Week 2

What a busy first full week back! The children are settling into the new class routines and finding their feet, and we have started the Autumn Term curriculum in earnest. 

We have focused on handwriting and spelling as a morning task to help the children settle into class.  We have looked at letter formation in cursive handwriting.  We have used warm up exercises to stretch and build the hand muscles to develop writing stamina, and consolidated the correct handwriting posture and pencil grip. 

In Guided Reading, the children have read a persuasive text about a Stone Age Village, and explored new vocabulary. They have started to develop VIPERS skills to help them infer new vocabulary from the context of the text.  They have also built their confidence to do a performance reading of the text to the whole class. The text also links neatly to our History unit this half-term on the Stone Age to the Iron Age in Great Britain.

In History this week, the children learnt about pre-history, the importance of timelines and the meaning of BC/ AD. They understood the three different periods of the Stone Age and linked it to the Guided Reading text. We conducted a practical experiment to put into context how long the Stone Age lasted in the history of mankind. 

In Literacy this week, children have continued to embed essential expectations within our writing, such as capital letters, full stops, letter formation and presentation.  We have also revisited what makes a sentence. We have identified subject, verb and object, and recognised them in a sentence.  We have also revisited what a noun is.  

In Maths, children have focused on place value.  Children have explored varying pictorial representations for numbers up to 1,000, recapping flexible partitioning within numeral and written format.

In Science this week, children conducted a pre-assessment for the unit of sound. They have explored how sound is made using a whistle and the vibrations of our vocal cords to demonstrate this.

In PE, we commenced basketball dribbling skills and started introducing fitness movements, including the pirate game to put those squats (dodge the cannonball), sidesteps (sail to the island), running with high knees (climb the rigging) and other movements into action.  

In RHE/ PSHE, the children have explored our British values.  We had a particular focus on democracy, and conducted mini elections for classroom jobs. We have also compiled a class charter of goals for the year, and explored the meaning of the Federation Mission Statement.

The children were lucky to have a new music teacher join us today, and the children thoroughly enjoyed singing along to the piano in the hall, together with all of the actions to the song 'In the Jungle'.

Class 3 have conducted reading assessments this week, and have now been allocated reading materials to take home and practise. They have also chosen books from the updated reading corner in the classroom as part of our Reading for Pleasure philosophy, and will start using those next week as part of the classroom transitions and routines.  

Well done Class 3 for all of your hard work this week!

Have a fantastic weekend.