Caterpillar Class

Subject

Content

English

Children will learn about setting and characterisation using the Talk4Writing approach beginning with a cold write and then moving through the imitation, innovation and independent stages. Our model text is a version of Cinderella, which provides children with a high quality example. We will be focusing on ensuring we use the spelling rules which have been taught and spelling common exception words correctly. These can be found in the files below if you would like to practise them at home. We will also build a ‘characterisation toolkit’ and a ‘setting toolkit’ to improve the content of our writing looking at adjectives, using the power of three, verbs, adverbs and similes.  

During this half term, we will be reading Fantastic Fangs by Malorie Black, to develop our VIPERS skills (vocabulary, inference, prediction, evidence, retrieval and summarise).

Maths

This half term children will learn about money and multiplication and division.

Money: this unit builds upon basic money work children completed in Year 1. It also reinforces children’s counting skills, as well as addition and subtraction strategies. In this unit, children focus on coins and notes and cover the following topics: calculating total amounts, finding change and word problems

Multiplication and division: this unit focuses on multiplication in the context of skip counting, equal groups, times-tables, multiplication sentences and arrays. It is an essential basis for children understanding the times-tables and what × means. Within this unit, children will gain a solid grounding in equal groups and what this means, as well as how to recognise any groups that are not equal. This is the first big idea relating to multiplication and it is essential knowledge before moving through the rest of the lessons. Children will be introduced to arrays as a representation of multiplication, which will help highlight the commutative properties of multiplication. Throughout this unit, repeated addition sentences will appear alongside multiplication sentences so that children have a reference to help them understand what × means in context. Children will be encouraged to see multiplication in two different ways: sharing a group of a items amongst b people, and alternatively as grouping a items in groups of c. Both lead to the multiplication sentence a = b × c

How can you help at home?

• Practise counting in 2s, 5s and 10s
• Look at coins and banknotes together – can children recognise them?
• Count different amounts of money
• Play ‘shops’

Science

This unit builds directly from the Year 1 unit ‘Plants’. Children will look again at what plants are and what they need to grow. In this unit, children will look in more detail at seeds and bulbs. They will learn that germination is the process where a seed begins to grow and changes into a seedling. Children will spend some time comparing plants that receive light and water and those that don’t. They will understand that healthy plants need light and water to grow. In this unit children will build on their understanding of plants as food from Year One and will look at how farmers grow plants as crops, which are then harvested and transported to shops. They will consider where the food we eat comes from. Finally, children will show what they have learned by explaining how bulbs and seeds work, using scientific drawing and/or diagrams in their writing to support their answer. This unit will provide foundational prior learning for the Year 3 Unit Plants.

History 

In History we are learning about the Romans, covering the Roman invasion of Britain, how the Romans changed Britain, the Roman Army and the Roman culture.

Design and Technology

Children will build on their knowledge from Year 1 about wheels and axles to design and make a fairground Ferris wheel. The children will need to follow a design brief, select different materials applying what they know about their properties then build and test their Ferris wheel.  

Music

In music this half term we are learning to play space themed music with the glockenspiels. The children will learn notation and how to compose their own short pieces of music based on a planet.

Physical Education

Pupils learn about mindfulness and body awareness. They begin to learn yoga poses and techniques that will help them to connect their mind and body. The unit builds strength, flexibility and balance. The learning includes breathing and meditation taught through fun and engaging activities. Pupils will work independently and with others, sharing ideas and creating their own poses in response to a theme.

Computing

Throughout this unit, he children will learn the following skills and knowledge:

• Develop confidence with the keyboard and the basics of touch typing.
• Develop word processing skills, including altering text, copying and pasting and using keyboard shortcuts.
• Use word processing software to type and reformat text.
• Search for appropriate images to use in a document.
• Understand what online information is.
• Identify whether information is safe or unsafe to be shared online.
• To know that touch typing is the fastest way to type.
• To know that I can make text a different style, size and colour.
• To know that “copy and paste” is a quick way of duplicating text.

Art

The term history painting is used to describe painting which shows stories from classical history, mythology and the Bible. This unit builds on the children’s knowledge from their study of paintings showing St George and the Dragon in year 1 in the unit on Narrative Art. To explore the idea of history painting, the children look at Ancient Egyptian art, including The Great Sphinx.

Personal, Social and Health Education

In PSHE this half term we are focusing on Sex and Relationship education. We are looking at how babies grow inside their mum’s tummies, what babies need and how children grow and change. We will be teaching a lot of this through stories and books.

Our class text is: Fangs by Malorie Blackman

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