Autumn Term 2

We have began our Autumn Term 2 by learning the story of 'The Cantankerous Crocodile' as part of our 'Talk for Writing' learning. After reading the beginning and the middle of the story, the children were asked what the word 'cantankerous' could be. They thought it could mean  'Bossy, disrespectful, unkind, mean, ghastly, tough, naughty'. We found out that it means 'bad-tempered' and 'grumpy', by using a dictionary. The children have predicted the end of the story this week.

In maths we have been counting back. We made rockets and counted back from different given numbers - remembering to count back and not to say the start number name. This is a prerequisite skill to subtraction and we are practising this skill regularly. We are learning how to find one less than a number and our puppet 'Bad Bunny' has been introduced as part of this learning. Unfortunately Bad Bunny likes to make things one less.

In Science, we have been learning about characteristics of animals and understanding that animals have features in common, and some which are unique to some animals. We have been growing our vocabulary as part of this learning, such as pouch, stomach, gills, dorsal fin. We have compared animals, saying which features they have which are the same, and which features are different. We have been learning about Australian animals, such as the thorny devil, emu and corroboree frog. We have linked this learning to our PE gymnastics lessons where we have moved like these animals, and next we will learn to perform a sequence of movements. We have learnt basic gymnastics positions, such as tuck, straight, arch, dish, star.

It has been 'Anti-bullying Week' in Week 2 and we have been learning about what a bully is, and how to be good kind citizens, both in school and out of school. After learning about bullies and kindness, we took a class quiz, based on BBC Bitesize videos about 'Why treating everyone in the community is important'. We got all of the five questions correct! For Children in Need, our focus has been 'Challenging ourselves' and we have made a kindness jar full of 25 ideas of how to challenge ourselves to be kind. On Friday, 14th November, we set out to fulfill as many acts of kindness as we could. I have been impressed with how well the children had recalled the acts of kindness, and put them into practise. Children were remembering to use their manners; to let people in front of them in the line; say kind words; make decorations and write kind messages for others.