Butterfly and Ladybird Classes

Communication and language

The children will build up vocabulary that reflects knowledge and experience e.g., children can talk about space, what they know about it, what an astronaut does, how we know about space. We will focus on using different tenses to discuss things that are happening now and things that happened in the past; asking relevant questions to find out more information – e.g. when sharing a non-fiction text children can say ‘I wonder why…’ – as well as sharing their opinions and preferences in the context of new knowledge.

Physical Development

In everyday activities, we will focus on the gross motor skills, coordination and balance, throwing and catching skills; the pupils will enjoy outdoor physical activity as part of daily provision.

The children will continue to develop their pencil grip and greater pencil control, as well as learn to use small tools such as pipettes, tweezers, cutlery and scissors effectively.

In weekly PE lessons, we will fundamentals. In this unit, children will develop fundamental movement skills through the topic of places and spaces. They will develop skills of balancing, skipping and changing direction.

PSED

Children will explore similarities and differences within their class, school and wider communities. We will focus on including everyone and the value of diversity. Children will continue to develop an understanding of their and other’s feeling and consequences of some actions, building their empathy and self-regulation.

In our weekly PSHE lessons, the children will explore why they are special and what makes their own individual identity. They will begin to understand how they mix with others and belong to different groups e.g. their family, class, school, clubs; neighbourhood. They will learn about some of the similarities and differences between families including the different people in families and where families live. They will consider how what they do and say can affect the needs and feelings of other people and how they and everyone else have the right to be valued and treated fairly and equally whatever their cultural background or choice of lifestyle.

Literacy

The children will access a variety of high quality texts about space and space exploration, as well as following their wider interests. We will memorise abbreviated versions of familiar picture books, such as Whatever next. We will also be exploring the text 'Aliens love underpants' and 'Max and the Tag Along Moon' through the Talk Through Stories Approach. 

In Phonics, we will continue to secure all of the Set 1 sounds, including the Set 1 diagraphs. The children will continue to practise blending sounds orally using Fred talk and will read ‘green words’ at increased speed. We will use segmenting to write words and children will begin writing more complex words independently, using their phonological knowledge.  To build on emergent writing, we will encourage short words or phrases in different writing contexts, e.g. in free flow or in a structured lesson. The children will also begin learning new ‘red words’ and build fluency in decoding nonsense words – ‘alien words’.

Mathematics

The children will recognise, represent and manipulate numbers to 10. Children will learn to recognise and count different representations of numbers up to 10 and use a ten frame to help structure their counting and reasoning. The concept of cardinality will be reinforced throughout and children will be encouraged to subitise and to see number bonds beyond 5 as an efficient counting strategy.

We will then focus on practising the skill of comparing groups of objects up to 10, using the key mathematical vocabulary of more, fewer, more than and less than. Children will be exposed to various misconceptions, including comparing groups where objects within each group are different sizes, shapes and colours. Children will represent ‘more’ or ‘fewer’ than a given number, leading into a discussion about ‘finding the difference’ between two numbers up to 10.

This half term’s learning will bring together the key skills of one more and one less and the part-whole model, to ensure confident mastery of the skill of combining two groups to find a whole up to 10. With addition of two groups, or parts, the children will learn concepts to provide a strong, structured basis from which to master addition to 10.

At the end of the half term, the children will develop their understanding of the different elements that can be measured. Children will learn the difference between measuring weight and measuring size through investigation. They will apply their skills of counting to measure objects using non-standard units.

Understanding of the word

The children will learn about our planet Earth, land and sea, plants and animals, weather, gravity, the moon, the sun, the planets in our solar system, space travel and astronauts.

We will explore people who looked at the stars, i.e. Galileo, and share traditional stories to explain the stars e.g. The hunting of the Great Bear.

The children will be introduced to what scientists and astronomers know about our Solar System now; our sun, the planets in our solar system; and learn about the Moon landings and Neil Armstrong. We will research astronauts and astronomers; including Mae Jemison, Tim Peak and Caroline Hershel.

The children will also learn about the International Space Station (ISS) and why it was built and launched.

Towards the end of the half term, we will study the seasons of the year with a focus on Spring – the first signs of spring; snowdrops, cherry blossom, buds and flowers, birds nesting, bees, lighter evenings.

Expressive Arts and Design

The children will deepen their understanding of line as an element of art and will be taking a line for ‘a walk’ while exploring and naming different types of lines. We will have a go at creating drip paintings like Jackson Pollock, experimenting with large scale art and new techniques.

The children will design and make Lunar New Year puppets.

In music, we will explore the Bloom app on iPads to create repeating patterns of music. The children will listen and respond to Holst’s Planet Suite.