Welcome to Seals

Teacher - Seals Amanda Waters
Photo of Amanda Waters

Welcome to Seals Class! We are an energetic and lively group of 10 children supported by 5 adults.

We use lots of different approaches to our learning but we particularly enjoy singing with sign along, designing and building towers and writing and drawing. Where possible our learning is linked, so our English lessons will support our learning in Maths, History and even cooking! We enjoy working together on our communication and language development and we are learning to support each other with our emotional understanding. We have a positive attitude to learning and developing and we aim to make every day fun!

 

Summer Term 2 Timetable

 

Summer Term 2 2021 Topic: Seasons & Weather Curriculum Info for Parents - Support communication and language development, emotional growth and generally embed a positive attitude to learning and developing.
EnglishOur theme this term is ‘Seasons and Weather’ which will give us a chance to explore poetry as well as some exciting stories. We will be using cross curricular links between PSHE, maths, science, D.T, art and geography to collect vocabulary and create some weather themed poems of our own! We will look at books by Eric Carl, such as ‘Little Cloud’, ‘Weather’ by Jenny Offil and ‘Seasons’ by Jenny Pang that will give us opportunities to develop our imaginative play, develop and practise our rhyming and storytelling skills. We will also be using non-fiction books, such as ‘Weather and Climate’ by Usborne Books to learn and develop our understanding of how to collect information and using this as a starting point to create some informative posters about Seasons. At home, to support the children with their learning why not comment on and discuss the weather in stories that you share. What can we see in the sky? What clothes are the characters wearing? Does it look warm? Cold? Or windy? You could link these discussions to some of their own experiences in similar weather and explore what clothes they would wear.
MathsIn Maths we will be exploring and learning about taking measurements. We will be linking much of our learning to our Scientific experiments, collecting and measuring rainfall and monitoring the daily temperature using inside and outside thermometers and comparing the difference. This will help us develop and give context to our previous learning of counting on and back to 20 and beyond, using number lines. We will also be learning to recognise and use weather symbols, using them to create pictures and repeated patterns and doing some size ordering and comparisons. Having worked hard on learning the days of the week, we will be learning the months in the year and grouping them according to the seasons. We will be learning to sequences the seasons and months and comparing the weather and how it changes. To support your child’s learning at home you could talk about the date each day and explore how the light changes throughout the day – the days are longer now – what time does it get dark? You could also notice and comment on the temperature each day – is it warm, hot or cold? Does your phone or car have a temperature gauge? Encourage your child to notice if it is warmer or colder than yesterday. Has it rained? Perhaps you could cut up and use an old plastic bottle to collect and measure rainfall in your garden.
SceinceIn ‘Seasons and Weather’ Science, Seals class will be developing our scientific enquiry skills. We will be exploring the changes in weather and coming up with our own ideas about how to measure the changes. We will practice recording and interpreting our findings using simple graphs and charts. We will also be learning about Seasons and how the weather changes across the year. We will be making comparisons with other countries too and looking at ways in which we must stay safe in the sun. We will be linking some of this learning with a story called ‘All about Weather’ by Huda Harajli and discussing some of the clothes we wear in different seasons. This is also something that you could discuss with your children at home – please encourage them to notice and comment on the differences between the clothes we wear in the summer compared to the winter. You could also watch the weather forecast with them and encourage them to plan which clothes to wear according to the weather predictions.
HumanitiesIn History and Geography, the children will be exploring various climates and the corresponding geographical features from around the globe. We will be looking at glaciers and comparing the changes from 50 years ago to the present day. The children will be encouraged to comment on and collect a bank of simple geographical vocabulary to describe and compare the contrasting environments. We will be doing lots of sensory experiments to recreate some of the weather patterns and features and the children will be encouraged to explore different textures and materials
ComputingIn computing we will be using simple programs to document and record our scientific findings. We will record the temperature on a daily basis and will be using keyboards to practise trying the weather for each day. We will use paint programs to create weather symbols of our own and practise using the printer to print what we have created. We will also be looking at Google Maps to find countries with warmer and colder climates and comparing the geographical features. At home you could have some fun using a tablet or phone to practise looking at a map and finding woodland, beaches, mountains or snow!
PSHEIn Personal, Social, Health and Emotional lessons the children will be learning to reflect on our local area and environment, how to look after it and how to look after ourselves and keep safe. This will include discussions about how to keep safe in the sun as well as developing an understanding of road safety and awareness and staying with our responsible adults when out in the community. Through a combination of structured activities and more self-selected play, we will be supporting the children in playing cooperatively alongside and with each other to achieve a shared goal or purpose. We will be building on what we have previously learned and extending our understanding of what it means to feel safe and stay safe with our friends and trusted adults.
D.TIn D.T we will be using recycled materials to build and create our own rain shakers. We will be comparing the sounds the different materials make and exploring how to make our rain louder and softer. We will also be foraging sticks and twigs to build our own weather mobiles. The children will be crafting weather symbols and features to hang on their mobile and coming up with ideas about how to attach and hang them.
ArtIn art we will be using various painting techniques to explore and recreate types of weather. We will be using marbling techniques to create cloudy skies, laminating sheets to make light and shadow pictures for our windows, leaf rubbings to explore textures and patterns and wax candles to design rainy day pictures. We will be developing our colour mixing knowledge and applying it to our art projects. At home, why not spend some time lying on some grass looking up at the sky at the clouds – what shapes can you see? Can you make out any pictures in the clouds? You could take photos of the clouds and share them with us in class.