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 1…

This term we will be exploring and investigating the changes within living memory, specifically focusing and creating our own memory boxes in History. We will be learning about aspects of change in national life and events beyond living memory that are significant nationally. In Science, we will be developing 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. This term we will be studying the artist Yayoi Kusama and her fantastic ‘spotty’ masterpieces, this will be used as inspiration for when Chestnut design and create their own pieces of artwork. To add to our Computing knowledge, Chestnut will be learning all about ‘Technology around us’ – how we use it in day-to-day life and the importance of online safety.

In addition, in Music we will be expanding our knowledge of rhythm and beat by listening to lots of different types of music – we are going to have so much fun! This term, Chestnut will be enhancing their skills of balance, movement, thinking and communicating in PE. ‘Being in my world’ is the Jigsaw theme this term, where we explore the world around us and how that may affect us and who we are. To add to the excitement of this term, the children will be continuing to learn French! Merveilleux!

In Maths we will be focusing on place value and addition and subtraction. 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 English, we will cover a range of styles from descriptive writing and harvest performance poetry to writing a recount and creating some wonderful autumn acrostic poems. Phonics continues in Year 1, along with reading groups; whereas Year 2 will do spelling and whole class reading using a range of texts.

Please note:

PE lessons will be on Wednesdays and Thursdays! Please send your child to school wearing their PE kit.
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:

Daily reading practice
A weekly Maths activity on Numbots

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