Understanding of the World In Science this term the children are learning about heat and cold, linked to the change in Seasons, and in particular Winter and snow. They will look at how to keep warm and dry when out and about, and about the change and decay in our natural world. In Technology the children will focus on animation and how animation works. Our motivation for this is the film The Snowman by Raymond Briggs. We will be attempting our own stop/start animations too! Geography will see us following the journey The Snowman takes from the UK to the North Pole. We’ll be looking at clues such as landmarks and landscape to help us track where he flew. Finally we will be looking at the way in which people live in cold countries and how is differs from where we live and how we live our lives. Numeracy As always we have a huge focus on number, shape, space and measures. This term the children will continue to focus on recognising and using numbers to 20 and beyond. They will need to learn and recite with confidence one more and one less of a number to 20. In addition we will be revising existing knowledge of 2D shape and introducing new 2D shapes and their properties. Any help you can give will be such a help. Literacy The fantastic stories of Raymond Briggs motivate all of our learning up to Christmas. We will be learning how to create labels, captions, thought and speech bubbles in relation to the beautiful illustrations and stories of this fabulous author. We will be using Film education to focus our learning too. The children are now expected to write simple sentences, using their phonemic awareness alongside the use of full stops and finger spaces. Anything you can do to encourage writing at home will be great, but just taking about writing and making up stories together will be just as valuable. Expressive Arts and Design We will be working towards our Christmas play this term so be prepared to hear many new songs and actions! The school celebrates Christmas in a very creative way with singing and art and drama so watch the newsletter to see what’s going on. We will be role playing the Raymond Briggs stories as well as developing artistic responses through dance and drama. Our design work will be inspired by the snow and cold weather, all of which will come home at Christmas to decorate your home! Physical Development We will continue to receive expert coaching from Miss Dillon from Lavington School. She is working with the children to develop their skills of balance, co-ordination and agility. The children have impressed her so much with their skills already it will be great to see where they go next! Personal, Social and Emotional Development The children have made huge strides already in this area of their learning at DAPS. They constantly amaze me with their compassion and empathy towards one another, and their encouragement when someone is finding something hard. They have taken on board the Emerald Learning power and often tell me they are using their powers! This term we will focus on how to respond to others who think differently to them or whose culture is different to their own. They will also be learning how we change our behaviours in different situations. Most importantly however they will practise explaining their own knowledge and understanding and learn how to ask relevant questions of others. One idea is to ban the word ‘it’ - try it at home. You will be amazed at how that little word encourages children to leave out detail when explaining things to others. Do expect your child to make sense and ask them to explain things fully. This will help no end.