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Welcome Back! We hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Christmas holiday and New Year, and that you had a well-deserved rest. We are excited to begin the new term and explore our engaging topic together.

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Our Topic: Journeys Out of This World

This half-term, our learning will focus on the theme Journeys Out of This World. We will explore both fictional and non-fictional journeys beyond our planet. A key text will be Whatever Next by Jill Murphy, following Baby Bear’s imaginative trip to the moon. Alongside this, we will learn about real-life lunar expeditions undertaken by astronauts in the past.

How you can help at home:

• Share stories about space or watch short, age-appropriate videos about astronauts and the moon.
• Talk about what your child imagines they might take on a journey to space—this encourages creativity and language development.

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Creative Activities

Children will have the opportunity to express their creativity through a variety of art and craft projects. These will include designing and constructing moon buggies, creating space-themed collages by printing stars, and making moon rubbings using rocks and wax.

How you can help at home:

• Collect recyclable materials for building models (e.g., boxes, tubes, foil).
• Look at the night sky together and talk about what you can see—stars, the moon, and planets.

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Literacy

In Literacy, we will enjoy a range of stories and texts linked to our topic. We will continue practising letter formation and begin writing short captions and sentences using our phonics knowledge. Additionally, we will learn new sounds in Phonics to support both reading and writing development.

How you can help at home:

• Read with your child daily and talk about the story together.
• Practise writing simple words or captions using the sounds they know.
• Encourage your child to spot letters and words in everyday places (signs, packaging, etc.).

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Mathematics

In Maths, we will play counting games and explore numbers up to 10 in depth. We will continue working on number bonds to 5 and 10, practising how to record these as number sentences. Children will also learn the names of common 2D shapes and use them to create their own shape-based pictures.

How you can help at home:

• Count objects around the house together (e.g., spoons, toys).
• Play simple number games, such as “What comes next?” or “How many more to make 10?”
• Spot shapes in your environment and talk about their names and properties.

Mrs Grindey, Mrs Orr and Miss Purslow

 

Key Information

PE day – Monday (Please send your child to school in their PE Kit for the day)

Book changing day – Wednesday

 

Books we will be reading this half-term...