We have made it to the halfway point in the term. Three more weeks of fantastic learning to go!

RWI

This week in RWI we continue learning our set 2 sounds and reviewing our set 1 sounds. As the term progresses, most groups are focusing on reading in our groups including RED words. ‘You can’t Fred a red!’ Red words do not follow the rules, and we have to work out which part is being naughty. We learn these and practice speedily reading them. Please continue to read at home with your child, it really is helping to support their learning at school.

Maths

Our learning this week has been the composition of numbers 4 and 5. We continued using a part part whole model to identify how to break a number into parts. Our challenge was to find more than 2 parts eg 5 is made up of 2 and 2 and 1. Once we were confident to speedily recall the composition of numbers 1-5, we had an extra challenge. We had to ‘conceptually subitise.’ This is using our subitising skills to see 2 parts and know the total eg ‘I notice there are 2 here and 2 here, and I know that 2 and 2 makes 4. We were blown away with the children’s recall of number facts and subitising.

Next week in maths we are comparing numbers.

Thematic

This week children have enjoyed learning facts about the planets in our solar system. We thought of our own species of aliens who went on a journey through space, hearing about the planets they pass including the planet furthest from the sun, an icy giant….. Neptune! Some facts we learnt included Mars having the tallest volcano in the solar system- Olympus Muns and that the sun is a star. We used this information to write simple sentences. We learnt that a sentence has to follow rules, including having a capital letter at the beginning, finger spaces, a full stop at the end, and using our fred fingers to segment sounds in words.

In music we listened to Gustav Holst the Planets. Mr Redwood taught us how the planets are named after Greek gods and this influenced each piece of music. For example, Mars the God of war was a loud, fast paced piece of music which made us want to march. We used the drums to help us express ourselves whilst listening. Following our music lesson, we expressed ourselves in different ways whilst listening to the Planets. We used pens and pencils, ribbons and instruments to move to the music and show how the music made us feel.

 We discussed the sizes of the planets in comparison to each other, and created a piece of art to represent the solar system, the planet sizes and their appearance.

Next week we will be learning about the moon landing.

Important information

-Please see attached information regarding a school wide art competition

- Reading at 3 continues every Friday- thank you so much for all your efforts. We really appreciate your time.

A message from Miss Isaac

Hello Chilton families,

This week, the whole school is took part in the Big Schools' BirdWatch to collect data for the RSPB. We are inviting you to take part at home too. Here's what you need to do:

1. ‎Choose an hour between 23 and 25 January 2026

2, Only record the birds that land in your garden

3. Record the highest number of each bird species you see at any one time

4. Sign up online and submit your results to the RSPB. Here's the link: Big Garden Birdwatch

Miss Isaac, who is Chilton's science leader, would love to see any photos of you doing this and also know any particularly interesting birds you saw. Feel free to send her an email: carol.isaac@chiltonprimary.co.uk

If you are fan of being out in nature and would like to show off your photography skills, you might be interested in the competition outlined below:

Bird Wise East Kent and Thanet Coast Project have teamed up to host a photography competition. There is a category for under 18s with the winner and runner up having their work displayed in Margate, Whitstable and Ramsgate. The deadline is midnight on Sunday 15^th February. Please go to their website for more information: Photography Competition | Bird Wise East Kent

Have fun twitching!

Miss Isaac

Important dates

Friday 6th February – NSPCC number day (Reception and KS1 children to come in dressed in number themed clothes/KS2 to come in dressed as a Times Table Rock Star) 

Tuesday 10th February – Safer internet day 

Friday 13th February – Non-school uniform day

Friday 13th February - Chilton Fundraisers Winter Disco 

Friday 13th February – Last day of term. School finishes at usual time

Have a great weekend!

From the Reception Team