Firstly, it was lovely to meet so many of you during the Parent Consultation meetings. If you haven’t yet managed to catch up with me, pleased do email on the Maple email and we can organise a time for you to pop in.

In English this week, we will begin by finalising our neat copies of the ‘washing a woolly mammoth instructions’. These are looking great and the children have worked very hard on their instructions. Once these are completed, we will begin our new unit based on the Stone Aged Boy by Satoshi Kitamura.

In Whole Class reading this term we will mainly be using The Boy Who Grew Dragons by Andy Shepherd. We will investigate the vocabulary and answer questions about the text, both as a class and individually.

In Maths this week we will completing the Place Value Unit, looking at counting in 50s and then doing a mini assessment. We will then move onto addition and subtraction. Times tables will be an ongoing feature, with the children completing a time-table challenge each week.

In science this week, we will continue looking at Animals, including humans, beginning to investigate the five senses (starting with sight). We will also continue the ‘Time and Place’ unit about Stone Age, this week looking at life in an Iron Age Fort.

Mrs Banner will be teaching our RE on Friday, and will be starting the Incarnation unit. Mrs Banner will also do a spelling test, computing and elements of the maths curriculum.

Swimming continues on Tuesday this week, and Maple class have PE on Mondays each week. They will need full PE kit, swimming costume/trunks, a towel, swimming cap - this is required by the swimming pool, and goggles (although these are optional). There will also be occasions when we do additional PE sessions, so please can the children have their PE kit in school all week.

Reading Records will generally be changed on a Monday and Thursday. We would still ask, however, that children bring their reading books and Reading Records in to school each day and that they aim to read daily, ideally with an adult – details of this can then be recorded in the Reading Record. Homework will be sent home on Tuesday, and due back on Monday.  The children are becoming far more independent in their learning now, but please do remind them to put their Reading Records and Home Learning books into the baskets! Obviously, we do remind them, but if you could remind them again too, that would be great.

I am always happy to answer any questions you may have, so please do contact me if you have any queries, using the class email address:

maple@st-barnabas.kent.sch.uk

Best wishes

Mrs Smallcombe and the Maple Team