Derwent Class Curriculum Letter Autumn Term 2023

Dear Parents,

Welcome (or welcome back!) to Langton School! We have all begun to settle into Derwent Class well and I have been very impressed with how grown up the Year One children have been in welcoming and supporting their new classmates. I am excited to be teaching Derwent Class again this year and am delighted to continue working with our fantastically skilled HLTA, Mrs Cuthbertson, who will be with us full time. This term is an exciting one, full of festivals and celebrations, with a fantastic nativity play to round it all off! One of these celebrations is my wedding – I like to drop it into every conversation! This means that my name will be Mrs Burbridge from half term onwards.

Topic

The topics for Reception in Derwent Class follow the seasons. This is fantastic for Reception as it means we can experience the topic we are talking about and link our learning to immediate everyday experiences. In the Exploring Autumn topic, your child will go on a woodland walk to learn about the seasonal changes that happen in autumn. They will learn about birds and animals that live in the woods and how they survive as the weather gets colder. They will take part in practical and creative activities that will support them to learn about autumn.

As we head into December, your child will explore the seasonal changes that happen during winter through the Winter Wonderland topic. They will find out about the different weather associated with the winter season and explore changes that happen to water as it freezes. They will find out about what happens to plants and animals during cold weather and explore places in the world that are always cold and snowy, including the animals that live there.

On Wednesday afternoons, Year One will be joining the rest of their cohort in Foss Class for Topic afternoons. This term their topic is Dinosaur Planet:

Watch out everyone – the dinosaurs are on the prowl. They’re rampaging across the dusty earth, swishing their enormous tails and baring their fearsome teeth. Let’s explore the Dinosaur Planet. Imagine you’re a palaeontologist (that’s a scientist who studies bones and fossils). Dig deep and discover dazzling dinosaur facts. Create a dinosaur museum and invite visitors to see your

awesome dinosaur artefacts. You could even do a dinosaur dance or produce some prehistoric percussion. Which is your favourite dinosaur? The Tyrannosaurus, the Brachiosaurus or the Micropachycephalosaurus? Doyouthinkhesawus? Yes, he did. Run!

Stomp, crash, roar! Watch out – there are dinosaurs about! Yes, that’s right, we’re travelling back in time to the age of the dinosaurs.

This term, we’ll study museum collections, look closely at ancient fossils and study reptiles to understand how dinosaurs may have lived and eventually died out. We’ll learn about the great fossil hunter, Mary Anning, and follow in her footsteps, studying dinosaur teeth and bones to find out what dinosaurs liked to eat. Learning dinosaur names, creating puzzling riddles, writing fantastic fact files and creating exciting dinosaur stories are some of the other activities we’ll be involved in this half term. We’ll also use our artistic skills to make model dinosaurs and to design dinosaur landscapes.

At the end of our project, we’ll hold a dinosaur party where we’ll invent some dinosaur games to play and entertain with our wonderful dinosaur music, jokes and facts.

Help your child prepare for their project Dinosaurs are fascinating! Why not visit the library, choose some dinosaur books and practise reading and writing dinosaur names together? Alternatively, research amazing dinosaur facts together online. You could also make a mini Jurassic Park from cardboard boxes and craft materials to make model dinosaurs feel at home!

There are also a couple of activities that are available in York currently, until the end of September, that may be a fun, interesting and educational option for any free time or weekend adventures. They are https://yorkmix.com/when-dinosaurs-ruled-york-exciting-free-trail-brings-prehistoric-city-to-life/ and https://www.yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/exhibition/mary-anning-rocks/

English

This term we will be taking part in daily phonics and guided reading sessions in our year groups. Both Reception and Year One will be working with me in Phonics lessons. I will be sending home information about what we are covering in the Little Wandle programme for Reception and Year One parents each week on Tapestry. For more information about our phonics programme please visit the parent page on the Little Wandle website. Alongside these sessions we will be taking part in a daily Talk Through Story session listening to books that are related to our topic and taking part in some simple vocabulary and comprehension activities. We will then take these stories into our Drawing Club sessions. Drawing Club is a fantastic programme that introduces children to writing through their favourite stories, encouraging emergent writers to begin to make marks while supporting more fluent writers to stretch their skills with open-ended writing prompts. There will also be plenty of opportunities to practice our writing and reading skills through our provision areas. At the end of each day, we share a couple of pages of our class reader novel. This term our story is The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark by Jill Tomlinson.

Maths

Year One will begin the year by learning to tell the time to o’clock and half past. They will get to practise this skill by taking turns to be on the Time Team. The Time Team duo each get to wear a school watch and help the class keep track of the playtimes and breaktimes throughout the day by telling the time.

Year One will also start to gain an understanding of place value and the part-whole model. After half-term we will also explore the properties of 2D and 3D shapes. In Reception, we will be gaining a deep knowledge of numbers to 10 – and beyond! They will also be practicing their one-to-one correspondence and gaining confidence in subitising through practical, teacher-led activities.

Science

During Science this term we will be exploring the topic Humans and Other Animals. We will begin to identify and classify animals that live around us, develop an understanding of the five senses and name parts of the body. We will also go on nature walks around the village and in the leafy glade, spotting signs of seasonal change and identifying common plants and animals.

P.E.

P.E. will be on a Monday and Friday afternoon. Mr Cairns will be teaching P.E. on Mondays, and this will be outside as much as possible. Please remember your child’s P.E. hoodie and joggers as the weather gets colder. On Friday afternoons, we will be playing team games, creating obstacle courses and beginning to learn the dances for our Christmas play. On Friday I will be sending the children home in their P.E. kits (with their school uniform in their bags). This means we do not have to get changed at the end of the day and allows us to spend more time to engage in the PE lesson. On that note, it would be helpful if you could practise getting changed in and out of uniform and PE kits at home. This practise speeds up the changing process in school and gives us more time for the PE activities.

Clothing

As a free flow classroom, the children are welcome to explore our outside area in all weathers (unless the weather is extreme). Therefore, with the changeable Autumn weather, please ensure that your child brings a sun hat and a raincoat into school with them. Could I ask that a special care is made to name your child’s clothes, this allows us to reunite lost items with their owners quicker and helps to avoid upset over lost items.

Lunches To foster independence and responsibility, the children self-register in the morning and are asked to put their name under school dinner or packed lunch. To encourage the children to have school dinner and try a wide variety of foods we will not be displaying jacket potato as an option, however if you would prefer your child to have a jacket potato on a specific day, please do let me know by email.

It has been so lovely to meet some of you as you pick up and drop off, I’m looking forward to meeting more of you over the coming weeks. As always, I am always happy to help with any questions you may have or matters you need to discuss. You can send me an email (derwentclass@langton.n-yorks.sch.uk) or catch me before or after school for a quick conversation.

Kind Regards,

Miss Oscroft