Spinosaurus and Dilophosaurus Class Blog - Spring Term 1

Date: 14th Feb 2025 @ 9:53am

Where has time gone? The children settled back into the rhythm of school brilliantly after the Christmas break, despite the snowy start!

The topic for this term was Underground. The children have been thoroughly engaged so far in this topic and it will continue into next half term. Our areas of provision allow the children to explore what animals they might find underground and above ground and we have shared some beautiful fiction and non-fiction books based around this.

We had an art focus this half term and the children have worked incredibly hard to create an underground shoebox diorama. They were inspired by Zachary Bennett- Brook when they painted and the sculpture artist Lisa Larson was the inspiration behind their clay mice. Thank you to all who made it to our mini art exhibition in the hall, the children were bursting with pride to show off their work.

In history we have looked at how schools have changed over the last 100 years and we all agreed that we are lucky to come to school in the present day rather than the past. We did not like the look of the dunce hat! The children enjoyed looking at different sources to learn about the past and found the school’s accident book from the 1990’s to be interesting, particularly finding all the times Mr Roberts appeared in the book!

In science, the children learnt about materials and their properties (wood, metal, plastic, glass etc.) and carried out an investigation to see which materials could bend, twist, stretch and squash. However, the highlight of the half term was an experiment to make our own slime and find out how much glue makes the best slime. We had so much fun, made some good predictions and filled in a table of our findings.

In PE, we have been learning how to attack, defend and shoot using beanbags and balls of different sizes. These skills will help feed into different sports such as football and tennis. The children practised throwing underarm and overarm to hit a target. Keep practising these skills! Indoor PE has been filled with learning an underground themed dance, taught to us by the amazing Nicola! We have loved every second and the routine was challenging, fun and had lots of movements to remember.

PSHE has taught us about roles and responsibilities, acceptable and unacceptable behaviours, being king and knowing that we are all special. We love reflecting on what amazing individuals we have in our school and continue to feel proud of the children every day.

In Year 1

All our hard work is paying off. The handwriting is smaller and neater, the use of phonics is more confident in reading and writing, and the children’s abilities in number have increased hugely.  They are working hard!

We have continued our daily phonics and reading lessons following our FFT scheme and are now seeing the impact as we gradually introduce more independent working, for example on writing sentences by themselves.  The whole idea is that we give them the skills to write correctly first so they do not develop bad habits that are difficult to change.  Please continue to support them with correct letter formation at home so they can eventually be taught how to join up their letters.

In maths, we have been learning number facts involving adding 2, learning how to create “fact families” for each number fact by writing the two additions and two subtractions related to that fact.  Many children can now put this fact family into multiples of 10, represent the fact with different visual models and answer questions involving the fact.  Brilliant progress Year 1!  In addition to all that work, they have been adding and subtracting using a numberline, learning about finding half and one third of amounts and shapes, and learning about telling the time to the hour including drawing the hands on clock faces to show the time.

Year 1 children please return your reading book on Wednesday. New books will be sent out on Friday.

Homework will be sent home on a Friday.

In Year 2

In literacy, we have looked at the stories: ‘The Three Little Pigs’ and ‘The Tunnel’. The children have written their own versions of the stories, using adjectives and conjunctions (e.g. and/ but/ or/ so) to extend their sentences. Miss Worton, Mrs Whitehead and Mrs Sharp have been blown away by their unique and lively stories. We are continuing to work on punctuation, neat handwriting and spelling, particularly ‘common exception words’. Weekly spelling homework will now be sent out every Monday.

In maths, we have been extremely busy. We have covered place value, addition, subtraction, fractions ( ½ and ¼ ), measuring and time! Children have worked practically when covering these skills and we will be consolidating these skills again next half term. Please help at home by looking at time: O’clock, half past, quarter past and quarter to.

The children in Year 2 take part in whole class reading sessions. These sessions help to develop confidence, pace, fluency, comprehension and reading with expression. Please continue to read at home with your child at least three times a week. Please return reading books on a Monday morning and we will exchange the book and send a new one out on Monday afternoon.

Our library day is Tuesday, please return your library book once you have finished with it and a new one can be chosen on Tuesday afternoon. If you would like to keep your book for an extra week then please do.

Thank you again for your support this half term. It has been a busy but great one. If you have any questions then please speak to a member of staff in and we will be happy to help.

Many thanks,

Mrs Sharp, Mrs Whitehead & Miss Worton