Literacy - Text 1: Welcome Home Bear by Il Sung Na

Text 2: Habitats by Hannah Pang

We have loved reading ‘Welcome Home Bear’ in our Communication, Language and Literacy sessions. The book really inspired us to dig deep into our knowledge of habitats and create our own sentences using nouns, adjectives and verbs. We have been using the internet to research what animals come from different continents and write fact files about our findings. We have begun exploring Clicker to help us build sentences about our text. We will continue this next half term, using our second text ’Habitats’ by Hannah Pang. 

We will use all the knowledge we have learned to write our own books about animals and their habitats using Clicker.

We really have been challenging ourselves in our Mathematical sessions this term. In our Number lessons we have been developing our addition and subtraction skills. We have looked at some really tricky concepts including column method, exchanging and carrying numbers- even up to 10,000 and beyond! We have also really focused on our times tables, covering our 2, 5, 10, 3, 4 and 6 times tables this half term alone! Our Shape, Space and Measure sessions focus on the concept of length and height. In these lessons will be learning to group objects based on their size, comparing and sorting objects based on size and measuring objects. We will use rulers and measuring tapes in measure in centimetres and metres, recording and comparing our results.

In our PSHE lessons, we are learning about The World I Live In, respecting differences between people, belonging to a community and rules and laws. This half term we are using the text ‘A World For Me and You’ by Uju Asika  & Jennie Poh, linking this text to our own communities including who special people are in them and what special things our pupils do with their families. We will be having a culture day after half term to showcase the range of cultures we have at Delius, and how we can show respect when learning about them. After term we will move to the text ‘Let's Explore Our Rights’ by the Children and Young People's Commissioner for Scotland, where we will be looking into what our rights are, why they are important and need to be respected and who we can go to if we think our rights are not being respected.

In our Understanding the World Science sessions, we have been learning all about living things and their habitats. We have explored the differences between living and non-living things, even comparing their properties to items that have never been alive. We have been learning about invertebrates and vertebrates and classifying animals into their correct categories. We have loved learning all about what a microhabitat is and who might live in one. We have used our outdoor areas to look for the perfect microhabitats for some of the insects we have been learning about.

Our second area we are covering in our Understanding the World sessions is Geography. Within these lessons we will be learning about different habitats from around the world. We will be learning about what animals live in each habitat and will then match the animals to the correct habitat. We will also learn about why some animals only live in certain habitats, and why they are best suited to these habitats including the weather. To finish the term we will design and make a hedgehog or bird house and place it in the best sport in our outdoor area

In our Expressive Art and Design Drama sessions, we have been developing our confidence and performance skills by exploring the infamous Roald Dahl text, James and the Giant Peach. We began our sessions by watching a version of the play so that we could really understand the characteristics of each character. We identified who the main characters were and began building our performances from there. We used props and costumes to embody the roles we were given, and worked hard rehearsing our script and learning our lines.

The second area we are working on as part of our Expressive Art and Design curriculum is Art.  Within these sessions we will be learning all about printmaking with natural resources. We will be looking at local outdoor spaces around Bradford and deciding what elements we like. We will learn about identifying natural materials and use their knowledge to create prints of our favorite outdoor locations.

Our first half term physical development sessions have focused on ballroom dancing. Some of us have become tango and waltz professionals! We have been learning some of the basic steps of ballroom dancing, including swaying, two stepping and holding a frame. We have then been composing our own ballroom dance in a 3 or 4 step pattern with a partner. In the second half term we will be learning some of the moves of Bhangra dancing, practicing these and linking them together. We will perform our dance as a group in assembly.

In our Understanding the World (RE) sessions, we have been learning about how different people express their spirituality. We will look at Christianity and Islam, learning about how pictures are used in Christianity but not in Islam. We will also look at how calligraphy and geometric shapes are used to express beliefs in Islam instead of pictures. After half term we will focus on how geometric shapes and images are used to express beliefs in Christianity, looking at stained glass windows and the importance of these.