Term 3 

Welcome back to St Thomas' Primary Academy. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas break and enjoyed time with your families. We are very excited to see the children continue to progress with their learning and take part in lots of exciting opportunities. This term the children will be learning all about superheroes both in fiction and in real life. This will include identifying people who help us in the community and their roles. They will continue to explore numbers to 5 but focus on the composition of numbers and also explore weight and capacity. The children's love for Maths is shining through and all our lessons encourage the children to explain their reasonings and apply their learning in their independent learning time. Throughout our Understanding of the World learning, the children will begin to identify places in the community that are special to them and others. PE lessons will take place every Friday and all children should have both an indoor and outdoor PE kit, this is so the children are able to keep warm throughout the winter weather. 

This week our story focus has been `Supertato`. The children have enjoyed learning about different superheroes and retelling the story of Supertato and the Evil Pea. In choosing time, there has been many learning opportunities for the children and many have challenged themselves to draw pictures and label the characters using their sounds. During our adult led groups, the children have use vegetables and props to retell the story using vocabulary from the story. We have been very impressed by their enthusiasm and acting skills. Well done Reception! 

The children have been learning about people who help us in the community and discussing what job they would like to have when they grow up. The children could articulate well why they would choose these roles and how they wanted to help others. 

This week Love class have been learning about the season of Winter. The children had the opportunity to explore our outdoor area and identify the different signs of Winter. Everyone noticed how the trees were bare and the temperature was very cold. They were fascinated by our frozen stream and how icy some of the areas were. Together we compared Winter to the previous season Autumn. 

In our Art lessons, Reception created their own Winter scene using water colours. They created a blue background and added salt to create an icy effect. After when the paiint had dried, the children drew Winter trees and painted on snow and a moon. 

Posting a letter 

This week the children have been reading the story The Jolly Postman. This has linked in well with our learning about People who help us. The children have all had the opportunity to walk to the post box to post a letter. We can't wait for the pupils at St Thomas' to receive them. 

Reception have been learning about the celebration of Chinese New Year and why it is celebrated each year. The children discussed the special parades and dragon dances that take place and read the story The Great Race in their Literacy Lesson. On Monday, the children all visited a Chinese restaurant and had the opportunity to taste different foods. 

Maths

In Maths, the children have been using the part part whole method to build numbers in different ways and begin to explore addition. The children enjoyed using stickers and working practically to solve the problems.