PLEASE SEE THE ‘HOME LEARNING’ PAGE TO SEE MORE INFORMATION ON HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT YOUR CHILD AT HOME
What else is out there?
This term our topic is called ‘What else is out there?’ We will start the term by reading and discussing the story ‘Beegu’, which is about a little alien that has crash landed on Earth! We will then move on to learning about space and facts about the different planets in our Solar System. As the term progresses we will also be exploring rainforests, deserts, volcanoes and the ocean. We will also be learning about different places of worship toward the end of the term.
Week 1 – Space (Beegu Story)
Week 2 – Space
Week 3 – Rainforests
Week 4 – Deserts
Week 5 – Volcanoes (Tom and the Dinosaurs story)
Week 6 – The Ocean / pollution (Somebody Swallowed Stanley story)
In Term 5 we will continue to follow the whole school programme called Mastering number. The children will build upon their mathematical knowledge from the previous terms to fully embed key concepts and understanding. We will be working with the children on the following skills.
- Counting – larger sets and things that cannot be seen
- Subitising to 6 (including in strcutured arrangements)
- Composition – ‘5 and a bit’
- Composition – of 10 e.g. 7 and 3, 8 and 2
- Comparison – linked to ordinality
- Track games
Many activities will involve practical activities and problem solving to help children develop their fluency in mathematics.
On Thursday afternoons, the children will be taking part in a variety of maths activities so that they can apply the skills they have learnt to different situations. Some activities will be facilitated by the adults and some activities the children will be expected to work on independently.
We begin Term 5 starting Phase 4, the children will have been taught to represent each of 42 phonemes by a grapheme and be able to blend phonemes to read CVC words and segment CVC words for spelling. They will have some experience in reading simple two-syllable words and captions. They will know letter names and be able to read and spell some common exception words.
The purpose of this phase is to consolidate children’s knowledge of graphemes in reading and spelling words containing adjacent consonants and polysyllabic words.
This phase gives the children lots of opportunities to practice their decoding skills and build up their fluency in reading. We will be continuing to assess twice termly to ensure that all children are secure with all the 42 phonemes.
Phase 4 common exception words taught this term:
Week 1 – said, have
Week 2 – like, so, do
Week 3 – some, come
Week 4 – were, there
Week 5 – when, out, what
As your child continues on their phonic journey you will begin to notice that the blending of words is becoming more natural and they may even start to read a number of words by sight. This is a fantastic skill as it will help build their fluency when reading text. This is especially important as the books they bring home contain more words in a sentence. Reading their decodable phonic book 5 times a week will support this skill. Please actively encourage your child to spot repeated words in text rather than blending them out each time. Please come speak to us if you are unsure how to support this at home.
Diagraphs and trigraphs are tricky to spot in words so a handy trick to support your child is to say the following:
- Look at the word.
- Spot the diagraph.
- Now read the word.
Example – boat …. ‘oa’ (diagraph) b oa t
When writing the word children may find it useful to underline the diagraph or trigraph to remind them how to read it aloud.
Find a glossary of terms below, that are frequently used when talking about phonics teaching and learning.
Useful documents to help your child with their reading and writing.
More information about our phonic scheme can be found on the website under curriculum – phonics.
As always if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.