Literacy
This week, we have been researching the Great Fire of London. We have found information about what happened, where the fire was located, when the fire happened, who was involved and why the fire started.  To help us to understand what it would have been like during the fire, we discussed adjectives that would help create an image of the devastating time. We have decided we will use our knowledge to write a newspaper article from 1666. We plan to share this with Team AC who are also learning about the Great Fire of London, with the aim to help them develop their understanding further. We have started to explore a range of newspaper articles based on familiar stories. First, we worked as a class to annotate features of a Goldilocks and the Three Bears newspaper article, before working in small groups to annotate newspaper articles about the Gruffalo, The Magic Porridge Pot, The Gingerbread Man, The Highway Rat and Little Red Riding Hood. We are looking forward to writing our own newspaper articles.


Maths
This week, we have started learning about multiplication and we have developed our understanding of the multiplication symbol and the range of vocabulary used. We now understand the difference between equal and unequal group, and we have been able to use manipulatives to build the groups and identify pictorial representations. We have used counters to build arrays, which has allowed to recognise that multiplication is commutative. 

Maths
This week, we have been developing our understanding of greater than, less than and equals to. We went fishing in the classroom to find numbers and compare them using the three symbols. We developed our understanding further by using the symbols to compare one and two-digit addition calculations. We have also been learning about how to use the inverse and its purpose. Next week, we are looking forward to continuing this learning.
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Literacy
Over past two weeks, we have been exploring traditional tales. We discovered our topic by finding clues around our classroom and school. We have read a range of stories and compared the similarities and differences of language, characters and plot. This week, we have used our understanding to write a character description of our chosen character. We are looking forward to presenting the final pieces next week.

​French  
Bonjour! This week, we participated in a whole school French day. We research where France is located in the world and how we could travel to France. We explored and discussed the different landmarks, range of sports and food that is traditional in France.  At playtime, we ate croissants and pain au chocolat, mmm delicious! Throughout the day, we developed our French knowledge. We learnt number to 10, colours and ways to describe the weather. We recorded the information by creating a poster. Before home time, we had the opportunity to present our work in assembly and show the other children our French vocabulary.

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Maths                                                                                                                       During the past two weeks, we have been learning about column addition and subtraction. Developing out understandig of this method, has allowed us to feel more confident when adding and subtracting 2-digit numbers. We have applied our understanding by solving SATS style addition and subtraction problems. We have also started our learning about 2D and 3D shapes. We have completed shape hunts in the classroom. Finding the shapes and identifying their properties has helped to develop our understanding. 

Literacy                                                                                                                  This week we have completed a recount about our recent trip to Bolsover Castle. We wanted to write a recount of the trip to share our exciting experience with others at Park Street.  We have focused on using both co-ordinating and subordinating conjunctions to extend our sentences, to provide more information for the reader. We have also worked hard to include expanded noun phrases, to add a detailed description and make the reader feel as if they were there too, During this term, we have created a range of pieces of writing about castles. Some of these are displayed on our castles board at the back of the classroom, for everyone to read and enjoy. 

Science
In science we have been learning about staying healthy. We have discussed why it is important to keep clean and the different ways we keep oursleves clean. We thought about germs and how easily they can spread. We began learning about what germs look like when under a microscope, and found out these are called microbes. We looked at a images of microbes, including bacteria, fungi and viruses. We then used playdough to create some model that reflect the features of microbes. 

This week in Team CT, we have been very busy tidying up the classroom after a tornado messed up all of the classroom! The tornado left a large hole under the Christmas tree and Noel the classroom elf escaped down the hole. We were left asking, where is Noel? We decided the best way to find Noel would be to write a newspaper article to raise awareness that he was missing! We started getting busy straight away learning new skills, so that we could write an amazing newspaper article to help find Noel. Once the articles were complete, we left them for other children and teachers to read at Park Street. Later in the week, Noel was found back in Team CT! He had written a note explaining how he was really sorry he had to leave so sudden, but he had to get back to help Santa Claus at this extremely busy time. Noel was very excited to give Team CT a very special message all the way from the North Pole. 

I am very proud of all the effort and enthusiasm the children in Team CT have put into their learning in our first half term of the year. This half term, we have won the attendance award 4 times! Excellent effort Team CT! 

Our Golden Rule Assembly
Last week we focused on the Golden Rule, do work hard. We discussed what it looks like to work hard and why it is important. We shared our ideas with all the children in our school, during assembly. During our music lessons, we have been working hard on learning how to sing the song, Make Your Own Kind Of Music. In our assembly, we perfomed the song and impressed Mrs Lawson and all the other children with our amazing, tuneful singing voices. 

Maths
In maths we have been learning how to add three one-digit numbers. We began by reading number stories and moved onto writing our own. We also looked at how our number sentences must balance. We used balancing scales and maths dinosaurs to help us develop a good understanding of the meaning of the equals symbol. We moved onto learning a method to add three one-digit numbers, to support us with finding the total. After the half term break, we will continue to further our learning in this area. 

Literacy
In literacy, we are working towards writing a set of instructions. This week we have been building our knowledge of the features that we will be including in our instructions. We began by identifying and writing commands . We explored imperative verbs, and used this knowledge to identify commands in the Little Miss Bossy story and animation. We have also been learning about how to add more detail to our writing by including adverbs. We focused on the purpose of adverbs and how to convert adjectives into adverbs by following the spelling rule. 

Topic-Weather
Throughout this half term, we have been learning about the seasons. We have explored the types of weather that occur during each season and the changes to the envrionment. We have used our knowledge to create individual books that contain facts about the weather in each season. Our books are displayed in the weather area of our classroom, for everyone to read and enjoy. 

Maths 
This week in maths we have been comparing numbers. We decided to go fishing in the classroom for different numbers to compare. We worked with our learning partner to catch the numbered fish and compare them using the more than, less than and equals to symbols. This week was the last week of our focus on place value. All the children completed an end of unit assessment, which showed me all the hard work they have put into their maths. I am looking forward to next week, where we will be working on addition and subtraction. 

Literacy 
This week we have been exploring Traditional Tales. We identified key features and language that we recognised in each tale. One of the stories we read was, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Although we enjoyed the story, we were still left with lots of questions that we wanted to ask the characters. We thought it would be best to explore how to write excellent questions, so that we could find out more about their actions and feelings. We learnt about different question openers we could use, to allow us to write the best questions we could. Then, we used our amazing acting skills to become the characters and answer all the questions. 

Weather 
As our topic this term is weather, in music we began to listen to the sounds that are made from rainsticks. We researched this instrument and found interesting facts about why this instrument was first created. Ask your child to tell you all about this!

We loved the instrument and the sound it made. so we decided to design and create our own. We created a list of materials we needed and designed an interesting pattern. Then, we applied our design and made our own rainstick. Finally, we reflected on the process and used our writing skills to evaluate our rainsticks. We are looking forward to using our rainsticks in music. Our rainsticks are displayed at the back of our classroom for everyone to see what an amazing job we have done.