This term in Chestnut Class, the children will be exploring the theme "Growing and Changing". Throughout this theme, the children will be learning about how plants, animals and humans grow and changes. We will be thinking about what we need to grow. The children will be exploring farming and how the animals and our food grows and changes. 

In Literacy, our class text will be "The Enormous Turnip". The children will be exploring the characters in the story and the setting of the story. As the children develop a familiarity and understanding with the text, they will be able to retell the story. The children will be using props to support their retelling of the story. They will be also be writing sentences about the story, using the sounds they know and using their phonic knowledge to reread their work. The children will also be developing their writing skills, by using finger spaces, full stops and developing their letter formations.

In our Phonics sessions we will be continuing to learn the Initial Code of the Sounds Write programme. The children will be continuing revisiting their prior knowledge of previous sounds learnt, as well as being introduced to new units of sounds. During Units 8 and 9, the children will be practicing segmenting and blending VCC and CVCC words. 

Unit 7 – ss, zz

Unit 8 – VCC and CVCC words

Unit 9 – CCVC words

In Maths, the children will be developing their counting skills and ordering numbers to 10. The children will be developing their understanding of ordinality, recognising that every whole number is "1 more" than the previous number and "1 less" than then following number. Next, the children will be learning about comparing numbers using key vocabulary "more than" and "less than". We will also be learning about the composition of numbers up to 7. We will be exploring how to use the part-part whole method to partition numbers to 7 to explore the parts that make up the whole. This learning will follow on to exploring that 2 equal parts make up a whole. Finally, the children will be exploring odd and even numbers and exploring the composition of these numbers. 

The children will also be exploring 3D shapes. The children will learn names of these shapes and describe the features of these 3D shapes. The children will revisit prior learning of 2D shapes and how 2D shapes fit into 3D shapes. They will also be learning about recognising 3D shapes within their environments and how these shapes are represented. Finally, we will be exploring more complex repeating patterns, using the 3D shapes that we are learning about. 

In Understanding the World, the children will be learning about "Growing and Changing". Throughout this theme, the children will be learning about the four seasons and how the weather changes in these seasons. They will also be learning about how and what plants need to grow. We will be exploring how animals grow, observing the changes that animals go through. This will link to the human life cycle, thinking about what humans need to grow and develop. Finally, the children will be exploring food and farming exploring where the food we eat comes from. 

The Knowledge Organiser on the right will show you some of the key vocabulary that the children will be learning. During our theme, we will be reading stories linked to "Growing and Changing". You will also find a list of recommended books that link to our theme "Growing and Changing", that you might want to share with your children. 

In RE, the children will be exploring the question "Why do Christians put a cross in an Easter Garden?". They will start by exploring why a bridge might be used to save people and how it might save people and cross safely. The children  will also be learning about how the Cross is a special symbol for Christians and why this is special and how it relates to the Easter story.

Home Learning

Each Friday, the children will be visiting the library. The children will choose a new library book to borrow for a week. You will find ideas on how to support your child’s storytelling and comprehension skills in your child’s reading packets. 

To support the children’s fluency and comprehension skills, please could you encourage your children to "say the sounds and read the words" in their phonics reading books. The children should be reading every day. Please can you record their reading in the children’s yellow reading diaries. 

To help support the children’s maths learning at home, you can borrow a maths challenge bag from us and complete a challenge. There are lots of different bags with activities to supporting counting, sorting, matching and making. The maths bags will be given out each Thursday and should be returned the following Thursday. 

Your child has a homework book, which includes a range of challenges linked to our class learning. You can complete these challenges in any order you wish and can add photos and comments in to here. 



Please upload any photos and comments from learning at home onto your child’s Tapestry learning journal.