Young Voices 

Two weeks today, the children will be performing as part of the 6500 strong Young Voices choir! You should have found your tickets in your child's bag this week along with a letter full of information about the day of the concert. There was also a reply slip and a request for a £5 voluntary contribution towards the cost of the coach to get to Birmingham. The reason for the reply slip was to let us know who would be collecting your child from the arena at the end of the concert. It is important we have this back so that we can ensure your child gets home safely, particularly if you are not able to attend the concert. 

It has been lovely to see the children back in school this week and I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year. Thank you so much for the kind cards and gifts that Mrs Lench and myself received. They were very much appreciated.

As you will no doubt have heard we have had a very busy and exciting week in Wrens as Squawk has had a birthday this week. The children (and adults) have been very busy getting ready for the party.  We have made cards, written lists of things we will need and created party crowns with repeating patterns.  We even made our own pizzas for our party tea.  We had lots of fun today at the party playing games and singing Happy Birthday to Squawk.  He certainly had a lovely birthday!

The children have also enjoyed getting back into the routine of our phonics lessons.  We are now starting on phase 3 which covers the vowel digraphs and trigraphs.  Please continue to spend some time with your child looking at the sheets in their green phonics book each week as this will really support their learning in school.  Thank you.  Phonics books, reading and library books will continue to be issued and are due back each Friday.

We have also introduced rainbow challenges in class.  Through the week the children are given a series of challenges covering different areas of learning. For each challenge completed the children will receive a coloured lolly stick.  If they complete the full rainbow by Friday the children will receive a rainbow certificate celebrating their achievement.

In RE, we are thinking about which stories are special and why. The teachers shared some of their favourite books and explained why the stories were special to them. If your child has a special storybook that they would like to bring into school to share with the rest of the class at story time we would love to read them.  We promise to look after them!

Due to the cold weather over the next few weeks we will be doing an extra session of indoor PE as opposed to outdoor learning.  However, it would be useful if your child could still have a pair of wellies in school as some of our other learning activities may take us outside and the school grounds are very muddy at the moment!

It has been lovely to have the children back at school this week. I have enjoyed listening to them talk about their Christmas holidays and what they got up to. A big thank you from Mrs Birch and me for the Christmas cards and presents, they are really appreciated. 

We have a busy half term coming up in Skylarks so here is a quick break down of what we are going to be getting up to:

In English, we will be working on a couple of books this half term - WANTED: The Perfect Pet and Flat Stanley. This will be alongside phonics and reading fluency and comprehension.

In maths, Year 1 are looking at place value within 20. Year 2 will be finishing off their learning on shape and then moving onto money. 

In RE, we are looking at the question 'How should we care for the world and others, and why?'

The children are doing DT this half term and are working on making a puppet. 

In PSHE, we are looking at dreams and goals. 

PE this half term is on a Thursday (inside) and Friday (outside). For our indoor PE the children will be doing gymnastics and for outdoor we are working on target games.

In science this half term, the children are learning about everyday materials.  The children will be identifying the properties of these materials as well as conducting investigations to explore how different materials are better suited for different objects.  This week, we were looking at different materials and the children were giving examples of different objects that were made from each material. We then went on to discuss whether we thought each material was strong or fragile and what these words meant. This wasn't always as easy as it sounds, as some materials fell into both categories, something the children were able to give examples of to support their reasoning.

It has been a fantastic first week back this term. We have started a new book in English, The Boy Who Grew Dragons, and we are working towards our first piece of writing which will be a kenning poem. 

In maths, we have continued to consolidate our knowledge of multiplication and division using the 8, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 10 times tables. The children have used concrete resources and arrays to demonstrate understanding. We will be moving onto multiplying two-digit numbers by one-digit numbers.

Timetable

Monday: PE kit

Tuesday: 

Wednesday: maths homework due in

Thursday: PE kit

Friday: spelling test

We are back on history for this term and are delving into the fascinating history of the Ancient Egyptians. In our first lesson we covered the chronology of the Ancient Egyptian world. 

In science, we have started a new topic which is humans including animals. In our first lesson we looked at the organs involved in the digestion of food and the way they work together in a system to keep our bodies healthy.  

In RE we will be looking at what it is like to be a Hindu in Britian today which builds on the knowledge we gained last term.  

We are doing art on Fridays and are focusing on the work of Claes Oldenburg. We will be making our own sculptures using Oldenburg's work as inspiration.

In English, we have started our new book 'The Girl Who Stole an Elephant'.  The book is about a girl called Chaya who steals the Queen's jewels, for a very good reason, but then needs to escape her village and does so on the back of a stolen elephant! We are yet to find out what adventures she has as she travels through the jungle. The children have been using their senses to describe what Chaya has experienced so far and have revisited using similes and metaphors to add more description to their writing. 

In maths, we have been looking at area this week. We started by finding the area of rectangles and have then used this knowledge to find the area of compound shapes. This topic is a perfect example of how having excellent times tables  knowledge makes life much easier! 

It has been so lovely to welcome the children back into the classroom after a restful Christmas break. I want to take this opportunity to thank families for all the generous gifts that were given to myself and colleagues. 

This week we have started by being introduced to our new class book ‘The Shark Caller’. This is a brilliant and heartfelt adventure story set on a small island in Papua New Guinea. It centres around a girl called Blue Wing, who lives with her ‘waspapi’ Sirengen, who is a shark caller. Blue Wing isn’t happy when American newcomers arrive on the island and end up living in her old family home. This week, we reached a part of the story where another important character, Maple, makes it challenging for Blue Wing to be her usually patient and kind self.

In maths, we have continued a measurement topic. We have practised converting metric measurements by dividing and multiplying by 10, 100 and 1000. At the end of the week we began converting between metric and imperial units and used this new knowledge to solve problems.

Our science topic this half term is forces and magnets. The children will be naming individual forces,  learning about frictional forces as well as planning fair test investigations. They will also learn what a mechanism is and how pulleys, levers and gears are used to allow a smaller force to have a greater effect. Our first lesson was recapping what the children understood about gravity and how objects fall towards the Earth because of gravity acting between the Earth and falling objects. The children were given the question 'Do all objects fall at the same rate?' and they planned and carried out an investigation into answering this question.

In history, our topic is 'Crime and Punishment'. This half term, we will be rewinding the clock and finding out all about the crimes that people have been persecuted for and the methods of punishment carried out, dating all the way back to Roman times. In our first lesson we explored the history of crime and punishment and how changes have occurred from the Roman times to present day. We were able to chronologically order important periods of time where specific crimes became punishable and what methods of punishment were used. 

In Art this half term we are 'exploring identity'. In this unit, children will explore how artists use various aspects of their identity, creating imagery which explores many different aspects within one image by using layers and juxtaposition. They will listen to how the artists construct their work, before working physically in drawing and collage or digitally on a tablet to make their own layered and constructed portrait.  This week, we looked into the work of an African artist and were able to create a page of visual notes using colour, line and shape to represent our understanding of her work. We then later went on to take part in ‘portrait club’. This involved everyone drawing and posing for portraits and taking the time to construct a series of observational drawings.

In RE, we will be exploring the origins of Hinduism. We will have the opportunity to extend and deepen our learning from our recent visit to the Hindu temple. We will be exploring concepts such as Brahman, Samsara, Karma and Moksha to help us understand how Hindus aim to lead the most positive life they can.

In PSHE, our topic this half term is 'Dreams and Goals'. Throughout this topic, we will all have the opportunity to explore and discuss the importance of goal setting as well as set realistic goals for ourselves and plan our journey to achieve them.

This half term's PE topics are Dance and Tag Rugby.

Please see below information from within the community and independent of the school