We will learn to:

• 🧱 Name and identify common materials, including wood, plastic, glass, metal, water and rock.

• 👀 Identify the materials that objects are made from.

• 🔍 Describe simple properties of materials, such as hard, soft, rough, smooth, shiny, waterproof and flexible.

• 🧸 Explore and compare different materials through hands-on investigations.

• 💭 Ask questions and make predictions about materials.

• 🧪 Carry out simple investigations to find out which materials are best for different purposes.

• 🏠 Recognise that materials are chosen for particular uses, such as glass for windows or plastic for waterproof objects.

• 📊 Sort and group materials according to their properties.

• 🗣️ Talk about what we have discovered and share our observations.

• ⭐ Begin to work scientifically by observing carefully, comparing, sorting and recording what we find out.

We will learn to:

• 🔢 Count forwards and backwards within 10.

  • 👀 Recognise and represent numbers to 10 using objects, pictures and numerals.

  • 🧩 Understand the value of each number and how numbers are made up of smaller amounts.

  • ➕ Find one more and one less than a given number.

  • ⚖️ Compare groups and numbers using greater than, less than and equal to.

  • 🔗 Order numbers to 10 from smallest to greatest and greatest to smallest.

  • 🎲 Explore number bonds within 10 using practical equipment and visual representations.

  • 🗣️ Use mathematical language to describe numbers and explain our thinking.

  • ⭐ Develop our confidence with numbers through practical activities, games and problem-solving.

🏠 Maths at Home

You can help your child by:

• 🔢 Counting forwards and backwards to 10.

• 🧸 Counting everyday objects and toys.

• ➕ Practising one more and one less.

• ⚖️ Comparing groups: more, fewer, equal.

• ✋ Showing numbers using fingers or objects.

• 🎲 Playing simple counting and number games.

Little and often is best – keep maths fun! ❤️

As a Safe Cuddington Learner, the children will be exploring our No Outsiders text Elmer and think about ourselves, our friendships and our relationships with others.

We will learn to:

• ❤️ Like and celebrate who we are.

• 🌈 Understand that everyone is different and special.

• 👫 Value our friendships and relationships.

• 😊 Talk about our feelings and listen to others.

• 🤝 Show kindness, respect and acceptance.

• ⭐ Celebrate our differences and what makes us unique.

Key learning will include:

• Understanding why we have classroom rules and how they help everyone feel safe and ready to learn.

• Exploring what good listening looks like and how we can show we are listening carefully.

• Thinking about different feelings, recognising our own emotions and understanding that everyone experiences feelings in different ways.

• Learning how feelings can affect our bodies and how to manage big emotions.

• Discovering what makes a good friend and how to build positive, respectful relationships.

  
  

Through stories, discussions and activities, we will continue developing confidence, kindness and responsibility in our everyday interactions.

We will be exploring toys, childhood and school in the past. We will begin to understand how life has changed over time by comparing our experiences with those of our parents and grandparents.

We will learn to:

• 🧸 Explore toys from the past and present, noticing how they are similar and different.

• ⏳ Understand the order of events in our own lives and use words such as past, present, before, after and now.

• 👵 Compare our childhood with our grandparents’ childhood, identifying similarities and differences.

• 🏫 Explore what school was like in the past and compare it with our school today.

• 🎲 Compare toys from different generations, thinking about the materials they were made from and how they were used.

• 💭 Ask questions about the past to help us find out more.

• 🗣️ Use conversations with parents, grandparents and other adults as a source of information about the past.

• 🔍 Use photographs, objects and other sources to find out about how people lived in the past.

• ⭐ Begin to understand how and why things change over time.

Our units this half term are:

Attack, Defend, Shoot!

We will learn to:

• 🏃 Practise basic movements such as running, jumping, hopping and skipping.

• 🤸 Develop our agility, balance and coordination (ABCs) through a variety of activities.

• 🎯 Improve our control and accuracy when moving and using equipment.

• 👫 Work with partners and in small groups, taking turns and cooperating with others.

• 🏆 Begin to take part in simple competitive activities, learning how to play fairly and follow rules.

• 👂 Listen and respond to instructions and understand how to stay safe during PE.

• 🌟 Develop confidence and resilience, celebrating our own progress and encouraging others.

• ❤️ Enjoy being active and understand the importance of exercise for keeping our bodies healthy.

Dance

We will learn to:

• 🌴 Move as if we are in the jungle, using different actions, levels, directions and pathways.

• 🐻 Move like a friendly bear, exploring how we can use our bodies to show character and personality.

• 🤝 Create and perform movements that demonstrate friendship, using actions and expressions to communicate ideas.

• 🪞 Mirror a partner’s actions, developing our coordination, concentration and awareness of others.

• 🎵 Respond to a range of music and stimuli, changing our movements to match the mood, rhythm and speed.

• 🕺 Explore some basic Lindy Hop actions and begin to use them in our own movement sequences.

• 👫 Work with a partner, exploring space, direction, levels and simple partner movements.

• 📖 Use our jungle story as inspiration to create and perform a short, structured dance with a beginning, middle and end.

• 🌟 Develop confidence in performing, learning what it feels like to perform our dance to others and celebrate our achievements.

In phonics this term, we will be building on the skills developed in Reception and following the Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) programme. We will be developing our children's confidence in reading and spelling as they learn to apply their phonics knowledge independently.

We will be learning to:

• 🔤 Recognise and say new sounds and match them to the letters or groups of letters that represent them.

• 👂 Hear and identify sounds in words.

• 🔀 Blend sounds together to read unfamiliar words.

• ✏️ Segment words into sounds to support spelling.

• 📖 Read words containing the sounds we have learned.

• 📝 Use our phonics knowledge to spell words in our writing.

• 👀 Read and spell tricky words that cannot always be sounded out.

• 📚 Read decodable books matched to the sounds we are learning in school.

• 🗣️ Apply our phonics skills when reading and writing sentences.

• ⭐ Develop fluency, independence and confidence as readers and writers.

How you can help at home: Little and often is best!

Each week, we will share the sounds and tricky words that we are learning in school. This will give you an opportunity to practise these at home and help your child to build confidence and fluency. Practising the sounds and words sent home, sharing books together and encouraging your child to sound out unfamiliar words will help to reinforce their learning.

In our exciting new writing unit, we will be exploring Old Bear by Jane Hissey as our vehicle text, alongside Dogger by Shirley Hughes and Lost in the Toy Museum by David Lucas. These stories will inspire us to develop our creativity, confidence and key writing skills.

We will learn to:

• 🧸 Write sentences about characters, settings and events.

• 📝 Use capital letters, finger spaces and full stops accurately.

• 💭 Say our sentences aloud before we write them.

• 🔤 Apply our phonics knowledge to spell words.

• 👀 Use new vocabulary from our stories in our own writing.

• 🏠 Describe characters and settings using adjectives.

• 🔗 Sequence events in the correct order.

• 💬 Join ideas together using simple conjunctions such as and.

• 🔎 Reread our writing to check that it makes sense.

• ⭐ Build confidence as writers by sharing our ideas and celebrating our progress.

We are looking forward to seeing the children grow as imaginative, enthusiastic and increasingly accurate writers throughout this unit!

We will learn to:

• 🎨 Explore Yayoi Kusama’s artwork and talk about what we notice.

• 🔴 Experiment with dots, patterns, lines and shapes.

• 🌀 Explore spirals and discover where we can see them in the natural world.

• 🌿 Look closely at spirals and patterns in nature, such as shells, plants and flowers.

• 🏛️ Discover how spirals are used in architecture, including staircases, buildings and decorative designs.

• ✏️ Experiment with drawing and mark-making using different tools and techniques.

• 🖍️ Use lines, shapes, patterns and colour to develop our own artwork.

• ⭐ Talk about and evaluate our artwork, sharing our ideas and what we have discovered.

We will learn to:

• ⛪ Explore what it means to belong to a Christian community.

• 💧 Learn about baptism and how it can be a way of welcoming someone into the Christian family.

• 👶 Explore infant and adult baptism and discuss why Christians choose to be baptised.

• ✝️ Learn about Jesus’ life and some of the important things Christians believe about him.

• ❤️ Explore how Jesus showed love, kindness and care towards others.

• 👫 Think about our own sense of belonging, including our families, friendships and communities.

• 💭 Ask questions and share our ideas about belonging and what is important to us.

• 🌟 Recognise that belonging can be expressed in different ways through celebrations, symbols, actions and relationships.

We will learn to:

• 💻 Recognise technology that we use in everyday life.

• 🔍 Identify different types of technology and talk about what they are used for.

• 🖥️ Explore simple computing devices and how they work.

• 📱 Understand that computers are part of many everyday objects.

• 🌐 Begin to understand that devices can connect to each other through networks.

• 🖱️ Use technology safely and responsibly.

• 🗣️ Talk about how technology helps us and why we use different devices for different purposes.

• ⭐ Develop our confidence when using technology and begin to make sensible choices when using digital devices.