Kingfishers Class

Kingfishers Planning Letter: Autumn Term 1/2 2023 - Mrs Ford & Miss Black

We are very excited to be starting a brand new year together in Kingfishers class, we have already got off to a fantastic start! We will be keeping to the same days as last year - Mrs Ford will be teaching the class every Monday and Miss Black will be teaching Tuesday-Friday.

We hope this newsletter will give you a brief summary of what your child will be learning in each subject this autumn term, as well as detailing some extra information about our class in general. This term we are putting a strong focus on routines, expectations and developing independence. We hope you will agree that emphasising these things in KS1 will set each child up for a successful journey through the rest of the school.

Our autumn topic for Terms 1 and 2 is ‘SOS’. We will be focusing on the Victorian Era, more so in Term 2, and the women who became famous during this period for their heroic and incredible achievements.

English

In English this term, we will be reading ‘I Am Rosa Parks’ by Brad Meltzer (Year 1) and ‘Greek Myths’ by Geraldine McCaughreen(Year 2) as our year group texts; answering comprehension questions and developing our reading with these high quality texts. In Term 1 we will be using ‘Supertato’ by Sue Hendra as a writing stimulus and in Term 2 we will be using ‘The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch’ by Ronda and David Armitage.

In Term 1 we will be story tellers, reporters and informers producing a description, story and report all based around heroes. In Term 2, we will be letter writers and recounters writing diary entries, letters and a non-chronological report.

We will be having a strong focus on handwriting and spelling in the first two terms to ensure we get a good start in these areas for the rest of the year. We really appreciate additional support from home to ensure the children can progress.

Geography & History

In Term 1, we will be starting our focus on Geography by recapping the UK capital cities and learning what we can see in them. For this, the children will be learning how to differentiate between human and physical features of places. We will also be    taking a look at the 4 main compass points and how we can use directional language to describe where things are on a map. We will have a very exciting trip to Hastings in Term 1 to attend a workshop with the RNLI.

In Term 2, we will focus more on History and in particular, Victorian women who made an impact and are still remembered for their achievements today. We will do 3 in depth studies, looking at Grace Darling, Mary Seacole and Florence Nightingale before comparing them, their lives and their achievements.

Maths

In Term 1, the children will be learning about Place Value for the first few weeks, which is fundamental to the majority of maths units. Year 1 will be starting off working within 20 and Year 2 will be working within 100. We will then begin our unit on addition and subtraction.

In Term 2, we will continue building on our addition and subtraction learning, including taking a look at money, before moving on to multiplication.

Computing

In Term 1 and 2, we will be creating media in our computing sessions. In Term 1, we will be having a go at digital painting and in Term 2, we will be exploring digital photography.

Collaboration

We are very lucky this year to have a brand new classroom which now has a linking door to Peacocks. We hope this will allow us to work more collaboratively as an EYFS/KS1 team to help ease the transition from Peacocks to Kingfishers and offer more support to the children in our cohorts. This will be a new way of working for all of us but we are very excited by the new opportunities that this will bring.

Developing Independence

One of our aims in Kingfishers this year is to support the children in developing their own independence and ability to support and motivate themselves for their own learning. They will be in charge of taking their own reading books out of their book bags, ready to be changed each morning, they will be taught to select the resources that will best help them with their learning and will be encouraged to have a go themselves before asking for help. We hope that this will give them a great start on their journey to becoming self-motivated, independent learners by the time they reach Eagles.

Homework

Compulsory

New spellings will be given out to the children every Monday on a look, cover write worksheet but will no longer be quizzed on them at school. Please continue to support your child in completing the sheet with the different activities specified to support the learning with phonics, spelling and writing.

Maths homework will be given out every Thursday to be returned on the following Wednesday to allow time for marking. There may be times when this is substituted for an English based task instead.

Encouraged

We would love to see the children using Spelling Shed and Mathletics regularly to support their learning. Activities will be set each week and achievements will be recognised in our Friday celebration assemblies.

We are also very keen for children to have a go at an activity from the home learning menu which is linked to their topic for the term. We will provide an opportunity for the children to show and tell the class about their home learning and it will be put on display in the classroom for viewing by children, staff and visitors to the school throughout the term.

www.mathletics.com

www.spellingshed.com

Science

In the Autumn Terms, our science lessons will be focusing on Animals including Humans, answering the enquiry question: How do we survive and stay healthy?

In Term 1, we will be looking at life cycles before investigating food groups and how we can achieve a healthy, balanced diet. We will expand on this in Term 2 by investigating why we need to exercise and the importance of hygiene. We hope to include lots of practical work in Term 2 to help the children understand this.

Art & DT

In Term 1, we will be doing painting in art. We will be mixing our own secondary colours and using these to create a sunset seascape based on JMW Turner’s work ‘Bell Rock Lighthouse Seascape’.

In Term 2, we will be preparing vegetables in DT and finding out where they come from. We will look at different tools we can use to prepare our ingredients to make an appetising  salad which will link nicely with our science learning on a healthy diet.

RE

In RE for Term 1, we will be looking at the creation story with the enquiry question ‘Who made the world?’ In Term 2 we will move on from this to answer ‘What do Christians believe God is like?’

PSHE

Our Term 1 unit is called ‘Being Me’. This unit of work will really help us to set up our class in a way that everyone feels safe and special. We will discuss rules, roles and responsibilities that will allow everybody to be successful as well as consequences of our actions, positive and negative. We will be completing the whole unit in the first week to ensure we set up our classroom culture in a positive way.

In Term 2, Our unit will be ‘Celebrating Difference’ with which we will look at similarities and differences between the people in our class, how to make friends and what bullying is and what we can do about it. 

Music

In music this term we will be learning, singing, playing and creating our own sea shanties with some harmonies and body percussion. We will also be looking at La Mer by Claude Debussy to see how instruments can create dynamics, atmosphere and mood. In Term 2, we will use our music lessons to learn the songs for our nativity which is very exciting!

PE

In PE for Terms 1 and 2, we will be developing different skills. On Mondays, we will be focusing on manipulative skills in Term 1 before moving on to attacking and defending skills in Term 2. Our fantastic coach, Wayne, will continue to lead sessions with us on a Monday. Our second session will be on a Friday and we have been very lucky to be working with another external coach who will be teaching us dance.

Important Information and Reminders

The children’s PE days will be on Mondays and Thursdays so please ensure they have a full PE kit in school for these days.

Children will need a water bottle every day (please ensure this only has water in it!). They will also need a warm, waterproof coat for rainy days with the addition of hats, scarves and gloves as we move into the winter. We can sometimes get lovely, sunny weather at the start of the year so sun cream on any hotter days is also necessary.

As we have moved classrooms, we now have our very own cloakroom. Children will be keeping their bookbags on their pegs along with their coats and PE kits. Please could we ask that additional bags, such as rucksacks, are not brought into school as there will not be enough space on the children’s pegs. We will also be using our cloakroom area as a second learning space so it is important that we are able to keep it tidy and clutter free to allow the children to focus on their learning when working out there. Rucksacks are of course welcome when we go on school trips!

This year, we are asking that children do not bring things in for show and tell unless it is directly linked to our learning. If they have something that is very special that they would like to show the teachers then that will be lovely but we will not be able to show it to the class.

We have a new member of our class who joined us this week named Gerald. He is a giraffe and is hoping to come home with a different child each Friday to spend the weekend with their family. Please don’t do anything extra when Gerald joins you—he is interested and excited by your normal weekend activities! If the children could stick in/draw pictures or write into his book, that will be lovely as we will share Gerald’s weekend each Monday and keep a record of his adventures.