Wonder Zone - Year 1 and 2
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Mrs Claire O'Brien
Class Teacher
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Miss Suzanne Bray
Class Teacher
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Miss Kim Whaley
Teaching Assistant
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Mr Guy Wakeham
Teaching Assistant
Welcome to Wonder Zone! Our Year 1/2 class is where children hone the skills of independent learning and explore the curriculum through a creative and energetic approach. Learning is driven by the enthusiasm of both staff and pupils, with quality talk promoting inquiry and reflection. It is recognised and celebrated that everyone is individual and time is taken to listen to each other with thought and compassion. Children are happy to acknowledge their mistakes as an essential and valuable part of their learning process, and the supportive and inclusive environment means that children become empowered, confident learners who care confident to take risks. Every term a new topic is introduced where all of the foundation subjects link together and high quality texts are chosen to support learning. Engaging, practical activites are planned and delivered that excite the children and encourage them to learn more. Every term a new topic is introduced where all of the foundation subjects link together and high quality texts are chosen to support learning. Engaging, practical activites are planned and delivered that excite the children and encourage them to learn more.
The adults in the class encourage rich conversations and facilitate the learning through the use of the 5 B’s – Brain, Bits & Bobs, Book, Buddy and Big. The classroom is organised, colourful and a place where their work is celebrated. The children are encouraged to become curious learners who are always keen to explore the next steps in their learning journey by feeling confident to ask for equipment, models and vocabulary and to use the learning environment around them to support their understanding .
In English we implement the highly successful Read Write Inc approach to teach phonics, reading and spelling for Year 2 pupils. We also use Spelling Shed as an additional resource to support and consolidate spelling patterns for both the Year 1 and 2 children. English lessons are based around a high quality, age appropriate text that is chosen by the class teachers with the aim to engage and excite the children and link in with our class topic. Through these texts, we continue to focus on punctuation and grammar with the aim of being really aware of the way in which sentences are crafted and words changed. We also encourage the use of story language and exciting vocabulary in order to promote and develop the children's ideas, imagination and for them to develop a love of writing.
Spelling Shed: https://www.spellingshed.com/en-gb/
In maths, we drive number knowledge through learning about place value, number patterns, times table facts and practicing the calculation of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. To support the children's maths, all of the children in Wonderzone are signed up to Spelling Shed, Times Table Rockstars and Numbots. Here are the links to access these sites:
Times Tables Rockstars: https://ttrockstars.com/login
Numbots: https://play.numbots.com/#/intro
Spelling Shed: https://www.spellingshed.com/en-gb/
Summer Term 2022 – The Oceans and Continents
This term Wonderzone will be learning about the seven continents and five oceans across the world as their main topic focus. We will be using the texts Lost and Found, Ocean Meets Sky and The Journey Home as our text focus in English to support our learning. During this topic, the children will be learning about the world in Geography., the similarities and the differences between the continents and how our Earth is made up of land and sea. In Geography, the children will be identifying the different continents and oceans as well as comparing different continents across the world while focussing on how different animals adapt to living in different environments, how people travel across the world to get from one place to another and how the climate changes from one continent to another. This will then be further supported by the children learning about significant individuals and explorers in history such as Ranulph Fiennes, Amy Johnson, Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong.
In Science, the children will be learning about different animals, how they are classified and their lifecycles. In Art and Music, again the focus is on the oceans and continents and during this term whereby the children will be learning about portraits, and music associated with the oceans. In RE, the children will be learning about the Gospel and what the good news Christians think that Jesus brings.
DT links nicely with outdoor learning this term where the children will be focusing on making shelters and dens as well as fire lighting, making natural art collages and hopefully taking a trip to the woods and the beach! We will also be outside for our PE where the children will be learning about jumping, games that promote understanding and health and wellbeing. PSHE will also focus on valuing difference and the children will also be learning about keeping safe on the internet as part of their computing and digital citizenship .As we head into the summer term and the weather warms up, we are going to be very busy and we can’t wait to share all of our hard work with everyone.
Summer Term 2021 – ‘Victorian Seaside’
We are delighted to have a strong history focus this term, where the children will be learning in depth about Queen Victoria, Victorian inventions and seaside holidays in the past. We will be linking this history learning in with our morning English sessions by creating information texts. As part of DT this term we will be making our own puppets, inspired by watching Punch and Judy shows. We will then write playscripts for our show in our English lessons. During Science we will be learning about plants, planting our own seeds and watching them grow. This ties in well with our PSED, as we are learning about growing and changing, as well as caring for the local environment.