Autumn 2 2022-23 topic

 Rumble in the Jungle

Our topic for this half term is ‘Rumble in the Jungle!'. 

Week 1: What types of animals live in the school grounds?

This week we are going on an outdoor adventure to be 'animal detectives'! Our job will be to find out if there are any special places where creatures like to live in our school grounds. We will be sketching the insects that we find and thinking about the conditions that they prefer to live in. We are then going to choose a woodlouse to keep as a pet, just for a few days. We will be exploring how to recreate their habitat and thinking about what we need to collect from outside to emulate this. We will be caring for the woodlouse and making sure that we return it to its natural environment after a few days.

Week 2: What types of animals live in Heanor?

This week we will be reflecting back on our visit to Shipley Park in Autumn 1 and thinking about what animals we saw. We will be locating Heanor on a map and thinking about the key physical features of the area that we live in. We will also explore the human features of the area that we live in, such as shops, roads and fences. We will explore why some animals choose to live in Heanor and we will relate this to the climate and the key physical features of the area. 

Week 3: What is a bird?

This week we will recap our Science learning on mammals, and we will learn all about a new animal group: birds. We will explore the features and structure of birds and what birds like to eat. We will compare this to mammals and think about similarities and differences. Finally, we will create our own animal riddles. We will describe either a bird or a mammal, and our friends will have to guess which animal we are describing based on its key features! 

Week 4: What is a fish?

This week we will `begin by recapping our previous learning on the mammal and birds animal groups. We will then be introduced to a new animal group: fish. We will learn about the key features of fish and what fish like to eat, and we will compare this with birds and mammals and think about key similarities and differences. Finally we will sort a range of animals into the three animal categories that we have learned about so far: birds, mammals and fish. We will write sentences comparing the animals, explaining why they are in different animal groups. We will use lots of new scientific vocabulary, such as fins and gills. 

Week 5: What types of animals live in the Sumatran rainforest?

This week we will begin by reflecting back on our learning about the physical Geography of Heanor. We will think about the key physical features of our area and what makes it so nice for certain animals to live in, such as the temperate climate, soil, and vegetation. We will then be explorers and we will find the Sumatran rainforest on a map. We will learn all about the climate and the key physical features of the Sumatran rainforest. We will compare this to Heanor and think about similarities and differences. Finally, we will make predictions about what animals we think will live in the rainforest and why!

Week 6 Question: What do animals eat?

This week we will begin to explore what animals like to eat. We will be introduced to the terminology carnivore, herbivore and omnivore. We will complete a very fun Science experiment using pretend animal poo! We will dissect a range of different 'animal poo's' and decide whether the poo belongs to a carnivore, herbivore or omnivore based on what we find in the poo! We will be recording our findings like real Scientists. 

Week 7 Question: Can we name different parts of an animal?

This week we will finish our topic by exploring the structures of a range of animals. We will be Scientists, using the correct vocabulary to label different animals. We will independently research an animal of our choice and explore the vocabulary required to describe it. We will then draw and label the animal. We will try to draw and label an animal from each of the animal groups that we have learned about! 

Maths

This half term we will be continuing with addition and subtraction. We will be using part-part whole models and number sentences to represent an addition or subtraction sentence. Children will also learn to recognise and sort 2D and 3D shapes.

Literacy

We will be exploring lots of cross– curricular stories about animals. We will be looking at retelling parts of a story using a Talk for Writing story map. This is where we use images and orally retell the story. This helps us when we are writing sentences. We will be exploring tenses and subject/verb identification.  We will also be continuing our Phase 5 Phonics, learning alternate pronunciations and spellings for the phonemes we already know. 

Science

PSHE

R.E.