Owls’ Term 2 Letter

Welcome back to another busy and fun filled term.

It was lovely to see so many of you at parent’s evening and talk about how well all of your owls have settled in. We are looking forward to our first trip of the term as early as this Wednesday 4^th Nov. It will be great to go the theatre before we give you our very own performance at the end of the term in our KS1 nativity.

Our topic this term is Seasons, with a focus on Autumn and Christmas; another fantastic topic for us to get out and look at our world around us, as we notice the changes in trees and animals at this time. It also gives us our focus for RE this term. We are going to have a nature table in class, so please let your children bring in anything they want to share with the class that doesn’t need returning. We also have a class display which the children can add to with items to help the animals hibernate!

Please read below to find more information on our learning this term:

Literacy

Our daily literacy lesson will continue to be Read Write Inc. All children are placed into small groups so they can learn at their best and at an appropriate level. They are regularly assessed by their group’s teacher and our Read Write Inc manager, Mrs Linden, and then moved on accordingly. This is a fast paced lesson in which children read and write daily, using their knowledge of sounds and helping their class mates along the way. We will also use our topic learning to give us plenty of writing opportunities.

Numeracy

Our numeracy is taught through the Maths Makes Sense scheme which uses concrete objects such as cups and DM (decimetre) sticks so children can act out maths in addition to reading and writing it. This term we will be working towards reading and writing addition maths stories (equations) with multiples of 10s, 100s and 1000s; measuring and recording the perimeter of closed shapes; understanding length and mass vocabulary; and reading, writing and acting multiplication maths stories.

Topic

In science we are learning about seasonal changes and how the sun affects our seasons; as well as thinking about what the weather is like on a daily basis. There will be a weather map of the UK in class so we can train budding meteorologists and weather reporters! In geography we will continue to look at maps through the journey of a migrating swallow. We enjoyed looking at how Folkestone had changed last term and will now think about how the way we live has changed since Tudor and Biblical times for our history…and the amazing colours and nature of Autumn gives us a wealth of art and design ideas including repeating patterns.

We will continue to practise letters and numbers for our handwriting and aim to hear the children read as much as we can. We want to build confident readers who enjoy reading, and choose to do it for pleasure. So, we will change books twice a week so the children can read their books a couple of times and start to read with expression. To read for pleasure it is also essential that children understand what they are reading, so please ask them questions as you are reading or maybe ask them to draw pictures of what could happen next to the characters.

Show and Tell (Friday)

So that all children get an opportunity to share their items and news each week different groups will be given priority to go first. The group at the beginning of each list goes first and then if time allows we’ll work across.

6^th November – Surnames beginning with O-W, A-C, D-J, K-N

13^th November – Surnames beginning with A-C, D-J, K-N, O-W

20^th November – Surnames beginning with D-J, K-N, O-W, A-C

27^th November – Surnames beginning with K-N, O-W, A-C, D-J

4^th December – Surnames beginning with O-W, A-C, D-J, K-N

11^th December – Surnames beginning with A-C, D-J, K-N, O-W

As always, if you have any queries or concerns please do come and see us. Looking forward to another fantastic term.

Mrs Gurney, Mrs Crockford and Mrs Delaney.