Spinosaurus & Dilophosaurus Class Blog - Spring Term 2

Date: 4th Apr 2025 @ 11:38am

Another half term has come to an end and it has been lovely to welcome Spring, the lighter mornings and warmer weather into the classrooms! It has been an exciting term for our class as they have delved further into our underground topic.

In History, the children how found it fascinating learning about children as young as 4 years old working down the mines. A highlight in our History lessons was pushing all the desks together in both classrooms to create a huge ‘mine’ for the children to crawl through!

British Science week was exciting and informative as the theme this year was ‘adapt and change’. The children took part in various experiments and investigations including finding out what is suitable to flush down the toilet! However, finding out about how animals adapt and change to their environments was a firm favourite and we found out loads of fascinating facts!

Our DT unit was spent making underground hand puppets and we were so impressed with the determination to master the running stitch and the individual creativity. Each puppet was so unique.

PE this half term has been ‘Hit, Catch, and Run’ and we have learnt how to hit balls with power and control using our hands and racquets. In gymnastics, we have developed our flexibility and flair by putting a sequence of movements together, including doing the bridge and attempting to do the splits!

PSHE sessions have included finding out what we put on our bodies, in our bodies and what is harmful for our bodies. The children always think carefully and thoughtfully in these sessions.

Year 1

Over the past half term, we have continued our daily phonics and reading lessons following our FFT scheme and we only have five more weeks of new phonics learning to go. It will then be the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check in the week commencing Monday 9th June and after that we will be consolidating the children’s understanding of the different ways of spelling the same sound. As you will have gathered by now, phonics is a complex subject! We are very pleased with the children’s progress in their reading as the pace, fluency and expression is shaping up nicely ready for Year 2. They have come a long way as I am sure you will agree – well done everyone!

In maths, we have been learning and consolidating number facts involving adding 2, adding 3, the ways of making 10 and doubles. These are incredibly important for the children’s future calculations skills so any help you can give them at home is always a bonus! We have continued work on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division by three and four, as well as lots of work on using coins and working with 2D and 3D shape.

Reminders:

Reading books – Please return them on Wednesday so new books can be sent home on Friday.
Homework – Sent home every Friday.

Year 2

In English, our Year 2 students have been producing some superb writing. We focused on writing nonfiction texts and the dragonfly report they produced was full of fascinating facts. In addition, the children have enjoyed writing an informal letter based on the book; The Dog That Dug. Weekly spelling homework will now be sent out every Monday.

In Maths, we have covered a range of topics including addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. It has been impressive to see how much progress our students have made in their numeracy skills this term.

The children 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.

We were delighted to see so many of you at the recent parents' consultation meetings, and we are proud of all the individual progress made by each child. Please continue to support your children's learning by encouraging them to read regularly at home, learn spellings and complete any work sent home.

We look forward to another successful half term after our break, and we are excited to see what the children achieve in the coming weeks. Thank you for your ongoing support, and we hope you all have a restful and enjoyable break.

Many thanks,

Mrs Sharp, Mrs Whitehead & Miss Worton