys when they were younger. They have asked each other great questions and listened brilliantly to the answers. Our books this week have been the ‘Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs’ series. We have loved the adventures, looked for similarities and differences, retold them and written about them with embellished sentences. In Maths, the children have begun to learn about the teens numbers, really focusing on partitioning them to make a ten and one’s. We have also started our computing topic about algorithms. The children have been practising their instructions to ensure they are clear so that an algorithm works.
