Welcome to the Year 1 / 2 class page.  

We are The Darling's Class, named after the inspirational heroine Grace Darling, as voted for by the children last year.  This term we will be looking at how we can raise for money for our chosen charity, the RNLI. We chose this charity after being inspired by the bravery of the lifeboat volunteers, which is similar to the bravery Grace Darling showed all those years ago. 

Our topic this term is Voyages and Exploration, focussing in particular on the voyages of Captain Cook. In Geography, we are looking at the places Captain Cook visited; the continents he passed and the oceans he sailed on. We will be locating these places on a map and also considering what the weather and culture would have been like, before making our own adventure maps after half term. 

In History, we are looking at Captain Cook as a significant individual and so will explore the following questions: Who was Captain Cook? What did he do? When did he go on his voyages? Why do we remember him? How has he impacted on our lives today? We will use a range of sources to practice our researching skills and will look at where Captain Cook's adventures fit in with other historical periods we have learned about. 

In English, we are introducing Talk 4 Writing, where we focus heavily on the children retelling stories orally, and building word banks and working collaboratively to inspire our children to go on to write confidently and with greater independence. We will be using story maps, looking at 5 sentence stories and developing a rich vocabulary.  Year 2's will be focussing on the story Oliver's fruit salad and will be writing a letter to persuade others to eat more fruit. 

In Maths, Year 1 continue with place value and addition and subtraction, and Year 2's will be looking at money, multiplication and division, fractions and shapes - a busy term ahead!

  In Science, we will continue to track seasonal changes and for the first few weeks we will be studying our environmental area, considering what habitats our environmental area offers, as well as the types of trees and plants we have in our outdoors too. This will provide a helpful recap for the Year 2's.  Then we will move onto looking at plants; thinking about the parts of plants (Y1) and what plants need to survive (Y2). We will also be planting beans and taking care of them. 

In Art, we will be looking at a range of art and design skills; from shading for tone to using clay and even designing our own plates.  Each lesson we will be introduced to a new artist, and our work will be based in the style of this artist.

In PSHE, we are looking at goals and dreams, and focussing on believing in ourselves to achieve. 

In DT, we will be investigating the different food groups, considering what is good for us, and then we will make a fruit salad - linking nicely to one of our core texts; Oliver's fruit salad. 

We are swimming this term for our PE sessions, and these got off to a very promising start last week - with all children getting into the water and practising key skills needed to swim. We were really proud of them all!

We continue to update our proud wall, with children still having time in our busy days to have some time to apply their learning independently.  This week we have been fascinated by winter trees, sunrises and sunsets and the children have created some beautiful art work in response to this.  There will also be fortnightly  reading challenges linked to our core text, which children will be encouraged to do in the afternoons.  We are currently reading Elmer, and I am particularly looking forward to reading The Hodgeheg, later in the term - our first class chapter book. 

Overall, it is an exciting term ahead! We are so excited to continue learning with your children and to watch them grow and immerse themselves in our learning environments.  

Any questions, please contact Mrs Spencer or myself on Class Dojo.

Thanks for your continued support!