Puffins Class

Puffins Planning Letter: Autumn Term 1/2 2024 - Mrs Pepper and Mrs Cranston

Firstly, welcome back to school after the summer holidays. We hope you all had a lovely break. The children have settled in beautifully to Puffins class and are fully engaged in all our learning.

This letter is to give you a few quick reminders and some information about the learning the children will be doing in Terms 1 and 2.

Mrs Cranston will be teaching on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Mrs Pepper on Thursdays and Fridays. Mrs Coshall also joins us this term as our class teaching assistant and will be working every day. We have included a timetable of the week below, for your information.

We have provided each child with their own pencil case and stationery which remains in their tray, so there is no requirement for you to provide anything in this respect. However, please could we ask that your child has in school every day:

A water bottle (filled with water)

A raincoat (we try and get outside every day, whatever the weather!)

Their home reading book and reading record

On Thursdays their spellings book

On Mondays their maths homework book

Thank you very much for your support and co-operation. We are really looking forward to working with you all. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to email us or catch one of us at the door.

Kind regards,

Mrs Cranston and Mrs Pepper

 

English

Term 1

Writing – This term, our focus text for writing will be Stone Age Boy by Satoshi Kitamura. The children will learn to plan, write, edit and publish their own time-slip story and they will recap the features of non-chronological reports with a view to writing their own report that explains how to be a ‘stone age’ person.

Reading – Our primary text for controlled reading will be The Iron Man by Ted Hughes. We will be using the reading VIPERS prompts to support the children in developing their comprehension skills. VIPERS is an acronym for Vocabulary, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve and Summarise. By now, all of the children will have come home with an individual reading book and record. Please, please try and hear your child read every day! Even if it is only for 5 minutes or one page in their book. It is widely documented that regular reading practice on a one to one basis significantly improves a child’s reading ability and subsequently their success in all other areas of the curriculum. Please could you send your child’s book and record into school every day so that we can use it to hear them read and monitor your comments!

It is our aim in school, to hear your child read at least twice a week, either within a small focus group situation, whole class or individually and we also have volunteer readers who will be listening to children read too. If you have an hour to spare, once a week, we would welcome and be very grateful for other volunteers in the class. Please speak to one of the Puffins team, if you are interested in this.

Spelling – We will continue with the Superhero Spellings scheme for Years 3 and 4 and the children will be bringing home ten words every Friday to learn and practise ready for a spelling assessment the following Thursday. These will also be reinforced in school every day.

Term 2

Writing – Our focus text for Term 2 will be ‘Stig of the Dump’ by Clive King. The children will be learning the skills required to write a narrative prequel and will be using drama to entertain and perform an engaging speech to persuade the audience.

Reading – Our controlled reading text will be an abridged version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare.

Spellings – as in Term 1.

Science

In Science lessons this term, we will be learning about sound. We will discuss how sound vibrations travel to our ear and how we can increase and decrease the level of sound. We will also discover that sound can travel through solids, liquids and gases. Children will plan, carry out and evaluate sound experiments using a variety of apparatus. Term Two will see the children continuing with their sound enquiry. They will discuss pitch, and plan further experiments to consolidate their knowledge.

History & Geography

The children are very excited to be learning about the Stone Age this term. Our enquiry question is, how did life change in Britain from the Stone Age to the Iron Age? The children will discover where the Stone Age sits on a timeline in relation to other events. They will also discover what life was like throughout the period and how it changed as time went by.

We would encourage the children to carry out their own research at home. A homework grid has been provided for you with suggestions of what they could do.

PSHE

Our Term 1 unit in PSHE is entitled ‘Being Me in My World’. The children will learn what it means to be part of a team and a school citizen. We will be exploring the concept of democracy, what rights and responsibilities are and how rewards and consequences affect our choices and behaviours. In Term 2 our unit is entitled ‘Celebrating Differences.’

Maths

This term, the children will be working on their place value, addition, and subtraction skills. We will also continue to build on our knowledge of multiplication and use all these skills to answer a variety of reasoning questions.

At the beginning of each week, we will hold a fun multiplication championship which will help the children improve their quick recall skills.

PE

This term the children will be exploring invasion games. We are very lucky to have Wayne and his PE team visit us on a Monday and Mrs Cranston will lead the lesson on Wednesdays. Please could we ensure the children come to school in their correct kit and that they will be warm enough as the weather changes.

Art

Carrying on from our Stone age theme, this term the children will be studying cave paintings and early pottery. They will have the chance to design their own mural and make and decorate a pot.

DT

RE

Our key enquiry question for Term 1 is ‘What do Christians learn from the Creation story?’ The children will be using the Creation story from the Bible to explore the idea of God as creator and will be encouraged to reflect, ask questions and discuss their own opinions and ideas. In Term 2, the children explore the question ‘What is it like to follow God?’ which will involve looking at the story of Noah, the symbol of the rainbow and understanding the concept of a covenant.

Music

In music we will be focusing on the skills of listening and composing. The children will watch videos of the performance group STOMP and explore using different objects to create music. They will have a go at exploring the sounds and rhythms they can create with the same objects. Then in Term 2 they will compose and perform their own piece of music using everyday objects.

Computing

We will be exploring how digital devices work, how they are connected and how they help us. In Term 2, this is further developed with a focus on the internet, exploring the World Wide Web and precautions with online safety and websites.

MFL

This term we will be learning different greetings and how to say our name in French. In Term 2 our focus will be learning family names, the numbers 0-12 and how to say how old we are.

Homework

Maths homework will be sent home on Wednesday afternoons and should be returned to school for marking the following Monday.

English homework: Reading every day and spellings to be learnt every week – assessed on Thur, home on Fri.

History/Geography topic grid: one task to be completed per term.