What if...? (Spring 1)
English
Our topic this half-term is 'What If...?'. As a progression from last year's work on traditional tales, we will read traditional tales with a twist - stories with alternative endings, for example.
Our key text is Mr Wolf and the Three Bears by Jan Fearnley. We will use the text to describe all the delicious-looking food that Mr Wolf makes for Baby Bear's birthday party. We will use our writing to make M&S-style adverts to help Mr Wolf sell his party food. We will also write descriptions for the main characters in the story. To explore the different characters’ feelings and personalities, we will write letters in role, and use the main plot to write our own innovated versions of the story.
To finish our unit, we will make some party food and write instructions so you can follow our recipes - We hope you will like them!
Follow the link below to Jan Fearnley’s website:
Maths
In maths, we will cover place value, measures (mass, volume and capacity), addition and subtraction, money, and multiplication and division. We will look at scales and use our place value knowledge to identify missing numbers, and learn to round numbers to the nearest 10. Using jottings, we will learn how and when to exchange when adding or subtracting. We will use coins to make values in different ways, add values together to find the total cost of items and calculate how much we would have left to spend if we had a given amount and had spent some. We will explore arrays in multiplication and sharing in division.
Science
Our topic in science this half-term is Living Things and their Habitats. We will continue to study this topic in the second half of the Spring term.
We will begin by recapping what we remember from Year 1, naming and classifying different animals. We will then look at the processes of living things (MRS GREN!). To compare things that are living, dead and things that have never been alive, we will take photos of the different things we can find in our school. We will look at how energy is transferred between living things and describe simple food chains. To investigate birds and why they have different beaks, we will test how much ‘food’ we can collect in 30 seconds using our own ‘beaks.’ This will help us to understand animal adaptations and how they behave in the wild.
Art
In art, we are studiying William Morris; a textile designer from London who was born in 1834. We will explore his use of nature in his artwork and use view-finders to ‘zoom in’ on his designs. To support our science learning on living things, we will look closely at different leaves and create designs that we will turn into stampers. We will make our stampers using foam and use them to make repeating-pattern prints with paint. We will explore how to make the best prints possible and experiment with different colours and shades.
Follow the link below to find out more about William Morris:
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/william-morris-and-wallpaper-design
Geography
Our geography learning this half-term is linked to our English topic of traditional tales. We will begin by sorting the human and physical features we find in fairytale landscapes. We will decide which features we should include in our own fairy tale lands and create maps, including symbols in a key. We will use our maps to show how characters could move between the features, using compass points to describe the routes.
Follow the link below to create your own worlds using AI:
Music
This half-term, we will learn a rock song called, I Wanna Play in a Band. We will learn to sing the song (with our best rock actions!), and play instruments in time with the music.
RE
The religion we are learning about in RE is Hinduism, and the practices of Hindu worship. We will think about devotion and explore what and who we are devoted to. We will discuss the different ways we show our devotion and the things that are special to us. We will talk about the different ways we can show gratitude and respect to the people who really matter to us.
After studying Hindu deities, we will discuss why they are portrayed the way they are. We will look at the ritual of Hindu worship and learn about the different items on the puja tray, and compare prayer at home with prayer at a mandir.
Follow the link to learn more about Hinduism:
PE
Our topics in PE this half term are Gymnastics and Health Related Exercise.
In gymnastics, we will develop our knowledge of different balances and our abilities to hold them. We will create routines to demonstrate our skills with control and fluency. We will also investigate how we can travel in different ways and combine them with our balances to develop our routines.
In health related exercise, we will develop our understanding of how the body functions and changes during exercise, and develop our abilities to exercise at different intensities. We will learn about our pulse and how to find it, and test our heart and lungs, our muscles, our speed and our ability to catch. We will record our results and track our progress over the half term.