Welcome back Penguins, I hope that you had a lovely Christmas with your families. 

The theme for this half term is 'Pirates' The information below will let you and your parents know all about the learning that will take place.

English: The children will be learning through the wonderful story of Pirates Next Door by Jonny Duddle. They will have opportunities to write descriptions of characters through riddles, invitations, adverts, instructions, persuasive writing and setting descriptions. By the end of the unit the children will have begun to master the use of 

• commas to separate items in lists
• statements, questions, exclamations and commands appropriately.
• exclamation marks for effect

Read, Write, Inc: Phonics will take place daily, following the Read, Write, Inc. scheme. These lessons will incorporate learning phonics sounds, reading and spelling. Children when ready will move on to the Reading Comprehension programme. 

Maths: The current unit is Multiplication and Division. By the end of the unit the children will have learned to

• Recognise equal groups by sharing and grouping
• Make equal groups by sharing and grouping
• Answer the 2, 5 and 10 times tables 
• Divide by 2, 5 and 10 
• Recognise odd & even numbers
• Write multiplication sentences 
• Use arrays
• Make doubles 

Science: The children will be learning about Uses of Materials. They will be able to 

• identify and compare the suitability of a variety of everyday materials, including wood, metal, plastic, glass, brick, rock, paper and cardboard for particular uses.
• explore the world around them and ask simple questions.
• choose ways to try to ask and answer questions.

Geography: The children will be learning about the An Island Home – Comparisons of UK with a Caribbean island

Art: The children will be looking at developing their use of line, shape, space and colour by creating their own pirates in images and clay. 

Religion and Worldviews: The focus will be on the portrayal of animals in different religious stories.

Computing: This half term the children will be looking at Programming. By the end of the unit they will be able to:

• Identify and apply loops
• Explain and use functions 
• Give control devices instructions that contain numerical data (e.g. move 2 steps etc.)
• Program a ‘bot to follow a pre-planned sequence by giving single commands with an immediate outcome.

Music: The children will learn to sing and play a song through the topic Musical Me. By the end of the unit they will be able to 

• sing/ clap a pulse increasing or decreasing in tempo 
• sing and play untuned instruments at the same time 
• sing and follow a melody by ear 
• play a melody from letter notation 
• choose an appropriate dynamics and timbre for a piece of music
• listen out for particular things when listening to music
• perform with others

PE will take place on Monday and Friday

Dance

• Perform body actions with control and co-ordination
• Choose movements with different dynamic qualities to make a dance phrase that expresses an idea, mood or feeling

• Link movements 
• Talk about musical stimuli as starting points
• Perform short dances, showing an understanding of expressive qualities
• Describe the mood, feelings and expressive qualities of dance
• Describe how dancing affects their body
• Know why it is important to be active
• Suggest ways they could improve their work

Gymnsatics

• Plan and show a sequence of movements
• Use contrast in sequences
• Control movement
• Think of more than one way to create a sequence which follows a set of ‘rules’
• Work on their own and with a partner to create a sequence
• Climb safely

Homework

Homework will be changing from this point on as it will all be set on Google Classrooms. Your child will receive a username, password and class code. We will introduce it to the children in class before sending work home in the second week of the term. If there are any issues/difficulties accessing this at home please let me know.  

Reading

Reading books will be changed once a week on a Thursday. Now that the children are becoming more fluent in their reading please re-read and discuss events, make predictions, encourage the use of expressions and character voices and check for understanding of inferred meaning as this is very important to aid children's comprehension and understanding from Year 2. Penguin class will change their books every Thursday so please make sure your reading book is in school that day. 

Please let me know if you have any comments, questions or queries. I am also available at the class email address penguins@parkgate.cheshire.sch.uk

Mr Simon