This topic is a great way for our Kingfishers to explore and consolidate key skills across all of our areas of learning linked to popular interests. We will link our learning to space, aliens, pirates, mermaids, dragons and plus any other interests! We will also explore changes that the summer season brings with it.

We will be exploring the following texts:

Communication and Language

Through this topic children will continue to develop their imaginative language and the ability to explain and justify their thoughts.  There will be the opportunity for pupil to consider what it would be like to be an, astronaut or a pirate or stranded at sea. We will explore new language to do with space and pirate life such as ‘desert’, ‘cannon’, ‘paradise’, and the name of some less well-known sea creatures. Our questioning skills will be developed further when we consider what life is like in space.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Our children will consider how the demonstrate good team work and how this can be applied to our classroom for example when we build our class rocket.  We will think about how we can be a good friend to others.  This topic allows us to consider what is precious to us- for pirates it’s treasure, for Zog it’s a gold star, but what is important to us?  We will be spending time discussing and taking part in transition activities to allow for a smooth transition into Year 1.

Physical Development

In P.E. we will focus on developing our understanding and skills to complete the variety of activities that we will take part in on Sports Day.  Our children will become more confident in controlling a computer mouse when using the computer program ‘Paint’ to produce their own underwater world.  In our provision there will be opportunities for children to continue to strength their fingers, such as making sea creatures out of pipe cleaners and beads.  They will be able to develop their core strength when using the large construction outside to make rockets and space shuttles.

Literacy

We will continue to develop our skills in using non-fiction books to find out information, with pupils confidently using contents and index pages independently. Once we have studied the story ‘’Alien’s Love Underpants’ the children will develop their own story where they will be able to use language similar to that in the text to produce their own piece of creative writing.

We will continue to embed the sounds learnt throughout the year.  The children will be given daily opportunities to read and write words with adjacent consonants, such as dragon and swinging.  Pupils will be writing for extended amounts of time, using captions and sentences to record information and their ideas. One-to-one reading and 'tricky words' will still be focused on daily.

Through our provision Pupils will be given opportunities to apply their literacy skills.  They may produce a poster to show how to stay safe in the sun or by the water.  Some may decide to make their own treasure map, sea shanties or write a list of things they would need to take to space.

Maths

This half term the children will be consolidating everything they have been taught and practiced through fun mathematical games. The children will be identifying doubling numbers by playing various games using dice and dominoes. They will then use their knowledge to learn to share quantities of objects by taking part in a teddy bears picnic. After that the children will identify the pattern in odd and even numbers and this will be available for them to practice in their rainbow time. We will be focusing on shape, identifying these and making new shapes and pictures using these.

Understanding the World

Pupils will gain a better understanding of space and planets in our solar system and the creatures that inhabit our oceans.  They will learn what planets there are what it is like to be astronaut. Pupils will also consider how to keep themselves safe when near or in water and when in the sun.  There will be the opportunity for our children to experiment with objects that float and sink, drawing conclusions as to why this might be.  We will think back to our map work earlier in the year and use our previous knowledge to make our own treasure maps. 

Expressive Arts and Design

There will be many opportunities for pupils to develop their creative skills throughout this topic.  We will use the ‘paint’ programme to produce our own underwater pictures. The children will need to think about the properties of different materials to produce their own rocket and aliens.  There will be the opportunity for pupils to use various materials to produce models of sea creatures.  Pupils will work together to make a collage of our underwater world.  The children will be encouraged to reflect upon their work, thinking about what has worked well and what could be changed or improved upon.

What you can do at home to support your child 

• Please continue to read books you may have at home with your child, as well as the school library and reading books that are sent home.  The children are doing fantastically with their reading.  Can your child spot the digraphs and trigraphs within the word before they sound it out and blend it?
• Please continue to help your child to learn to read their ‘Key/Tricky’ words.
• It would be really beneficial for your child to continue to practise their number bonds to 5 and then to 10 at home, as well as doubling numbers to 5.  Some work will come home based on this.