This term the children will be exploring the theme “Stories From The Past”.
In Literacy, the children will explore two texts around the theme of fairy tales, “Little Red Riding Hood” and “The Gingerbread Man”, in depth. They will also discover that there are many different versions of these stories, each with their own differences. The children will be identifying, describing and comparing the characters and settings in different versions. They will use character props and story maps to develop their retelling skills further. The children will use their huge knowledge of sounds and how to construct sentences as they increase their writing stamina. To support this they will become authors, creating their own versions of these stories, sequencing the beginning, middle and end as a guide to help them with their story writing.
In our daily Sounds Write phonics sessions we will use our knowledge of taught sounds to develop and expand our ever-growing reading and writing skills. Each session will focus on “saying the sounds” (segmenting) and “reading the word” or “writing the word” (blending). This term we will focus on the final unit of the Initial Code:
Unit 11 – "sh", "ch", "tch", "th", "ck", "wh", "ng", "qu". In this unit we will be using these sounds alongside all the other sounds we have learnt this year to read and write CVC, CVCC, CCVC and CCVCC words.
After this we will be working on “bridging units” which help the children move from the Initial Code to the Extended Code which they will start on when they join Beech Class after the summer. These units focus on “same sounds, but different spellings”, such as “c”, “k” and “ck”. The children have already started to pick this up during some of our Initial Code work last term.
In Maths, we will be learning how to double and share amounts, as part of an introduction to the concepts of multiplication and division. They will learn that double means “twice as many” and make the link between doubling and addition. In sharing and grouping the children will learn that objects need to be shared equally and that sometimes there will be items left over. Moving on from this children will learn that when quantities can be shared equally the amount is “even” and when there are items left over, the amount is “odd”. We will focus on using positional language to describe where objects are in relation to other
We have added further home learning maths bags that support these maths concepts to our collection. If you would like to borrow one of these, please let us know and we will book it out for you. Please upload any photographs of you and your child completing these onto their Tapestry account.
In Understanding the World, the children will explore some fascinating story types including fairy tales, legends, Ancient Greek myths, fables and folk tales. All of these will help them begin to understand the variety and diversity of the world within the wonderful world of storytelling.
Throughout this unit children will begin to understand that stories have been told for many, many years. They will encounter classic story characters, will find out about their adventures and escapades and will develop new vocabulary as they enjoy the stories they hear.
The children will begin to appreciate that some stories teach us things; when hearing some of Aesop’s fables they will see that the fables have a lesson for us. They will 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.
Alongside the stories with their twisting plots and intriguing adventures, we are also teaching children about the world. The 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 that were taken to other places including the Caribbean.
You will see on the Knowledge Organiser below, and on the copy that your child brings home, some of the key facts and vocabulary that they will be learning.
In RE the children will explore the big question “How can we care for our wonderful world?”. The children will explore the concept of creating, designing and taking care of our world. We will revisit “The Creation Story” in the Bible and look for examples of how God created our wonderful world. The children will learn that Christians believe that God has made people caretakers of his world and will look at how we can take care of our environment and school. Finally, we will find out about Pet Services, which are held in church to celebrate the belief that God made animals. In Personal, Social and Emotional Development we will be exploring this idea further by looking how we can take care of ourselves, each other and our families.
Our Summer Term homework challenges are shown below, and you will also find a copy of these in your child’s homework book.