Welcome Back! We hope that you have had a wonderful summer holidays and are ready for the exciting new school year! We look forward to doing lots of exciting learning this term! 

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Across the Drawbridge

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This term we will be learning all about castles and knights! Our theme has an emphasis on History and DT skills. The children will be learning about different parts of the castle and will get the chance to explore a local castle. They will also understand what daily life was like inside the castle and compare it to the present day life. 

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We will be creating our own drawbridges in our DT lessons, designing, making and evaluating their versions against a brief. We will also be designing our own medieval food dish. At the end of term, the children will be able to take part in their own medieval banquet!

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As part of our English work, our main texts will be 'Zog' in Year 1 and 'Dragon Stew' in Year 2. We will be writing our own stories using our fantastic English skills. We will also explore non-fiction writing this term and create our own information texts about the features of a castle. 

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Homework Tasks and Expectations:

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Reading

Please continue to read with your children as much as possible. We recommend short daily reading opportunities and regularly rereading familiar books. We do expect children re-reading the same book three times per week to help to build fluency and develop sight reading skills. It is also important to remember to ask simple questions as you go as this will help children's comprehension. These could be about what has just happened, how a character is feeling, why they choose to do something or what might happen next. It is also important to discuss new vocabulary with children. 

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Phonics

If your child finds phonics difficult, it is really important that they regularly recap the learnt phonemes from their phonic sessions in school (these will be shared on a regular basis). This helps children overlearn the phonemes and supports them in recognising the phoneme as graphemes which not only supports fluency in reading but is really important for writing too.

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Useful Websites & Apps

 

Websites for additional learning opportunities:​​

Below is a list of useful websites that can support you and your family during this time:​

• Espresso Education

      username: student5731                        

      password: paulton​

• BBC Bitesize  

• Oak Academy 

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Websites that offer interactive games:

• ICT Games (Maths and English Games)

• Topmarks (Online Games)

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Websites for Reading Support:

• Oxford Owls (Online Reading Books)

      Children have individual log ins and passwords

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Useful Youtube Channels:

• Letters and Sounds Phonic Videos (Youtube Channel)

• Cosmic Kids Yoga (YouTube Channel) 

• Maddie Moate (Super Science Learning Videos and Opportunities)

 

Apps:

These are useful apps that we have used in school which we encourage you to use as required at home. Some of these are free but will need you to make an account whilst others are paid apps.

• Teach your monster to read

• Hairy Letters

• Scratch Junior

• Tux Paint

• Beebot

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If you discover something really useful that you think others might enjoy, please share with us so that we can share the links and information with our school community. Thank you for your continued support.