Welcome to Hedgehog class! Our teacher is Mrs Jackson, who has been teaching for 16 years, and has worked at Bedwell for the last 6. Her favourite things are Lindt chocolate and reading her Kindle. She doesn’t like running very much, and is scared of spiders!

• Our curriculum map - find out about our current topics
• Our latest class newsletter
• Meet our School Councillors, Carey and Joe 

Home learning ideas:

• 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 advice and guidance on using the books your child will bring home, here.
  
• Share stories, pictures, postcards and mementos from seaside trips in the past. What things did you do at the seaside? Why did you go to that particular place? If you’ve been to the seaside in different countries, think about what is similar and different about all these places.
• Work out maths problems while you’re out shopping: Each packet of sweets costs 32p - so how much will it cost to buy 3 packs? DIY is full of practical problems, too - I need 8 screws to put up each shelf, and Gran wants 4 shelves in the shed, so will this pack of 25 screws be enough? Work through problems together and think about what operations you’re using (+, -, x or ÷) at each stage.  
• We’re learning all about seeds, plants and growth, so a bit of gardening at home would be a great way to build on this knowledge. Plant seeds or flowers in the back garden or grow cress on the windowsill, and think about what these plants need in order to grow well (and what happens to them when we forget to water them!)

Our latest news:

• In science we have been learning about the way animals adapt to their habitats, and to help us better understand this topic we visited Paradise Wildlife Park. We met one of the zoo keepers, and then had a very enjoyable (if wet) day looking at the animals before eating our picnics and having a look around the dinosaur area.
 

 
• We also really enjoyed being involved in this year’s Science Week, which included animal workshops with Teaching Talons, a Knex Challenge and our annual Egg Drop competition.
  
 

 
• In geography, we have been learning about India. We focussed on Chembakolli, a small village in the south of India, and discussed how life there is different to Stevenage. We are very lucky to have Mrs Anderson in class who is originally from India, and she has told us lots of new things about this huge and amazing country, including sharing Rangoli patterns, spices and symbols. We also made our own chapatis and tried some Indian foods.
 

We have been learning about... 

Science & DT - We investigated the work of famous inventors. We read and wrote biographies of Thomas Edison, Charles Macintosh, the Wright Brothers and Henry Ford, and then designed our own amazing inventions to help solve everyday problems (like cleaning our rooms and doing our homework!) We had great fun junk-modelling our designs, and then wrote descriptions of how they worked.

English - In the first half of the term we read and learnt the story of Where the Wild Things Are. We arrived at school to find a boat had appeared and after some in depth discussions we established it belonged to Max from Where the Wild Things Are. We learnt the actions to retell the story and thought in depth about the settings. We have developed our understanding of adjectives and verbs and now know what a noun is.

Maths - We have been exploring number in depth over the last few weeks, building our understanding of place value with two digit numbers using a variety of counting manipulatives. We have been able to count on in ones and tens and thought about how the digits change when we do this. Our chanting of 2s, 5s and 10s is taking place daily, and we are also spending lots of time rehearsing our counting to 100 so we can recognise the numbers confidently.

This term's topics

English - Our next unit will see us focussing on explanation texts, based around animal life cycles. We will learn a model text to help us explore the features and structure of this tricky genre, and will then use this to support our own writing. We will be focussing on sentence structures, using causal conjunctions such as so and because to show the reason why things happen, as well as ensuring that we use key punctuation correctly. We will round-off our work by writing our own, independent explanations, explaining life cycles of other creatures. We will also continue to develop our phonics and spelling skills in daily Read Write Inc. sessions, and will practice our joined handwriting across all curriculum areas. 

Maths - We will begin by returning to our four core operations - addition, subtraction, multiplication and division - securing and developing the strategies we have worked on this year and then using them to solve lots of different types of practical and written problems. We will explore different ways we can represent problems, including through the use of pictures and bar models, and use these to independently decide what maths we need to do.

Science - We will be continuing to explore the world of plants, identifying their common features and recognising similarities and differences between plants found in different countries and different habitats. We will describe the way that seeds grow and develop into mature plants, and will design and carry-out tests to find out what things plants do (and don’t) need in order to grow well.

Humanities - In our geography lessons, we will be learning about seaside environments. We will discuss what people do when they go on seaside holidays and learn about natural and man-made features that we find in these places. We will then choose a specific seaside resort to investigate further (selected based on our own experiences) and compare this town with life in Stevenage. In history, meanwhile, we will explore seaside holidays from the past and discover how they have changed over the years. We will use photos, video clips and first-hand accounts to support our learning, and will use all of this to discuss how seaside environments have changed.

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