Topic 1:  Deadly 60

During this half-term we are going to be learning all about the animal kingdom, big and small. We will be thinking about habitats, food chains, bodies and special abilities. We will use the Internet and a wide range of texts in order to research the many animals that exist in the global environment. Our topic ‘Entry Point’ will be to go on an outdoor adventure, discovering lots of different mini beasts in the woodland area! There will also be a visit from ‘Jungle Jonathan’! 
  
English

This half-term we will be assessing the children to identify where they are in order to support their development into Year 3. We will be incorporating consolidation of some year 2 objectives, as well as moving on to year 3 learning.

• Our first text this half-term is 'Bug Wars', we will be researching and describing one of the mini beasts in the text. Our outcome for this unit of work will be writing instructions for on how to give one of these deadly creatures a bath, inspired by our parallel text 'How To Wash A Woolly Mammoth'. The children will use their knowledge of these creatures to add warnings and humour to their instructions.
• Our second text is 'An Anthology of Intriguing Animals', which we will be reading to inspire us when creating and describing our own creatures. Our final piece will be writing our own detailed non-chronological report on a fictional animal. 
• Our third text for the term is 'Deadly 60', we will be using a range of texts form the deadly 60 range to inform our discussion piece titled 'Are they really deadly?' where we will be  exploring two opposing viewpoints and concluding with our own opinions.
• There will be an emphasis on spelling, particularly focussed on spelling KS1 essential spellings correctly, and also handwriting with children working towards achieving their pen permits.
• Our English lessons this year will include aspects of spelling, grammar, punctuation, reading and writing.

Maths

This half-term we will be focusing on: 

• Place value and partitioning.
• Addition and subtraction – The focus for this half-term is on mental and written strategies.

We will be looking at problem-solving within lessons, and we will also be supporting the children fluency through additional Maths fluency sessions throughout the week. 

Science - Our Science topic will be Animals - skeletons and nutrition. We will be combining our learning across the different subjects, from our Topic of Deadly 60, to order to group and sort animals according to diet, food chains and skeletal structure. We will also be looking at what makes a healthy diet.

Art - We are going to be developing our sketching, collaging and printing skills to create our own multimedia work inspired by Lucy Arnold. 

PE
Games 
PE 

Computing - We will be learning about PowerPoint and create a presentation all about ourselves, so that we can introduce ourselves to our new teachers and adults in Year 3.

RE- Good and Evil. We will be looking at Diwali in detail.

Music - We will be exploring how composers represent different animals within their pieces. We will then be working in small groups to compose a short piece of music to represent an animal of our choice.