Butterfly and Ladybird Classes

Communication and language 

In the final term, the children will continue enjoying a selection of high quality texts and begin responding with relevant comments, questions and ideas. We will focus on following instructions involving more than one idea or action and we will practise answering how/why questions about experiences in response to stories and events to continue broadening children’s vocabulary and building language complexity.  The children will offer explanations for why things might happen, making use of recently introduced vocabulary from stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems when appropriate. They will express their ideas and feelings about their experiences using full sentences, including use of past, present and future tenses and making use of conjunctions, with modelling and support from their teacher.

Physical Development  

We will continue to develop fine motor skills through cutting, threading, mark making, manipulating materials. By now the children are able to hold a pencil effectively in preparation for fluent writing – using the tripod grip in almost all cases. The children will negotiate space and obstacles safely, with consideration for themselves and others. Pupils will demonstrate strength, balance and coordination when playing. They will move energetically. i.e. when running, jumping, dancing, hopping, skipping and climbing.

PE lessons will take place every Friday afternoon – this term’s unit of learning is Games. With sports day coming up, the children will be practising specific skills to prepare them for the races on the day. This includes balancing and moving in different ways.

The children will continue to access the school’s climbing apparatus which supports their gross motor development.

PSED 

The children will continue learning the school’s rules Safe, Ready, Respect and will begin gaining an understanding of the value of courage. We will reflect on how we are courageous when facing a new challenge, meeting new people and making our own decisions. The children will show an understanding of their own feelings and those of others, and begin to regulate their behaviour accordingly. Finally, they will set and work towards simple goals, being able to wait for what they want and control their immediate impulses when appropriate.

In Jigsaw PSHE, the children will focus on the topic ‘Changing me.’ They will look at how they are changing as they grow, how we respect our bodies and celebrate all the new skills they learnt. Towards the end of the term, we will hold discussions around transition to Year 1, getting to know new adults, what Year 1 will look like and create opportunities for the students to ask questions and raise worries.

Literacy  

The children will access a wide selection of quality texts across fiction, non-fiction and poetry within the environment. We will memorise and innovate short texts through the Talk4Writing lessons, having fun and experimenting with language, rhyme and rhythm, retelling texts and writing.   

Some of the texts we will focus on this term are: St George and the Dragon, the Knight who wouldn’t fight, various fairy tales, myths and non-fiction texts on Ancient Greece and Aesop’s fables.

In Phonics, we will continue to learn Set 2 sounds. We will practise a new sound each lesson and apply the new sound through focused reading and writing tasks where the children will develop their confidence with segmenting and blending.

 The children will work in partners to read speed sounds, green words (decodable words) and red words, as well as their phonics books. The children will support each other to ‘Fred talk, read the word’ independently. The children will also be introduced to new red words which are words that are not phonetically decodable.

In writing, the children will independently write phrases using their phonic knowledge; the children will have a go at writing familiar or their own fairy tales that can be read by others. We will secure the use of finger spaces to mark out individual words.

Mathematics  

At the start of the term, we will continue to learn about numerical patterns. Children will build their understanding of sharing and halving, as well as odd and even numbers, securing the new vocabulary and beginning to understand the concepts. This learning will be built upon further in their mathematical learning in KS1 and KS2.

We then move onto focussing on the composition and decomposition of shape. In this unit, the focus is on children recognising that a shape can have other shapes within it. Children will begin by using two shapes to make a new shape. They will build on this skill by attempting to build one shape in multiple ways. Partitioning numbers has been introduced previously. This unit will allow children to see that shapes can also be ‘partitioned’ in multiple ways.

We will then move onto Volume (measure and capacity). In this unit, children will meet, for the first time, volume and capacity. They will learn how to compare two or more items using the vocabulary of measure and will begin to compare containers visually.

Understanding of the word 

Our topic this term is ‘Stories from the past’. Throughout this unit children will begin to understand that stories have been told for many, many years. They may begin to appreciate that some stories teach us things; when hearing some of Aesop’s fables they might begin to see that the fables have a lesson for us. Children may begin to understand that some stories were told long ago to explain things, such as the Ancient Greek myth of Prometheus stealing fire from the Gods to give to people. Importantly, children will encounter classic story characters, will find out about their adventures and escapades and will be developing new vocabulary as they enjoy the stories they hear. Children will learn that stories have been told in many places around the world; they will learn about St George and where it is believed he came from, Ancient Greece, Aesop and what historians believe about his identity and the Anansi stories which are Ashanti folk tales from West Africa.

Expressive Arts and Design 

We will start the half term by looking at cave art as possibly one of the oldest ways of storytelling and by creating our own cave art pictures. The children will focus on ‘People in art’ looking at Degas’ ballerinas. They will practise drawing people and creating clay sculptures of “Miro-like” people.

The children will also look at fashion. We will experiment with fabric to design a suitable piece of sportswear. We will discuss what features a practical piece of sportswear might have before designing.