The Great Fire of London 

Literacy 

We will start the term by looking at recipes and writing our own recipes for pancakes for Shrove Tuesday. We will then look at the book ‘Can we really help the polar bears?’ to support our work on Fairtrade fortnight. We will write letters to the polar bears and think about ways we can help the environment. We will read and perform traditional rhymes linked to the Great Fire of London and use these rhymes to learn playground games and singing rounds. We will read accounts of the Great Fire of London and extracts from Samuel Pepys’ diary noting the language style, powerful vocabulary, and factual basis of the writing. These skills will then be used in our own writing. We will continue our focus on sentence writing and writing for different purposes including letters, questions and instructions.  

  

Reading: Reading books will be changed on Mondays and Thursdays. We ask books to be re-read to support the children’s fluency and their comprehension skills. Please continue to send in their reading folder every day.    

Phonics: Phonics will be taught on a daily basis.    

Spellings: Spellings will be sent home each week and assessed on Fridays. Please practise reading the words as well as spellings them with your child. Encourage them to add sound buttons when writing them with this week’s sound in. The tricky words have alternative sounds in which they haven’t learnt yet so please don’t add sound buttons to these. Please send purple books back for the spelling test each Friday. 

Maths 

This term we will focus on addition and subtraction using numbers up to 20 and then place value using numbers up to 50. We will practise counting in 2s and 10s and use this knowledge to solve grouping and sharing problems. Mental maths activities will be incorporated into lessons daily. 

Science 

Electricity: In science we will be learning about what electricity is and the difference between mains and battery electricity. We will look at where electricity comes from and how to keep ourselves safe around electricity. We will finish our topic by making and drawing simple circuits.   

History 

The Great Fire of London: This term we will learn about the main events of the Great Fire of London. We will develop an understanding of why it happened and the subsequent consequences. We will also learn about the historical sources which tell us about this event and begin to compare different sources of information about the fire. 

Computing 

In computing we will be learning about data and information. We will learn about assigning images with different labels in order to demonstrate how computers are able to group and present data. 

Art & Design 

 In DT Year 1 will research Tudor houses and then design, make and evaluate their own model houses. 

Music 

In music this half term we will learn how to sing London’s Burning and how to create sounds and put them together to play a short musical pattern keeping a steady pulse. 

P.E. 

In PE we will be doing netball and playing invasion games.  

R.E. 

Easter: We will explore and reflect on why Easter matters to Christians under the theme of Salvation. We will look at new life in relation to Spring, and learn about the Easter story, remembering Jesus and looking at Easter celebrations today. 

P.S.H.E. 

Through circle time games, role play, and discussion, we will be discussing our futures and thinking about different jobs we could do when we are older.