Barrier Reef
Class
Welcome to Barrier Reef Class. We are a lively, active class of mixed Reception and Year One children. We like to choose our learning in as practical a way as possible alongside following our school’s The Write Stuff literacy lessons and Monster Phonics programme for both the EYFS and KS1.
Our teacher is Mrs Davies and our lovely teaching assistants are Mrs Gill, Monday to Thursday, and Mrs Pickering on Fridays. Miss Errington and Mrs Ball also work with our class as 1 to 1 support.
We like to be outside as much as inside and can choose our learning for much of the day, often considering the topics, phonics or maths we are focussing on, but also as importantly following our own ideas and interests. No year follows the same pattern in Jess French Class as our teachers know the best learning is derived from our own interests.
What are we learning
about this term?
This term we are learning about Antarctica. Did you know? Antarctica is a desert - but it's not hot, it's really, really cold. It's called a desert because it hardly ever rains. The South Pole is near the middle of Antarctica. That's the very bottom of the planet. In parts of Antarctica the winter temperature can be minus 60°C. The first person to reach the South Pole was called Roald Amundsen. Nobody lives in Antarctica permanently. Some scientists stay there to work and carry out research. They may spend months indoors in the research stations. When the weather gets bad, they are cut-off from the rest of the world.
In English, we start the term by writing an adventure story based on the book 'Grandad's Island' by Benji Davies. We shall further apply our knowledge of the ‘FANTASTICs’, ‘BOOMTASTICs’ and ‘GRAMMARISTICs’ by using writing techniques such as adjectives, noun phrases and conjunctions (just to name a few!) throughout our writing. We will also be looking at the following units to further improve our writing: Penguins, Letter to the Queen and Ice Planet.
This term, we are also focusing on Guided Reading where we shall be looking at a different extract each week from a book related to Rainforests. Some examples include: Adelie Penguins, Antarctic Tundra, Emperor's Egg, Shackleton's Journey, Ocean Emporium, The Snail and the Whale and The Fox and the Star.
In Maths, we will be focusing on Multiplication and Division, Place Value and Shape.
