Topic – Castles and Fairy Tales 

For the first half of the spring term our topic will be Fairy Tales.  We will be thinking and learning about:

Science

• Different objects and what materials they are made from.
• Identifying and naming a variety of everyday materials.
• Describing the physical properties of everyday materials.
• Comparing and grouping materials.

History: This half term, the children will be learning about castles through time and the lives of their inhabitants. They will explore methods of attack and defence, jobs inside a castle, and hold their own mediaeval banquet.

English:  We will be building familiarity with traditional tales and fairy tales as well as modern re-tellings of these stories. Children will plan and write their own mixed up fairy tales, focussing on correct sentence structure, description, and use of conjunctions. We will also begin to punctuate sentences using a questions mark. 

Phonics: We will have daily phonics lessons. This half term we will be continuing to expose children to the phonics screening. We will be continuing to learn our level 5 phonemes and graphemes as well as embedding previous levels.

Maths:
Number - Counting forwards and backwards in 2's, and 10's. Representing and using number bonds and related facts within 20. Solving one step problems including multiplication.
Measure - Comparing, describing and solving practical problems for mass and weight using non-standard and standard units.
Addition and Subtraction - We will be consolidating our addition and subtraction skills with larger numbers (to 50) and working on quick recall of number facts within 20. 

IT:  We will be practising logging on to the computers, practising mouse control and learning to type. We will be using programmes such as 2Publish+ and Tux Typing.

PE:   Indoors on Thursday mornings. Outdoor PE on Friday afternoons - weather dependent! Please can children arrive at school in their PE kits for the day. 

DT: In our DT sessions, we will learn about wheels and axels before using these to build our own battering rams.