Our Knowledge Rich Project (KRP) - Spring Term 1

Our Topic- Bright Lights, Big City.

Put on your best outfit because you’re invited to have tea with the Queen. Use your best manners and comb your hair, as one will not be amused if you don’t! What do you know about England’s capital city? Let’s find out all about London, including its history, transport and famous landmarks.. Are you ready for the bright lights of the big city? Hop in a black cab and enjoy the ride.

Mathematics

This half term Year 1 children will be learning to represent and use number bonds and related subtraction facts within 20. Read, write and interpret mathematical statements involving addition (+), subtraction (-) and equals (=) signs. We will then move onto adding and subtracting one-digit and two-digit numbers to 20, including zero. And finally we will solve one step problems that involve addition and subtraction, using concrete objects and pictorial representations, and missing number problems such as 7= ꙱ –9. Year 1 will then move onto looking at place value within 50.

Year 2 children will be learning to calculate mathematical statements for multiplication and division within the multiplication tables and write them using the multiplication (x), division (÷) and equals (=) sign. We will also be solving problems involving multiplication and division, using materials, arrays, repeated addition, mental methods and multiplication and division facts. We will then finish off the half term with a statistics unit where we will be learning to interpret and construct simple pictograms, tally charts, block diagrams and simple tables. We will then ask and answer simple questions by counting the number of objects in each category and sorting the categories by quantity.

English and Spag

We will be continuing our Read, Write Inc Programme. In English and under our topic of ‘Bright lights, Big city’ the children will write to the Queen inviting her to come to visit us at school and have a tea party; fingers crossed she will be able to make it and write back to us!

We will learn all about the Queen before her visit and write a fact file about her. We will learn about where the Queen lives, especially London and write a narrative about what it would be like to visit London. We will write recipes for cakes and sandwiches that we are going to make for the tea party and also sequence the events of what happened at our tea party with the Queen. We will also learn about Chinese New Year and how it is celebrated, we will also learn how to write our names in Chinese. In Spag Year 1 we will be learning about exclamation marks, what they are and when we use them. We will also learn about the use of capital letters for names. In handwriting we will continue to learn to form all letters correctly, numerals 0-9 and capital letters of curly caterpillar letters (a, c o, d, g, q, e, s and f). In Spag Year 2 we will be learning about regular past tense verbs, using the suffix ‘ful’, adjectives and using apostrophes for possession.

Art / DT

This term we are having a DT focus where we will be constructing simple structures and models using a range of materials. We will make crowns like the Queen, design the Queen a pair of knickers (from the book ‘The Queens Knickers’), make moving models of London transport and models of London landmark buildings including Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and The London Eye. We will also get cooking and make cakes and sandwiches for the tea party. We will also make moving Chinese dragons for Chinese New Year.

Music

In music we are going to learn the ‘Menu song’ from Sing up. Here we will listen to the Menu song along with other songs about food for example, ‘Food glorious food’ from Oliver and ‘Be our guest’ from Beauty and the Beast. We will learn to move to the music, put actions to the music, play instruments in time to the beat and practise and perform in groups. We are also having visits from the Pantomime at the beginning of term (postponed from last term) and also from ‘Hall for Cornwall’.

Science

In Science Year 1 we will observe the changes of the four seasons in the context of weather, changes that occur within the environment and the day lengths. We will focus on Autumn and Winter and explore rainfall, daily temperature, wind conditions and general weather conditions.

In Year 2 we will be looking at living things and their habitats. We will focus on a variety of habitats and the plants and animals that live there. We will learn to tell the difference between things that are living, dead and things that have never been alive, and apply this in a range of contexts. We will make observations of a local habitat and the creatures that live there, investigating conditions in local microhabitats and how they affect the minibeasts found within them.

RE

In RE we are going to answer the question ‘What do Christians believe God is like?’ When answering this question we will read and discuss different Christian stories such as The Good Samaritan, and how Christians use these stories to guide their beliefs and actions.

PE

In PE we will be following our Groovy Gymnastics unit. We will focus on performing simple gymnastics actions with control, balancing on isolated parts of the body using both floor and hold balances, and exploring ways to travelling around a space. We will then link together a number of actions into a sequence and perform to our peers.

Geography/History

Under our topic of ‘Bright Lights, Big City’ we will be learning all about the city of London. What do we know about England’s capital city? We will be finding out all about London, including its history, transport and famous landmarks. After half term we will focus on History and step back in time and discover what happened in the Great Fire of London, where it started? and how it ended.

 Computing

We will be learning how to log in and off our Chrome books. We will use an art program to paint our own pictures of London and the Queen. We will also use the internet to find out facts about the Queen and of London.

PSHE

We will focus this term on ‘Keeping myself safe’ where we will explore how our feelings keep us safe and healthy eating. We will learn and discuss how we can keep ourselves safe and who can help us be safe? Year 2’s will also be discussing the concept of privacy and the implications of it for both children and adults; including that it is not always right to keep secrets if they relate to being safe.

Help your child prepare for their project:

•        Cities are exciting places. Why not visit a local city to spot interesting vehicles, buildings and landmarks?
•        Alternatively, you could search the web for images, information and film clips about London and keep a scrapbook of your findings.
•        Visit the official website of the British monarchy and take a virtual tour around the rooms of Buckingham palace.

Reminders:

•        Our PE afternoon this year is Monday; to allow us maximum time during the afternoon for PE please can you ensure your child comes to school in their PE kits each Monday.
•        Please can every child have a water bottle in school with water in it. Morning snack of fruit is provided by school but if your child would like snack from home please make sure it is a healthy choice and doesn’t contain nuts.

If you have any questions or queries, please don’t hesitate to speak to a member of the Class two team.