I hope you have had a wonderful summer and the children are looking forward to the year ahead. This learning letter includes some information
about how the classroom will run and the routines we have, as well as some information about what topics we will be looking at for the first half
term. I know the start of the year can be a little overwhelming with lots of changes and new information so please contact me if you have any
additional questions.
General Information
Reading books – I am spending the first part of next week listening to the class read and organising new reading books. These should be sent
home with your child by Wednesday 9th September accompanied by a Monkey Book. Monkey Books are important to communicate between
home and school and to track which books children have read. Please try to record books your child has read to you at home so that we can
make sure they are changed regularly. Reading books will be changed on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday if they have been read at home or to
a member of school staff.
Homework – As well as reading, your child will bring home a Home Task book each Friday. This will include one piece of homework with a
maths, literacy or topic focus. If this could be completed and returned to school by the following Wednesday, it will give me time to mark and
follow up any work with the children on the Thursday.
PE – Please could a PE kit remain in school for the duration of each week as at this time of year, our PE days can change depending on the
weather. PE kits should include both an indoor and outdoor kit, with a warm jumper, jogging bottoms and spare sock if tights are worn to
school. We will be starting the year with Gymnastics and moving onto throwing and catching skills as part of our multi-skills unit.
Castles
We will be working closely with Class R this half term to learn lots of exciting facts about the history of Castles, Kings and Queens. We will be
looking into the life of Elizabeth 1 and our current royal family. We will be exploring their lifestyles and comparing today with the past. In our
topic afternoons we will be learning about castle features and who lived within the castle. There will be plenty of drama, art and construction to
bring our topic to life. Part way through the topic, we will be designing and building our very own box model castles using recyclable materials.
If you have any spare boxes or tubes I’m sure we will be able to put them to good use. We have been very busy today starting to build our role
play castle. Here are a few pictures of what we have been getting up to. You can find more on our school website.
Literacy – Linking to our castle topic, our literacy lessons are going to focus on fairy tales. We will be reading fairy tales, storytelling and
comparing characters and settings. We will also focus on a couple of other story books linked to the theme of dragons.
Maths – we begin the year with a focus on number. We will be writing numbers, comparing and ordering them. We will start to think about the
idea of place value and recognising some number patterns, including odd and even. Towards the end of the half term we will have a look at
shapes and their properties, using shapes to create castle pictures.
If you have any additional questions or need to see me about your child please don’t hesitate to pop in and see me. I am always around before
school and available most evenings for parents collecting from WBs.
Miss S Johnston