Autumn Term 1
Autumn 1 in Phase 1
English
In Year 1, we were making predictions about what would happen next! We read the story of Beegu, a little alien who crashes to Earth and misses her mum. We made sensible predications about what could happen in the end of the story - will she find her place at school? Will she fix her spaceship and make her way back to her family? We enjoyed seeing if our prediction were correct. In writing, we are working on seasonal poems. This is linked to our science topic of seasons. We have learnt that sentences are a set of words that express a complete thought. They begin with a capital letter and usually end with a full stop.
In Year 2, we have been strengthening our foundations when looking very closely at a sentence. We have been trying our best to ensure a sentence has everything it needs to make sense and is engaging for our readers. Building on this foundation, we have studied the story “Grandads Island," as an exemplar text to show incredible character description. We have been working on using adjectives to describe a character and strong adverbs to describe what they are doing.
Maths
In Year 1, we were looking at the composition of numbers to 100, differentiating between ‘teen’ and ‘ty’numbers and using 100 squares and gattegno charts to help us begin to partition numbers.
We have also been focusing on comparing amounts and using the key vocabulary ‘greater than, less than and equal to’. We have begun to answer reasoning questions that help us to dive deeper. There has been a heavy drive in mastering number, subitising and being able to see 5 in all numbers to 10!
In Year 2 maths, we have been learning to use “Then I know...” statements to solve equations that are higher in value. For example - if 2+4=6 “then I know” 20+40=60. We have been working on new strategies to solve addition and subtraction sums. We have also been engaging with uni fix, tens frames, number lines and other manipulatives to help us with our maths thinking and solving new and complex problems.
Science
During this term in science, we have learnt all about the seasons and the changes that come with each. We have explored how day becomes night, and what problems would arise if we only had a day. We have also learnt about plants, including trees. We have discovered that plants are alike to humans in the ways that different parts have different functions. For example, the stem of a plant moves nutrients around its body and flowers attract bees for pollination.
History
In History this term, we looked at changes within living memory. We compared Brixton from the 1950’s to today and the meaning of chronology. We learnt about how the high street and shopping has changed, from queuing outside many different shops and paying with money to shopping online and using bank cards.
Art and Design
This term has been filled with excitement, as we explored a breadth of materials and tools.
We created our very first monochrome pictures of rabbits using chalk, oil pastels, wax crayons and charcoal. We also applied our knowledge of pressure to create different tonal effects after studying ‘The Rhinoceros’ (1515) by Albrecht Durer.
Design Technology
Our technical skills have been put to the test, as we have been practising the skill of weaving. We then built on this technique to create our very own slider mechanisms in the form of greeting cards. In order to do this, we had to explore different types of sliders and experiment with creating slots for the sliders to fit into.
RE
In this unit, we expanded on our understanding of what it means to belong and the importance of being secure in who we are in our World. We then discussed how children are given a sense of belonging to four religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism. We looked at how people show they belong and what is special for them about belonging. We also learnt about how children are welcomed into different religions and wrote an invitation for our own special event.