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Penguin Class

2024-2025

Welcome back to Penguin Class - Term 3

A very warm welcome to our class page. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas holiday and are ready for another term of exciting learning. After a term 2 full of Christmas activities, a school trip to Leeds Castle and a visit from the Tenterden Wildlife Trust, we can’t wait to hear all your news! This term there are a lot of exciting things planned for you and we are, of course, having our Outdoor Learning on a Wednesday afternoon which I know we are all looking forward to.

There will also be some changes in the Penguin Team as Mrs. Osborn starts her maternity leave. We wish her and her family all the best in this important time in their lives. As a result, Mrs. Moss will be teaching on a Monday and Wednesday to Friday; Mrs. Price will be teaching on a Tuesday.

In Term 3, in English we are going to start the term by looking at the text ‘Lubna and Pebble’ which is a powerful story about friendship. Through this story, we will be looking at letter writing, sequencing a story and also revisiting writing instructions and the imperative! We will then be moving onto a text ‘Escape from Pompeii’ which will link in nicely with our Wider curriculum topic of ‘I am Warrior’ where we will be looking at the Romans.

In Maths, we are going to be starting our second Power Maths book where we will be looking at a variety of different topics.

The year two children will be exploring  money where they will be counting money, making the correct amount, comparing money and finding the correct change. They will then be looking at multiplication and division where they will be making equal groups, learning all about arrays and multiplication number sentences. 

The year three children are going to continue to learn about multiplication and division so please do keep practising your times tables at home, it really does make a huge difference. We will also have a look at length and perimeter, where the children will be comparing lengths in different measurements.  The children should now have a secure understanding of their 2, 5 and 10 times tables and this year they should focus on learning their 3, 4 and 8 times table. Every child has access to Times Table Rockstars, which is a fantastic resource that we urge children to make the most of. The children have their own log-ins inside their reading diaries.

You can access TT Rockstars via this link: https://ttrockstars.com/

Wider Learning 

Our Cornerstones driver topic for the term is ‘I am Warrior’, where we will be looking at two groups; the Celts and the Romans. We’ll research Celtic and Roman warriors. Using different source materials we’ll investigate the Roman Empire and read Roman numerals. The Celtic warrior queen, Boudicca, will inspire us to create stories, models and artwork. Using maps, globes and information books, we will compare Britain (the home of the Celts) and Rome (the home of the Romans).

Computing will see us continue our learning through the Teach Computing Curriculum. Our Stop frame animation learning last term was enjoyed by Penguin Class and we are looking forward to seeing them developing their programming skills via Scratch.

In French, we are going to be looking at the topic ‘les formes’ - shapes. This will allow us to look at nouns and begin to understand the importance of the indefinite article when learning French.

PE - We are going to be focusing on Dance this term. We will be looking at learning a routine and also choreographing our own part of the dance. Our P.E day continues to be a Thursday, please make sure your child comes into school wearing their full P.E kit on this day. Can we also remind you that jewellery, including earrings, should not be worn for PE. If your child has earrings please ensure they can remove them or please remove them before they come to school.

Our topic in RE is going to be ‘Why is Jesus inspiring to some people?’’. We will be learning and exploring different reasons why Jesus is considered an inspiring figure by Christians.

Home Learning - will be set every Wednesday. The homework will be set on Google Classroom and will cover a variety of topics and curriculum subjects. This learning can be presented online or brought to school. Please can this be completed by a MONDAY.

We would also like every child to read daily as this is crucial for supporting your child in every aspect of their learning. Please do let us know if you would like to know anything more about this.

As well as completing the set homework every week we encourage children to go onto TT Rockstars and Spelling Shed as much as possible. Spellings are set every week, where we will focus on a particular spelling pattern. These will be set on Spelling Shed but can be practised in many ways on paper too - please see Mrs. Moss if you would like some ideas!

Our Learning Environment: