Autumn Term 2
Autumn 2 in Phase 2
General blurb
The children came back after the half-term, raring to go and looking forward to the term ahead! We have enjoyed a variety of learning, activities and challenged our brains over this half-term.
English
In Autumn Term 2, we wrote a narrative from the perspective of a child in the Stone Age. We used historical references from our history topic to be as historically accurate as possible. We put an emphasis on including speech in our writing and being as descriptive as possible. Towards the end of Autumn 2, we were outraged to find out the government was planning to shorten our summer holidays! We wrote letters of complaint to put our point across and emphasised the use of formal language and conjunctions to support our arguments. The term ended with performance poetry, using intonation, rhythm and rhyme to perform poems before critically analysing each other's performances, focusing on positive criticism.
Quotes:
“Complaining to the government really sparked my imagination. It was like I was writing to a real person.” Zuri
Guided Reading
To begin this half-term, we read the fictional story ‘The Dancing Bear’ written by Author Michael Morpurgo. This story is about an abandoned bear cub that is adopted by a lonely orphan child. A film crew comes to town who are in need of a dancing bear… We got stuck into looking at animals that need help all over the globe and we are excited to continue this book after the Winter break.
In the last 2 weeks of the term, we were looking at the Christmas poem ‘The Night Before Christmas’. This poem was written during Christmas 1822 by Clement Clarke Moore for his six children, The Night Before Christmas is a poem which tells the story of how, whilst all the family sleeps, a father witnesses a visit from St. Nicholas. The father watches as St. Nicholas fills the waiting stockings with presents and, with a quick glance exchanged between them, leaves via the chimney. The poem is written in rhyming couplets, giving it a rhythmic and melodious quality. The poem has been set to music many times and has been recorded by a number of artists.
Quotes:
“I liked the poem because it used great vocabulary” Imogen.
“I liked the start of The Dancing Bear because who doesn’t like a dancing bear, I’m looking forward to finishing the story after the break” Pablo.
Maths
Over the previous few weeks, we have continued our mastery of numbers looking at numbers up to 1,000. The children have been applying their knowledge of methods learnt in the first half-term to larger and more challenging numbers. This includes bridging tens and hundreds, as well as multiplying and dividing numbers by 10 and 100 (with the occasional challenge of 1,000).
The children have also continued their times table fluency practice with great progress being made in the square numbers portion of the practice. Some of the highlights of this half-term have been practical lessons measuring length and mass. This allowed children hands-on time with equipment and also having fun challenges in small groups.
We finished the term with lots of whiteboard work looking at challenging questions to make the children apply their knowledge to worded questions, which made them think in a slightly different way.
Art and Design
In Art this term, we have been focused on printing. We have practised our skills using a roller, etched designs onto our printing tile to produce a monoprint and impressed shells into clay to produce a stamp. We really enjoyed getting stuck into using the rollers and being creative with our designs!
Quotes
“It was really hard to make the pictures come out clearly, especially when there was too much ink! But we eventually got the hang of it” Willow
“I liked it when we used the clay to make prints of shells.” Youcef
Design Technology
This term we have been learning about food and nutrition. We learnt all about having a balanced diet and had fun creating some healthy snacks! We really enjoyed making fruity yogurt and healthy popcorn using the microwave. We worked on our grating skills to grate apple and the zest of lemons and lime to flavour our popcorn.
Music
We have had a lot of fun this half-term practising and preparing for our very successful Winter Sing. Looking at new music and new winter songs certainly set us ready for the Winter break. We hope you all enjoyed the sing as much as we did.
Quotes:
“Mr Mather chooses the best music” Noah.
“It brings joy to Sudbourne” Ms Sathi.
“The music was new to me and I found it fascinating” Pablo.
RE
This half-term we have been looking at the life of the Buddah. We have explored the origins of Buddhism and some of the beliefs and practices of Buddhists. We looked at the four noble truths and the eightfold plan.
PE
In PE this half-term we have been working on our basketball skills as well as learning tag rugby skills.
Basketball: we have been building on our dribble, shoot and passing skills, as well as applying them and learning how to use them against opponents in game situations. We also know that footwork is a key skill when it comes to game time!
Tag Rugby: this was a new sport to a lot of us. We worked on hand-eye coordination, which enabled us to pass accurately across an offensive line.
Quotes:
“I like doing PE because it helps with our mental health” Chimaobi.
“It makes me feel fresh and ready” Oscar.
PSHE
In PSHE, we looked at family life. We looked at how we can be different to the people around us. We also looked into resolving conflicts, how they arise and what to do to solve them in a mature manner. The children had some great and honest conversations around some fascinating topics.
Events or trips
Hilary class assembly: At the start of this half-term, Hilary class had their sharing assembly. We shared everything we learnt from the previous half-term. What was really special was the children created their own scripts for what they wanted to share. We then also performed a Hilary class original song all about the Stone Age to the tune of" We will rock you".
Jemison class assembly: The first week of term, Jemison class had their class sharing assembly. We loved sharing everything we learnt in Autumn 1 with our parents and performing the “rock” song we helped to write. It was great getting the parents involved with a proper cup of coffee!
Black Cultural Evening: Looking back to November, we had a very successful black cultural evening and thank you to those who came and helped make it the success it was. It was a great event to be part of with lots of dancing and singing from everyone. We enjoyed the evening, and we are looking forward to the next event we can get involved in!