Science: 

In Science, we will continue to explore living things and their habitats. By the end of the unit, the children will be able to understand that living things are plants (including seeds) and animals, dead things include dead animals and plants and that never living things include rocks, metal and plastic. The children will also be learning about habitats and will be doing some work in Forest school to learn about what a habitat is and how it provides the basic needs such as shelter, food and water. The children will also be learning that within a habitat there are different micro-habitats which have different conditions. Finally, the children will be learning about food chains, and how animals obtain food from plants and other animals within their habitats.  

 History: 

Children will learn that an Empire is lots of countries ruled by one country. They will explore the British Empire including countries like India, America, Egypt and Australia.  They will learn that the industrial revolution is when many factories were built, and this helped the Victorian empire grow.  Finally they will discuss the fact that Britain doesn’t have an Empire anymore because countries wanted to rule themselves.  

Art: 

We will begin art by using the “Expressive Painting and Colour Mixing” resource to explore primary and secondary colours and mark making. We will be exploring the work of Van Gogh and Cezanne and make ‘visual notes’ of their work. The children will get to make their own mark making tools using natural resources.  Finally ,Children will create a painting inspired by local landscape (eg, Studland, Lulworth, the school/field, Forest School, their garden in the style of Van Gogh or Cezanne. 

Writing- 

In our writing units, we will be using our whole class reading book (The owl who was afraid of the dark) to learn new skills in our own writing.  We will explore the different parts of a story and use this to create our own narratives.  We will also focus on suffixes and contractions e.g. I’m, can’t, he’s.  

Handwriting- 

We will continue to use lead in and out lines with a focus on zig zag letters letters (v, w, x, z).  Many children are ready to start joining their letters and this will be a focus for the half term in handwriting sessions and all other lessons where writing is involved. 

Spelling/phonics- 

In phonics we will continue to work in ability groups to close gaps in phonic knowledge or move onto spelling more complex Year Two words. 

Reading: 

All children will read three times a week in a small group session according to their ability.  They will also have daily whole class reading sessions which will develop their comprehension of the text.  We will begin by reading ‘The owl who was afraid of the dark’ and use skills from the author in our own writing.