Term 3
Welcome back and a very Happy New Year to you all! We hope you had a very relaxing Christmas and are ready for another term. The children made a fantastic start in the Autumn term and we know that this coming term will provide more brilliant opportunities for the children to continue their learning.
Topic
Our units of work this term are centred on two main areas of learning. In History, we will be exploring the hidden cities of the Ancient Maya in the jungles of Central America. We will find out about the Mayan way of life and their beliefs, using artefacts and pictures of the ruins to help us build a picture of the past. We will then compare and contrast the Mayan Civilisation to contemporaneous British society. Also, we will investigate how the Maya treated the rainforest compared to how we do today.
We shall then be directing our learning towards a Science unit where we will investigate Materials and their properties.
In Maths, we will work on Fractions, Decimals and Percentages and the links between them. Our work in Guided Reading will be based on ‘The Explorers’, an adventure novel by Katherine Rundell. In English we will study The Listeners by Walter de La Mare and then draft our own versions using this as a stimulus. This term, our non-fiction writing focus. will be balanced argument.
Home Learning
It is still essential that the children are completing home learning tasks in order to consolidate their learning. Spellings will continue to be sent home on a Friday for the following week. We recommend that the children spend a short amount of time each day practising these.
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Daily |
Weekly |
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Regular reading both independently and with an adult/older sibling. Please record reading in the Reading Record/ homework planner. Maths/ number facts/ times tables practice. Spelling practice either on Spellingframe or on the statutory word sheets. |
Spellings- Homework task set each Friday due in for the following Friday. We will alternate each week between setting spelling patterns on Spellingframe and setting statutory words in their spelling folders. |
WB 08 01 24
On Monday we launched our new topic – ‘Deep in the Jungle’, with a visit to the tomb of Pakal the Great. The children were intrigued by the magnificent sarcophagus, the jade funerary mask and the intricate hieroglyphs, which we then decoded. We all thoroughly enjoyed being explorers for the day! In English we have started a unit of work on Narrative Poetry, featuring the poem ‘The Listeners’ by Walter De La Mare. We are extremely proud of the achievements and behaviour of our Young Voices Choir. Well done everybody! Meanwhile, back at school we investigated the Mayan Number System and learnt that they also had a place holder zero and a base 20 number system! We also explored further poems, including the Magic Box