Chestnut Class – Year 1/2

Welcome to Chestnut Class! We love playing and learning together, exploring and discovering as we go...

Our Long Term Plan…

Our learning in Term 2…

This term we will be learning all about The World in Geography, from exploring the seven continents and five oceans to all the wonderful hot and cold places found around Earth. This term we will be investigating how to create a moving picture. We will be focusing on different mechanisms, such as sliders, wheel turners, pivots and levers. The class will apply this knowledge in order to design and create a Christmas-themed moving picture for a loved one.

To add to our Computing knowledge, Chestnut will be learning all about coding! In Science, we will continue to develop our understanding of plants through investigation, analysis and examination. We will also be reflecting on the seasonal changes and how this may affect plants in different ways by carrying out observations.

In addition, in Music we will be practising all our wonderful Christmas songs as part of our performance of this year’s Nativity – It’s a baby! This term, Chestnut will be the first class to take part in Forest School, where we will immerse ourselves in the outdoor world and get messy with nature. ‘Celebrating Differences’ is the Jigsaw theme this term. To add to the excitement, the children will be continuing to learn French, focusing on colours and numbers! Merveilleux!

In Maths we will be focusing on addition and subtraction, shape and money. However, Year 1 will only focus on within 10 and Year 2 will focus on within 100. We will be constantly focusing on fluency to support understanding, which will then be followed by reasoning and problem solving to consolidate learning. In RE we will be continuing to learn about Judaism, before finishing the term deepening our knowledge of the Christian celebration, Christmas.

In English, we will cover a range of styles such as, Remembrance poetry, instructional writing, letters to Father Christmas and how to put on a performance for our KS1 Nativity. Phonics continues in Year 1, along with reading groups; whereas Year 2 will do Spelling and Guided reading using a range of texts.

Please note:

PE lessons will be on Wednesdays! Please send your child to school wearing their PE kit.
Forest school will on Thursdays! Please send your child to school wearing PE kit, along with additional layers (waterproof jacket, trousers, hat and gloves)
Children need to have in school every day a spare pair of shoes or wellies for our Paddock area.
It is important that children always have a coat in school as we will be outside as much as possible in all weathers.
Contact books/reading records are required in school every day.

Weekly Home Learning Tasks

It is really important that children spend some time at home each week consolidating their learning at school and it is helpful if they have a quiet space to do so. You can find a copy of our Home Learning Expectations on the policies section of our website. In our class the expectation is:

Reading every day!
A weekly Maths activity on Numbots or Doodle Maths

Reading, Spellings, Phonics and Times tables:

Year 1:

Children will bring home two reading books. One book will be fully decodable and chosen by an adult to increase fluency. This book will be sent home on Wednesdays and will need to be returned to school on Mondays. This book will be familiar as we will have read the book three times in school before going home. They should be reading the book fluently, with 90% of the words being read without the need to segment. As a result of this increase in fluency, speed and accuracy, comprehension improves as cognitive overload is reduced. The second book the children will bring home will be a ‘sharing book’. This will have an ‘s’ sticker on the front. This is a book chosen by your child to encourage a love of reading and can be changed at any time. This book will not be fully decodable, therefore this is a book you can read together. Please ensure you sign the purple home-school contact book/reading record each time you read with your child.

At the beginning of the term we will send home a list of the phonemes covered each week in our phonics sessions. We will also send home a list of words containing these phonemes. Children can then practise reading these words at home.

Year 2:

Your child will have two reading books that they use at school. One will be a levelled scheme reading book that will go home and be brought into school every day. The other will be a book that they keep at school to read for pleasure. Your child will be assessed on their book level by the class teacher and teaching assistants at regular intervals throughout the term. We will listen to your child read individually or within a small group every week.

Spellings lists will be shared on this page (on the right hand side) at beginning of the term. We no longer complete Spelling tests on a Friday, instead we complete ongoing assessments. Sometimes this will take the form of a traditional spelling test, but this could also be in the form of a dictation exercise. These assessments can happen on any day, they are low stakes and often informal in nature. They will be based on previously learned spelling patterns and rules from that term, that year or even an earlier year group.

Year 2 children will be taught and assessed on their times tables alongside their Maths lessons so will not have a regularly scheduled times table test. By the end of this year, children in Year 2 are expected to know and recall at speed the multiplication facts in the 2, 5 and 10 times tables.

Login information for any online resources has been stuck into the inside cover of your child’s reading record.

Play Numbots

Play Doodle Maths