Spring 2 Topic Plan | Embsay CE Primary School

‘Brrr, It’s Cold Out There!’ (Polar Regions), ‘It’s Spring!’ and ‘Easter’

Welcome to Spring 2! We hope you all had a lovely, relaxing half-term break with your children. We are very much looking forward to sharing more exciting learning with your children over the next half-term. Miss Wilkinson is with us, in Reception, for another 3 weeks and will return to complete another placement in Year 2 after the Easter holidays.

The children will continue with PE activities / lessons on Tuesdays and Fridays. Please continue to send them in to school in their PE Kits and Trainers on these days.

Please continue to send your child to school with a coat (and gloves, hat and scarf, if needed) each day. We are continuing to encourage the children to put their coats on independently and to fasten them too (we will help them if needed) as this is one of the skills they should acquire as part of their PSED ELG.

The children will continue to need their Wellingtons in school too and it would be useful to ensure that your child has some spare socks / tights in school, along with spare trousers / joggers / leggings just in case of accidents. We do have some spare clothes / socks / tights etc but these are limited in number and we would hate for anyone to be in soggy clothes because there are no spares available. Could we ask that if we send your child home in any of our school clothes that they are returned as soon as possible too? Thank you.

The children are continuing to make pleasing progress in their Phonics and Reading work and we hope your child has continued to enjoy sharing their Reading Books and Phoneme Cards with you at home. We do understand that it can be tricky finding the time to read books at home but it is really beneficial to the children to share their Books and Phoneme Cards with you at home, even if it isn’t every night!

We will continue to read the children’s Reading Books with them on a Monday and Thursday (unless unexpected events prevent this) and we will send Reading Books home on these days, if required. We will change books when necessary and will try very hard to match the Reading Books with the children’s phonic ability (though sometimes some books may contain an occasional phoneme / digraph which hasn’t been taught in Reception. It’s fine to ‘teach’ this new sound – we would do it in school too!) As the children become more confident in their segmenting and blending, we would expect them to begin to do this more fluently and to begin to remember words from one page to another, developing their sight vocabulary. Please continue to talk about the story and pictures in the book – developing the children’s comprehension skills continues to be very important!

The children will learn the final Level 3 phonic sounds during the first weeks of this half-term and will then bring a complete set of Level 3 phonemes and digraphs cards to keep at home. Please use these with your child as a reading and writing tool. They have done amazingly well in learning them and we will continue to use these sounds in their phonics lessons (and in Reading and Writing activities too).

Please continue to write and make comments about your child’s reading in their Reading Record book. This is a useful means of communication for us to know how reading is going at home and enables us to see how many times a child has read a book too. Thank you.

The interests of the children determine our Planning and Provision. Below is an outline of the work we intend to carry out over the next half term.

Our Planning will also be further enhanced, or amended, to reflect and include the children’s individual interests.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

During this half-term we hope the children will continue to enjoy being part of the ‘bigger’ school environment, joining the rest of the school community in the playground at lunchtime and seeing other classes in the dinner hall. They will also attend a special Collective Worship for Ash Wednesday at St. Mary’s Church.

In the classroom, they will be encouraged to further develop their independence skills, enabling them to carry out everyday tasks with a small amount of, or no, help, to carry out learning activities independently and to choose the resources / equipment they need for their tasks and play, looking after, and tidying away the equipment they use too.

The children will also be supported to further develop their friendships and to be respectful of the adults they interact with in the classroom and wider school environment.

The children will think about Mothers’ Day and will be encouraged to think about why their Mummies are fantastic, using the story ‘My Mum Is Fantastic’ as a stimulus for their thoughts and discussions. They will also learn about Easter and will explore why this is a special time of year for Christians.

Our Learning Objectives for the children in their Personal, Social and Emotional Development work during Spring 2 are:

To recognise, and demonstrate, friendly behaviour
To understand how to be a good friend
To continue to join in with small group and whole group activities
To continue to be able to choose an activity independently and to choose the resources they need for their chosen activities
To learn about the significance of the Festival of Easter for Christians and to be able to talk about it and its meaning and to experience some of the traditions and customs associated with this Festival
To learn right from wrong
To understand how to make the right choices and the consequences of not making the right ones
To understand that people need help
To identify ways of being helpful to others and how this will make them feel
To be able to talk about why a character has made a poor choice and what the consequences are
To be able to talk about how the character could have made a better choice
To talk about the effect their behaviour has on others

Communication and Language

The children’s Speaking, Listening and Understanding skills will continue to be developed through a range of activities and experiences. They will continue to have opportunities to talk in a range of contexts, to participate in conversations and discussions (in a one-to-one, small group or whole class context) and will be encouraged to express their thoughts, knowledge, ideas and opinions, using vocabulary drawn from their learning, their experiences and stories they have listened to.

The children will be encouraged to ask ‘How?’ ‘Why?’ ‘Where?’ and ‘When’ questions based on their observations and experiences and will also be encouraged to ask questions to other children in the class to further their understanding or thinking.

The children will also be encouraged to respond to questions posed by both adults and peers, answering in longer sentences and using a wider vocabulary, including words derived from their learning.

They will be expected to listen to, and follow, simple and more complex instructions, enabling them to be more independent in their everyday routines.

The children will also continue to listen to a range of stories, songs and rhymes and will be encouraged to respond to them, to retell them and to describe the characters and features of a familiar story.

Our Learning Objectives for the children in their Communication and Language work during Spring 2 are:

To be able to talk confidently about their observations / work, using any new ‘Topic’ vocabulary in their speech
To be able to speak about a story they have listened to and to talk about its features
To describe familiar texts with detail and using full sentences
To begin to recognise, and talk about, the different features of texts
To be able to ask questions about familiar aspects of their environment and their learning
To express their ideas and feelings about their experiences
To engage in meaningful conversations with others

Physical Development

The children will continue to have access to many opportunities to develop and refine their Gross and Fine Motor skills using a wide range of resources. They will use Malleable Materials (clay, playdough, Soft Clay, Plasticine, foam, Kinetic Sand), scissors, hole punchers and staplers, threading beads and laces, peg boards, hammers and tacks, Hama beads and other small equipment and resources to further support their finger strength and hand dexterity.

The children will have opportunities to draw and paint on large and small scales, both on the floor and at vertical easels and whiteboards and they will continue to participate in ‘Pen Disco’ and Handwriting lessons. This half-term we will continue to focus on ‘One Armed Robot’ letters (n, m, h, k, b, p and r) and will also look at ‘Curly Caterpillar’ letters (c, a, d, g, q, o, e, s and f).

The children will also have the opportunity to develop their Gross Motor Skills whilst using the scooters, bikes, trikes, Obstacle Course and large outdoor equipment.

During their PE lesson with Kanga Sports, the children will participate in ‘Ball Skills – Sending and Receiving’ activities. They will learn to send and receive a variety of objects with different body parts whilst working with others. They will also be encouraged to co-ordinate their body parts, eg, hand-eye or foot-eye in these activities. The children will continue to participate in further Dance lessons with Miss Wilkinson, exploring the different ways they can move and control their bodies in response to music and instructional stimulus. The children will follow the BBC ‘Let’s Move’ programme of study, focussing on ‘lessons’ about ‘Winter’ in their Dance sessions and will also practise their climbing and balancing skills in other PE sessions / activities.

Our Learning Objectives for the children in their Physical Development work during Spring 2 are:

To show good practice with regard to exercise, eating … and hygiene
To use a dominant hand when drawing and writing
To begin to form recognisable letters which are formed mostly correctly (particularly those relating to their name and those which have been taught)
To use a pencil effectively to form recognisable letters
To begin to be able to form some letters correctly
To begin to negotiate space effectively, avoiding others as they move around
To be able to balance and co-ordinate movements safely
To show good control and co-ordination in large and small movements
To handle tools. objects, construction and malleable materials safely and with increasing control
To know how to use scissors effectively

Literacy

The children will continue to be taught the remaining Level 3 phonemes they have not been introduced to and will then participate in Revision and Recap activities until the Easter holidays, consolidating their knowledge. The Level 3 Phonemes are: j, v, w, x, y, z, zz, qu, ch, sh, th, ng, ai, ee, igh, oa, oo (long), oo (short), ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure and er. The children will learn to recognise these Phonemes and Graphemes and will use them to segment and blend the sounds within the words and sentences they are reading and writing. The children will continue to use the term ‘Digraph’ when referring to two letters representing one sound, eg, sh, ee and er etc and ‘Trigraph’ when referring to three letters representing one sound, eg, igh, ear, air and ure. The children will also be encouraged to read Level 3 Tricky Words on sight and to remember that Tricky Words cannot be sounded out and just need to be remembered. These words are: he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, they, here, are, all. The children will also be encouraged to write Level 2 Tricky Words from memory too. These words are: the, to, I, no, go. They will continue to participate in daily Phonics lessons and will also be encouraged to play games on the SmartBoard and / or iPads to further develop their phonic knowledge.

The children will continue to bring home their ‘Rhino Readers’ and ‘Big Cat’ Reading Books and their Level 2 Phoneme Cards. They will be given new Level 3 Phoneme Cards once all the Level 3 phonemes have been taught. They will also bring home the Level 3 Tricky Words to learn to read. Please continue to support your child by reading regularly with them, talking to them about the pictures / events and characters in their books as discussion and understanding of story structures and events are important reading skills. We will continue to work with the children to develop their reading and comprehension skills, focussing on their Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Retrieving Information and Sequencing (VIPERS).

The children will celebrate World Book Day by bringing in a favourite story and sharing it with their friends. They will also participate in story-related activities during the day and will join in with various ‘World Book Day Live’ events throughout the week including a ‘Fairytales’ Workshop with Axel Scheffler and Julia Donaldson, a ‘Dick The Delightful Duck’ storytime event with Kaye Umansky and a ‘This Is Me!’ book event with George Webster.

In class, we will continue to listen to stories relating to cold climates and snow. These stories will include, ‘The Bear Who Said Boo!’ ‘Big Bear, Little Bear’ and ‘The Runaway Iceberg.’ The children will also listen to, and explore, stories relating to Shrove Tuesday (‘The Runaway Pancake’ and ‘Mr Wolf’s Pancakes’) and Spring and Easter. Through these books the children will be encouraged to think about the structure of stories, the events in them, the characters and their characteristics and to sequence events and predict endings etc. We will also continue to read, discuss and share a wide variety of books relating to our work, our provocations or the children’s interests in order to continue developing the children’s love of stories and books.

The children will continue to be given many opportunities to draw, mark-make and write in a wide range of contexts, including, writing labels, sentences, questions, speech, messages, cards, sentences etc. They will use their phonic skills and knowledge as they write words and sentences and will be encouraged to become more independent and accurate in their efforts. Staff will encourage the children to write ‘phonetically plausible’ words (ie words which may not be spelt correctly but which are phonetically possible, eg, ber = bear, pengwin = penguin, pancek = pancake, Eester Bunee = Easter Bunny, High Frequency and Tricky Words from memory (eg, the, and, was, it, is etc) and to begin to use ‘finger spaces’ and full stops in the sentences they write.

Our Learning Objectives for the children in their Literacy work during Spring 2 are:

To listen to, and enjoy, a range of books
To be able to listen to a story, to recall some facts about it and to begin to anticipate what may happen next
To be able to sequence events in a familiar story
To be able to recognise some Tricky and High Frequency Words in their reading, beginning to read them on sight
To be able to listen identify some Phase 2 and 3 phonemes and digraphs on a sound mat and use these sounds in their Writing
To listen to, and identify, the sounds in CVC and CVCC words
To know the sounds that all the Phase 2 and some Phase 3 phonemes make and to be able to recognise all of the Phase 2 and some Phase 3 graphemes
To begin to read High Frequency and Tricky Words in a text
To think of, and write, a short, simple sentence
To begin to know that a sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop
To know how to write letters which have been taught, in particular ‘Long Ladder Letters,’ ‘One Armed Robot Letters,’ ‘Curly Caterpillars’ and those letters in their Name
To know how to spell some familiar words

Mathematics

The children will continue to focus on numbers 1 – 10, recognising, writing and sequencing the numerals, counting out objects and actions to match a given numeral and further developing their knowledge and understanding of the value of a number. They will also learn that ‘0’ is the absence of something. The children will think about the composition of numbers to 10 and will learn about square numbers 4 and 9. We will continue to use ‘NumberBlocks’ and ‘Numicon’ as some of our teaching resources to support the children’s understanding of numbers and how they relate to each other. The children will continue to be encouraged to ‘subitise’ numbers to 5, and then 10, meaning they will be able to recognise a quantity without counting it. They will count forwards to 20, and backwards from 10.

The children will complete simple addition and subtraction problems to 10, using the ‘+,’ ‘-‘ and ‘=’ symbols in their addition and subtraction sentences. They will use number lines, practical equipment and ten frames to support them in this area of their learning and work. The children will also continue to explore Number Bonds to 5 and 10 and will also explore the ‘value’ of numbers 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 and their relationship with each other and other numbers, including partitioning and recombining numbers within 6 – 10.

The children will compare the height and length of different objects and will begin to measure objects using non-standard units of measurement, eg, cubes. They will also use appropriate mathematical language and vocabulary in their learning, eg, taller, shorter, taller than, shorter than, it is … cubes tall etc.

The children will also explore 3D Shapes, learning the names and features of some of them, Pattern, Positional Language and Days of the Week in their Maths work this half-term.

To further support their Numeracy knowledge and thinking, the children will use suitable ICT websites and software independently and they will be exposed to, and encouraged to use, mathematical language where appropriate, eg, positional language, time, numbers, shapes, language associated with weight, capacity, height etc.

Our Learning Objectives for the children in their Mathematics work during Spring 2 are:

To match quantities to a given, said number or numeral
To begin to recognise numbers automatically on a dice / card to 6 or 10
To begin to find the total of 2 groups of objects to 10, knowing this is called Addition
To order numbers 10
To say the number names to 10 in order
To begin to be able to count to 20
To begin to write some numbers to 10, forming them correctly
To begin to explore Number Bonds to 10
To use objects to solve Addition and Subtraction problems
To know that Addition involves combining 2 or more groups of objects
To read Addition Number Sentences
To know that Subtraction involves removing an object from a group
To begin to use a Number Line to solve simple Addition and Subtraction number problems
To use Money during Role-Play activities to buy items
To know the names of some 3D shapes and to know that 3D shapes have faces, vertices and edges
To understand, and use, a range of prepositions in everyday contexts

Understanding the World

The children will continue their learning about Cold Climates / Polar Regions over the first few weeks of this half-term, continuing their work from before the half-term holidays. They will think, and learn, about some of the different animals that live in Polar Regions and will also explore how these animals keep warm. They will investigate how Polar Bears keep warm in icy water during a scientific provocation.

As part of our school’s participation in ‘Fair Trade Fortnight’ the children will participate in some Fair Trade activities, including making a collaborative artwork they will create using ‘paint’ made from Fair Trade Ethiopian Coffee! They will begin to understand how buying Fair Trade products helps people in other countries and will look for / at the Fair Trade logo on a range of different products.

As the half-term progresses, the children will begin to think about Spring, exploring some of the changes they can see, and feel, during this Season. They will go on a Spring Walk, looking for signs of Spring in the wider environment and will also record their observations in written and drawing forms. The children will think, and learn, about Festivals and Celebrations that occur in the Spring, including Mothering Sunday, and will think about why their Mummy is special to them.

During our RE lessons, the children will explore stories about Jesus and his disciples and will think about why these stories are so special to Christians. They will also learn about Easter, beginning to understand why this is an important Festival in the Christian Church. They will begin their learning by making and eating Pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and will explore why Shrove Tuesday is celebrated. They will also visit Church on Ash Wednesday. The children will listen to the story of Easter and will discover why Christians put a Cross in an Easter garden. They will also explore some of the traditions and customs associated with Easter, including decorating an Easter Egg, holding an egg-rolling competition, baking Hot Cross Buns and making Easter Baskets which we hope the Easter Bunny may pop some chocolate eggs into!

The children will continue to use the ICT equipment in the classroom, accessing programs on the SmartBoard and appropriate Apps on the iPads independently. They will use the ‘BeeBot’ and ‘Daisy Dinosaur’ apps to explore coding and simple programming.

Our Learning Objectives for the children in their Understanding the World work during Spring 2 are:

To be able to talk about a special event in their life
To know that Christians celebrate Easter
To be able to talk about the changes they observe in the environment
To be able to talk about a special event in their life

Expressive Arts and Design

During their Art Lessons with Mrs Pettit the children will continue to create their own Winter Scene pictures of Embsay Crag by mixing Tints and Shades using ‘cold’ colours. They will also look at Spring Flowers and will create observational drawings of them using oil pastels. The children may also begin to look at the work of Vincent Van Gogh and will recreate his ‘Sunflowers’ Painting using paint.

The children will also participate in a range of art activities in class, including painting Polar Bears and Penguins, making Polar Bear Split Pin Puppets, Gifts for Mothers’ Day, decorating Easter Eggs and Loose Part art activities. As always, the children will be provided with a range of art materials to use in their work, including Soft and Oil Pastels, Poster Paints, Watercolour Paints, Pencils, Collage materials and to create paintings, drawing, ‘Loose Parts’ art, sculpture, collage and computing work, enabling them to further develop their skills, knowledge and experience of using these materials and to begin to make choices about their favourite medium to work with.

Our Role-Play Area will become a Café, reflecting the children’s love of pretending to cook food, take orders etc. they will be encouraged to play together imaginatively and co-operate with each other as they share their thoughts and ideas. They children will also be encouraged to write ‘Orders’ and ‘Menus’ for the Restaurant and will use coins to ‘pay’ for their food.

The children will join in with Music lessons from the ‘SingUp’ music scheme, focussing on the themes, ‘Up and Down’ and ‘Five Fine Bumble Bees’ during this half-term. The children will explore Pitch, Tempo, Timbre and Structure during these music activities and will also learn new songs to sing linking to this work. The children will also be encouraged to listen to, and learn, songs and rhymes relating to Mothering Sunday, Spring and Easter. They will listen to music written by different Composers, including Bach, Mozart and Saint-Saens and from different countries, including Mali, Brazil, Cuba, Ghana, Goa too.

Our Learning Objectives for the children in their Expressive Arts and Design work during Spring 2 are:

To use a range of resources to create their own props to aid Role Play and to use a range of props to support and enhance their play
To use the skills and knowledge they have developed in their EAD work in an original way and to be able to explain their work
To be able to select appropriate resources for their work, adapting it if, and where, necessary
To manipulate materials to achieve a planned effect
To understand that Pictures can be created by making Observations or by using Imagination
To use Paints, Pastels and other resources to create Observational Drawings
To be able to construct safely, with a purpose and to evaluate their designs
To identify and select Resources and Tools to achieve a particular outcome
To continue to join in with singing songs and rhymes in our class and to learn the words to some new songs, some of which may be from another country