Welcome to Fieldmouse class! Our teacher is Mrs Devenish, who has been teaching at Bedwell for 16 years and loves making our lessons as creative as possible. Her favourite things are cooking and being outdoors, although she doesn’t like snow very much, and is scared of spiders.

• Our curriculum map - find out about our current topics
• Our latest school newsletter
• Meet our school councilors, Max and Willow

Home learning ideas:

• Try to do as much maths as you can when you're out and about:
  • Keep on practicing counting whenever and wherever you can - how many cars are there in the street? How many trees in the field? How many trollies in the supermarket, players on the team or stairs on the way to bed? Our focus is on numbers from 10-20 this term, so things that come in groups of this size are ideal for counting practice.
  • Practice writing numbers in sand, salt or water, or try making numbers out of groups of pebbles.
  • Practice counting in 2s, 5s and 10s - counting in multiples as you go up or down stairs; counting in 2s as you pair up socks; totalling up everyone’s fingers and toes by counting in 5s...
• Constant practice of reading and phonics is just about the most valuable thing you can do at home. Try to read with your child as often as possible and talk to them about what they’ve read - we've put together some guidance and advice on using the books your child will bring home here.  
• We follow the Read Write Inc phonics programme, and they have provided lots of guidance on supporting your child at home, which you can read here.
• Our history topic this term is the Great Fire of London, which provides lots of opportunities for learning beyond the classroom - try investigating the history, building models, drawing, painting pictures or reading about the lives of people who lived through it. There are loads of resources available through the Museum of London site at www.londonmuseum.org.uk/ .
  
• Do a little bit of exercise together and talk about the effect it has on your body - can you feel your heart beating a little faster? Can you feel which parts of your body are getting tired or sweaty? Help your child to understand that these are good things (so long as you don’t overdo it) and are a sign that your body is working hard.

Our latest news:

• In Year 1 and 2, we have been learning all about plants and animals this term, and to support our topic we spent a lovely day out at Whipsnade Zoo. While we were there, we got to meet lots of the animals that we have been investigating in class - everything from bears to penguins to ostriches! Whipsnade is huge, so to help us to see as much as possible, we took a trip on the zoo train to try to spot some of the animals that were hiding at the back of their enclosures! We also talked to some of the zoo keepers, who told us about the ways in which they look after their animals and try to protect endangered species. 
 

 
• In Year 1 and 2 this term, we have been learning all about animals and their habitats. We have investigated the differences between animals with fur, scales and feathers, and linked this to the creatures we saw on our trip to Whipsnade. We have also investigated places where animals live and linked this to the food that they eat and the ways in which they move. Having developed all of this knowledge, we then put it to good use on our latest art project, making paper mâché animal masks. We built up the basic structure of our masks by adding lots of layers of newspaper and glue, and then built up ears, beaks, noses and snouts that matched the shape of the creature we had chosen. Finally, we painted the masks to match the colouring of our animal, working carefully to include the spots, stripes and markings that make each of them unique. We were super proud of our finished masks, and loved showing them off in class!
 

 
• We loved getting involved in this year's Sports Week - you can find out more about everything we got up to here.  
 
• We have enjoyed attending Forest School. We have had great fun exploring the forest, engaging in different activities and making our own snack. We particularly liked making log dogs, making magical wands, drinking hot chocolate and playing games at the end of each session.
 

 
• To finish off our First Flight topic we went to visit Shuttleworth. We had a fantastic day and loved the different activities we completed. We learnt about mono-planes, bi-planes and tri-planes, found out why aircraft are painted different colours to keep them camouflaged and tried on some of hats that pilots wore. We also had the opportunity to have a ride on a vintage bus and watch planes taking off, flying and landing.
 

 

We have been learning about... 

English - This term’s texts have been Stanley’s Stick, Ruby’s Worry and Madlenka. We have concentrated on writing complete sentences, as well as learning to use exclamation marks and question marks.

History - This term our topic has been Up, Up and Away! We have been learning about flight and how it has changed throughout the years from gliders to the planes of today. 

Art  - We have looked at a variety of Indian art, including Madhabani and Rangoli patterns and spent lots of time trying to recreate our own pieces in this style.

This term's topics

English - We will begin the new half-term by exploring instructions. We will learn about the way that these texts are organised, using ‘you will need’ lists, numbered steps and time order, using a recipe for Gruffalo Crumble as our inspiration. We will then write our own recipes for imaginary foods. After that, we will focus on fairy stories, thinking about the way that different characters feel and the way in which they are described. This will lead to us writing our versions of stories that we know well. Throughout the term, we will continue to develop our spelling and phonics every day in our Read Write Inc sessions.

Maths - Our maths for the half-term will focus on learning our number bonds to 10, recognising all the different pairs of numbers we can add together to make 10. To help us find and learn these facts, we will be learning to use part-part-whole models, tens frames and bead strings to represent calculations in different ways. We will also begin to record these facts as number sentences. Once we have identified and learnt our bonds to ten, we will then use these skills to solve simple problems linked to our topic and learning in other areas. We will also continue to work on splitting numbers between 10 and 20 into ‘10 and some more’, as well as recognising the difference between odd and even numbers.

Science - We will be looking at how we can keep ourselves healthy. We will be looking at different food groups we should include in a balanced diet, and investigating how exercise can keep us strong. We will also be looking at the human body and discovering how different parts of the body work and why they are important to us.

Humanities - We will continue to learn about the Great Fire of London. We will find out what it was like to live through the fire by reading diary entries. We will also discover how the City of London fought the fire and the way that the London Fire Brigade has changed over the last 300 years - which should help us to think of lots of questions to ask when we get to interview real-life firefighters later in the term.

Take a look at our curriculum map for more information on our topics.