Religion: our topic is From Easter to Pentecost. We will be looking at Luke’s Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. The children will be learning how crucial the stories and events leading up to Pentecost  have been to the development of the Church, as what happened in these days and weeks were the reason the Church ever began – these stories being our ‘premium’ or ‘gold class’ stories. Our focus will be on retelling the events leading up to Pentecost, our belief in the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus, culminating in the mystery of our faith.

English: we will be linking books and film to stimulate imagination and creativity in speaking and writing. We will use this prompt to write in a variety of genres, including stories set in imaginary worlds, play scripts and poetry. We are focusing on building up a more ambitious vocabulary, using more openers and writing in extended sentences, with quality detail to create interest in the audience. It would be great if you could encourage your child to select quality words from their reading and collect them to use in writing. Reading should take place regularly at home every evening. Thank you to all families that put in wonderful effort reading with their child at home; your hard work has definitely contributed to your child’s progress.

Handwriting: we will continue to work on joining up our writing and writing clearly in a legible style. Many children already have a pen licence and others are nearly ready to move on to using a pen. Please encourage your child to take pride in their presentation and help them practise regularly at home.

Grammar/ Spelling: we are beginning to link in previously taught concepts into a better understanding of language as a system. We are looking at vocabulary building, including the use of prefixes and suffixes, further homophones, homonyms and antonyms. We are continuing to identify how authors use these and to borrow strategies to apply in our own writing.

Maths: Please continue to support your child to learn their times tables up to 12x12.  In Maths we are continuing to develop mental maths strategies for quick calculations as well as using secure written methods for problem-solving. We will also be continuing our learning of decimals, measures, shape and space and interpreting data such as timetables, diagrams, tables and charts. Please ask your child to use their maths knowledge when they help you with the shopping (using money), in the kitchen (weight, capacity) or planning activities during the day (e.g. reading the time, calculating time intervals).

Topic: Our new topic is Imaginary Worlds and we will be looking at how authors create these worlds in their writing.

We will be using the film, “Labyrinth” and other texts as a scaffold for the children’s writing and imagination. We will be organising a trip that ties in with our Imaginary Worlds theme. Please encourage your child to talk about books and films that link in this topic and go discover some imaginary worlds for yourselves!

Science: our new topic is Electricity. We will look at what electricity is and some of its uses, as well as identify basic components of circuits and construct our own working circuit. Children will plan, draw and build simple devices using batteries and experiment with different ways of connecting bulbs.

Spanish:  we will continue our foreign language study by moving on to practical contexts such as ordering food.  Our topic, At the Café, will help children learn how to order, enquire about prices and ask for the bill in a Spanish restaurant.