Queen Victoria

Welcome back to term 2 where we will be focusing on one of the most famous monarchs in British history - Queen Victoria!

In her 63-year reign, Victoria contributed to many significant changes in areas such as education and employment. The Victorian age also saw significant change in other areas too, specifically, inventions and discovery! Throughout the term, we will be learning about some of these!

This term, our literacy focus will be story writing; we will be using the traditional tale of ‘The Princess and the Pea’ as our stimulus. We will be using the talk for writing approach so children will be exposed to lots of storytelling language before we begin innovating and inventing our own stories! We will finish the term writing riddles, which we hope to share with you towards the end of term.

Our whole class reading book is The Snow Queen (original by Hans Christian Anderson), so we will look forward to finding out where this story takes us!

We hope to talk to you all at parents evening, during the week commencing the 14^th November, and look forward to welcoming you into class during the week commencing 28^th November.

On Wednesday 30^th November we will be going on our class trip to Cogges Manor Farm, where our focus is ‘Victorian Time Travellers’.

Towards the end of term, we will be holding a Victorian dress up day too. As part of our day we are inviting parents in for a short assembly on Wednesday 7^th December. 

Please check Puffins webpage for photos and videos of what we are getting up to. Our curriculum map will provide more information, about learning this term, so do take a peak!

We are all set for a busy term full of exciting learning and fun. 

Many Thanks, Puffins Team

THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

A very big welcome to all of our new Puffins and Puffin Parents! 

We hope that our web page will act as a method of communication, and keep you up to date with what is happening in the classroom.

At the start of every term we will include a curriculum map on here, which will provide details of curriculum coverage for that term.

Our topic this term is The Great Barrier Reef! As the largest reef in the world and one which can be seen from space, it’s no wonder that it’s one of the seven natural wonders of the world!

Children will be learning about the location of The Great Barrier Reef and will be exploring life beneath the surface. We will be encouraging children to generate their own questions about this magnificent structure …

How long has it been there?
How big is it?
What creatures live there?
Why is it endangered?

This term, our whole class reading book is Manfish – the story of Jacques Cousteau. We have chosen this story as it is beautifully and poetically written and links perfectly with our descriptive writing focus this term. As well as whole class reading, where children will be answering a range of questions linked to vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and sequencing (VIPERS), we will also seek to listen to children read at least once a week.    

Over the first week or so of the new term, we will be listening to children read. They will be given a levelled reading book and a should aim to read each night at home. When your child needs to change their book, this should be put in the 'change my book' tray (as they come into class), so we can issue a new book.  

                                     
Daily phonics will continue throughout the year and will be taught using the Read Write Inc scheme. In addition, children will have focus spellings which will be taught as part of our early morning work. These are spelling that your child is expected to know by the end of Year 1. We will also share 'Red Words' with you (in our useful documents section) and would very much appreciate your help with getting your child to read (not spell) these words. Red Words are phonetically irregular words -they are quite simply words that can't be sounded out and need to be learnt. Each term, we will include both the spelling and Red Word focus words for that term on our curriculum map, so please look out for them.

A parent mail will be sent with information about Forest School and PE. Our days for these lessons will be:

Forest School: Monday

PE: Thursday

We hope this gives you some useful information to start, but will look forward to talking to you more at the 'Meet the Teachers' meeting (date tbc via parent mail).

Puffins Team