We apologise for the delay in posting this week’s Blog. Home learning was ideally to be completed for Tomorrow’s lesson, however we understand if this is not possible at such short notice.

Welcome back to Term 3! We have had a wonderful first week this term and the children have settled back into class beautifully after the Christmas break. Take a look at what we have been learning this week!

Guided Reading

In Guided Reading, we began our first Anthony Browne book this term ‘Into the Forest’. The children are really loving this text so far and thoroughly enjoyed spotting all the hidden imagery with the story.  We started our week by making predictions about the text, considering the storyline, genre and time period. We then dramatised the story in forest school, using a lovely real-world setting. On Wednesday we worked on our dictionary skills by defining vocabulary found in the book. Following this we answered retrieval and comprehension questions on ‘Into the Forest’, using our developing reading skills to independently pull apart what we have read. We finished the week by completing our AR Star Assessments, your child should receive their new reading level within the next couple of weeks.

Next week, we will be continuing our text ‘Into the Forest’.

English

In English this week, we used our text ‘Into the Forest’ describe a setting using our 5 senses, while also considering emotive vocabulary. We completed some paired writing of compound sentences and then continued this independently the following day, ensuring we were carefully including verbs, adverbs and adjectives. We explored how to use prepositions within our sentences to more accurately describe the layout of a setting and finished our week with a showpiece, showing all of our skills to describe our own fairytale setting.

Next week, we will continue ‘Into the Forest’ and move on to character descriptions.

Maths

In Maths this week we returned to Number and Place Value. We furthered our knowledge of partitioning by considering how we might partition into alternative ways, i.e. 456 = 200 + 250 + 6. We moved on by mastering our recognition of value of individual digits within a 3 digit number, using a multitude of resources to help us. We finished the week by using resources and our place value knowledge to order and compare numbers up to 1000.    

Next week in Maths we will be returning to Geometry, focussing on properties of 3D shapes.

Fact of the week

Next week, the fact of the week is 4x4=16

PSHE

This week we have focussed on PSHE with our learning centred on our Champion of Courage; Pierre-Auguste Renoir. We learnt that Renoir was a highly successful artist who showed immense courage and perseverance in his life as he battled his medical condition to continue his career as a painter. Together, we wrote beautifully creative acrostic poetry entitled ‘courage’. Next, we considered the meaning of courage and how we can show and see courage in our daily lives. As a class, we offered anonymous, complimentary ‘snaps’ to our classmates to show our appreciation for each other as unique individual. We finished the week by considering how we can deal with perceived failure and setbacks and created our own inspirational quotes to encourage others to never give up.

Home Learning

Next week, we will be beginning our learning on nutrition by focussing on the importance of a balanced diet. For this week’s home learning, can children please create or design their own balanced meal. This may be a meal that they cook or prepare at home, evidenced through pictures or they can simply design a balanced meal within their home learning books. Could this work please be returned to school by Tuesday 14^th January, to be used in that day’s lesson. Apologies for the delay in this week's Blog, we understand if you are not able to complete home learning by tomorrow. We thank you for your understanding, 

Other News

-Regarding trainers, there is now no trainer day. Children should only be wearing trainers on the day they have PE, where they will wear their PE kit to school.

Term 3 Dates

Tuesday 21st January 3.30-4.30 – Thrive Coffee afternoon

 Wednesday 5th February – Young Voices at the O2

Thursday 6th February – Countdown assembly (KS2 only)

Friday 7th February – NSPCC Number Day. Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 to wear a number themed outfit and KS2 to come as Times Table Rock Stars.

Tuesday 11th February – Safer Internet Day

Friday 14th February – School Disco