P3 Term 2 - Time for a Change

Happy New Year!

We hope you have all had a lovely Christmas break.

It’s been a busy ‘back to school’ so far and it looks like that will continue.

Here are some of the things we plan to do until Easter.

Our theme is ‘Time for a Change’ and within this we are going to discuss and decide on:

• Personal changes that we can all make (yes, those dreaded New Year’s Resolutions)
• Changes in weather- making weather charts, writing and presenting weather reports (Frank Mitchell, watch out!) and learning about wicked weather- tornadoes, tsunami etc.
• Changes in animals- how they develop- metamorphis
• Changes in plants as they grow.
• Changes in substances- steam      water     ice
• What happens when we cook food? – E.g. melting chocolate

Please send anything you think might ‘link-in’ with this – books, pictures etc.

Mathematics

This term we will be continuing to learn tables each night so children have quick recall of number facts.

We are aiming to know our numbers to 100. We should be able to count to this number and recognise all numbers in written form. We will use little ‘word problems’ to help your child develop problem solving skills and decide whether to add or subtract to get the correct answer. Please help them with this at home by giving them little puzzles to work out for themselves.

In measures we will do some activities involving weighing things (hopefully not the teachers!) and measuring liquids. They will become more familiar with terms like ‘heavier’ ‘lightest’ and ‘half-full’ ‘empty’. We will also measure lengths and use non-standard measures to do this. From this the children will see the need to have a standard measurement and we will introduce terms such as ‘shorter than a metre’ and ‘longer than a metre’.

Please help your child learn the months of the year and if you want to teach them the little rhyme:

‘30 days has September,

April, June and November.

All the rest have 31

Except February alone,

Which has 28 days clear

And 29 in each leap year.’

Time- we have already learned how to tell the time using quarter past and quarter to and now we are introducing reading time on a digital clock. Encourage your child to read the time from a digital clock e.g. an alarm clock.

Literacy

We continue to learn about alphabetical order- putting lists of words into alphabetical order and how to use a dictionary. Continue to check that your child knows the alphabet and can use a dictionary to search for words.

In Grammar, we continue to learn about recognising and using adjectives and nouns. This term we will learn to recognise verbs in sentences. Good punctuation and handwriting is essential as always in every piece of written work.

Please continue to check your child is using these skills properly in their written homework.

Our literacy focus this year is ‘writing’. Read to your children, encourage them to read independently as this helps to develop their creativity, gives them good examples of how to write in a way that effectively communicates their ideas and helps with spelling.