Class 2 News

Animal Fables

Dear Class 2 Families and Friends,

Our Class 2 Meeting is on Wednesday 29th May 4-5pm.

We are currently learning about Place Value in our Maths Main Lesson. Preparing for the Class 2 Autumn Fair Presentation is the focus of our Morning Circle.

Our next Main Lesson, Animal Fables, starts the week after The Autumn Fair (Week 7). We have started exploring some fables already as the children seem to be encountering some social difficulties and we are able to explore these issues through animal stories.

The central experience of studying Animal Fables supports the children as they moves to an awareness of the range of human characteristics from the wise to the foolish, from the ethically inspiring to the ethically questionable. Cultures have personified these differing human qualities through the image of animal qualities such as those of Aesop’s fables e.g. the hare and the tortoise story contrasts the superficial hare with the solid but less flashy work ethic of the ultimately successful tortoise. 

These stories continue to provide valuable lessons in ethical and values education. Children continue to bring a creative response to the learning experience through the writing and illustrating of their own books: they continue to build a bank of sight words, continue to master a variety of simple phonic patterns through word families. 

These imaginative renditions of human foibles are examples of how traditional cultures provided collective groundings in emotional intelligence. These narratives distil observations of human faults and failings into simple imaginative pictures which become part of the growing child’s emotional repertoire of understandings of their social world. Through the internalized imagery of the imagination, the growing child is prepared for the variety of human personality traits they will encounter in the future.

If you would like to come and share your favourite fable with us, let me know.

Slippers or thick socks can be kept in children's lockers for these very cold mornings.

Thank you!

See you at The Autumn Fair!

Jessica