What a busy start to 2024. The children have dived right into our theme of Pole to Pole. They were transfixed by the story of the race to the South Pole when sadly Robert Falcon Scott’s team failed to return. We had lots of fun designing our own flag to put into the snow once we reached the Poles. After packing all our equipment, we used a compass to find North and South, the children then decided which explorer they wanted to be (Scott, Amundsen – South, Peary – North), they left the boat before making their way to the Poles to put down their flag. Not everyone returned to the boat.  

The children created some fantastic displays for Geography about the North Pole, Kalahari Desert, and the South Pole. In groups they researched the animals, habitats, weather, clothing, physical and human features of the 3 places before writing facts to add to their display. Each group then presented their findings to the rest of the class.  

Our story in English focused on a lost penguin in the South Pole. The children are now experts at learning stories with actions and pictures. We had some fantastic writing that included capital letters for pronouns and commas between adjectives. The children then innovated the story to create their own adventure story. We have Timmy the turtle from the Pacific Ocean and Lewis the jaguar from the Amazon Jungle. I have displayed the most improved writers up on our star work wall.  

The children have been kept busy in maths recapping on place value up to 50 and more recently number bonds. It is so important that children know their number bonds to 10 as this will really help them conquer mathematics especially with adding and subtraction. We had lots of fun using lots of different manipulatives to show different bonds to 5,6,7,8,9 & 10. 

PSHE, we have been looking at setting goals and completing challenges. The children have worked in pairs to complete challenges from making a dog from play doh to designing and making bendy flowers. As the children worked together, we discussed why some pairs were more successful by listening to each other, sharing ideas, making a plan and sharing the work.