Welcome to Lighthouse Class!

Welcome to the web page for Term 1. Please read on to find all about our learning in Lighthouse Class this term. The homework grid and medium term plan are also at the bottom of the page.

English

To start off the term, the whole school is doing an ambitious project based on the poetry collection, 'The Lost Words' by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris. To begin with, the children had some words from nature to explore. The words slowly started to vanish. We thought about how important words are and what would happen if all of our words got lost! We then learned that the poems in the book are acrostic poems, and we wrote our own poems together, using our names. Later on in the week, we learned that describing words are called 'adjectives'. The children went on a nature walk and found two objects that they would like to write about. They collected adjectives to describe their objects. We had some excellent ideas! Next week, the children will be writing their own acrostic poem!

Our second class text this term is 'The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch'. We spent some time getting to know the text, sequencing events in the story and using drama and stick puppets to act out the story. We discovered that Mr Grinling has a problem in the story - the seagulls keep stealing his lunch! As part of our DT learning, we made beeswax wraps to protect sandwiches, and we combined English (following instructions) with DT (food and nutrition) to make sandwiches! Take a look at some of the photos that show Lighthouse Class acting out the story using stick puppets and then following instructions to make their sandwiches!

Maths

To start off with, we will be consolidating and building upon our knowledge of place value in Lighthouse Class. The children have already been showing me their excellent counting skills and how well they can write their numbers. We have been counting objects from a group, and seeing how many are left. So far, we have been using bead strings, Numicon, 2-D shapes and ten frames to support us with our counting.

We have been comparing numbers using the inequality symbols < > and =. We have been using the language of 'greater than', 'less than' and 'equal to'. To help us with our learning, we watched 'Numbergator' and found out that numbergators always eat the greatest number. We used art straws to make our own inequality symbols to compare numbers.

We have moved onto addition and subtraction in Lighthouse Class and we have been using part-whole models to identify the parts that make up a whole. We learned that we add the two parts to make a whole and we have been writing addition number sentences!

Project

In Project, we are learning all about our local area. This will include the children being able to visit some of the places in our local area. This is mainly a Geography project, and the children will be learning all about local landmarks and map-drawing. To start off with, we made a spider diagram of what we already know about Dover.

To learn about our local geography, we had a trip to Dover Castle. We looked out for local landmarks and also learned a bit about local history!

In DT, we were faced with a problem - how to keep Mr Grinling's sandwiches safe from the pesky seagulls! The class looked at ways in which we can protect sandwiches from the elements and discussed the good and bad points of each. They then made their own beeswax wraps. Finally, they made sandwiches to put into the beeswax wraps, and had a picnic outside as part of our 10:10.

Music

In Music, we have been listening to lots of underwater-world themed music. We have learned that 'pulse' is the heartbeat of the music and that 'tempo' is how fast or slow the music is. We enjoyed being sharks and moving around the classroom, changing our speed as the tempo of the Jaws theme changed! We have also learned that each instrument has its own voice or 'timbre'. We listened to a piece of music played on the Celeste and watched a video all about its special voice. We then had the opportunity to select instruments that could represent small fishes. We played them carefully and quietly.

Art

So far this term, Lighthouse Class have been developing their painting skills. The children learned that there are three primary colours and they had a go at mixing these to make other colours. They also worked together to paint lighthouses, but they didn't use brushes - they used sponges, sticks and plastic pallet knives!