Our in-class igloo has provided great opportunity for imaginative role play. We have looked at videos of arctic animals and started to talk about how they survive in the extreme cold. We’re working on a class display of penguins chilling in the Arctic and watched how baby penguins are looked after by their parents.

In Maths we have been identifying missing numbers in sequences to 10 and have revisited number bonds to 5.

We have talked about our dreams and goals for the new year and discussed ways to overcome daily challenges.

Our focus texts in Literacy will be A Little Bit of Winter and Ridiculous! We will be learning about animals that hibernate. We will be going on an observational winter walk and using simple adjectives to describe what winter looks like.

In phonics we have Introduced blends;

st   ft   mp   nd   sk   nk   nt

How to help your child at home…

• Reinforce digraphs/trigraphs and blends introduced at school.
• Practise cursive letters in name writing – reinforce capital letters at the start of first and last names.
• Practise saying the days of the week and months of the year in order.
• Look for signs of winter and talk about how the seasons change.
• Practise identifying numbers in real life contexts.
• Practise simple addition

It's been a cold start back to Forest School so far, but it has given us the opportunity to explore the effects of cold weather! We tried to catch snowflakes and study them using a magnifying glass, we discovered the sounds that different materials make, and we marvelled at the beautiful ice decorations that nature craft club had made. We also recycled one of the school Christmas trees into a fabulous den. Each child used the loppers to cut off the branches, then we made a frame from the trunk and other sticks on site. Lastly we covered the frame with all of the tree branches and had great fun playing in the new den that we'd made. 

Reception have been trying out different percussion instruments. They have learned the name of each instrument, how to play it, and what kind of sound it makes.

In Maths this week, we have been learning about money. We started by recognising the different coins and then we used this knowledge to buy and sell different items in our class to each other which was lots of fun. 

We have linked our art to our writing topic this term 'Nocturnal animals'. We made beautiful painted pictures of owls during the nightime sky which we were very proud of. 

Year 2 have been exploring how we care for ourselves including exercise, hygiene and diet. The pupils used 'glitter germs' to show how germs can travel and investigated the best methods for keeping their hands clean. 

As part of their gymnastics topic with an under the sea theme, 2E were working hard on their matching partner balances this week. Doing a variety of different types of matched balances, they were concentrating on the 3 S's...

Still, Stretch and Stay!

Class 2E have been learning about sculpture and the importance of observing objects from different angles. They have tried hard to look carefully at the shape, colour and texture of the sculptural forms.

In History we have started our new topic, The Great Fire of London. We set the scene by looking at life in London in 2024 vs 1666. It was different! We discussed differences in transport, clothing, jobs, wealth, availability of food and buildings.

In RE, ahead of our learning on Jewish weddings, we looked at what a celebration includes, and the children worked in teams to plan their own celebration presenting a collaborative poster to the class. It required teamwork, communication, turn-taking, discussion, decision making, tact, presentation and creative skills. Always good life skills to work on.

Children in 2W have spent time in their phonics lessons investigating the 'l' sound and when it is made by el, il, al or even le.  Here you can see them sorting the different options by making beautiful flower heads.

The children in 2W have been learning the topic of fruit in their French lessons. They played a game where they had to guess the item of fruit written on a sticker on their back. They also practised the vocabulary using plastic models of the relevant fruits. Finally, several pupils were able to write the vocabulary correctly from memory on their whiteboards.