Living and Learning: Mental health
Mental Health
We’ve started a three week block of living and learning lessons around mental health this week. Being able to identify and talk about feelings and emotions is an important part of mental health. In our living and learning lessons, we have shared our feelings and emotions and talked about how emotions can change and that they don’t stay the same forever. We can look after our mental health by doing this regularly.
Writing – Little Red Riding Hood
This week, we have been been reading and acting out the story of Little Red Riding Hood. The children have enjoyed creating their own actions and using prosody to retell the story.
Next week, we have the author of Little Red (Bethan Woollvin) meeting us virtually. Little Red is an alternative version of Little Red Riding Hood.
Help at home by reading alternative versions of traditional tales and discussing similarities and differences.
Inspired artists
This half-term we have been looking at artists George Seurat and Bridget Riley. We were inspired particularly by Riley’s optical art and this week we have started the process of making our own op art. Over the next few weeks, we will be creating some 2 and 3D. We will be using black and white stripes that we drew and painted this week.
Year 5 reading
This week in reading, Year 5 have been enjoying a video called ‘Lily and the snowman.’ The video is a story about a child who builds a snowman and he comes to life. When the snowman starts to melt, Lily puts him in the freezer in the garage. Each day she brings him out and they sit and share stories together. Over time, Lily forgets about the snowman and she no longer visits him. Many years later, she remembers that he is still in the freezer in the garage and that she has forgotten all about him now that she is older and has so much to do. She returns to her parents house to see if he is still there – he is! The video is about always making time for the things you love. It might make you shed a tear – I nearly did!
The children have used the video to complete lots of learning over the week. They have thought of questions they could ask Lily and the Snowman. We then did a hot-seating activity in which a child takes on the role of a character. They must answer the questions as if they are the character. The children were also able to apply their oracy skills – voice projection, prosody and clarity and pronunciation.
Have a look at the video at home with your child. What do they like/dislike about it? Can they create some questions for the video? Can they infer what the characters are thinking or feeling?
Science investigation
Our mission, in science this week, was to investigate the effects of water resistance on objects. This followed on from our previous learning about how air resistance effects objects, in which the children found that the impact of air resistance increases, the larger the surface area of the object. We wondered if the same rule applied this time.
The children created five different shapes using plasticine. They had to ensure the mass of each one was the same, but the surface area needed to be different. This is known as the independent variable. The children dropped the shapes into a container of water and timed how long they took to reach the bottom. We had to be very quick at timing! The results were recorded in a table and our next job is to work out the average time for each shape and analyse the results. From this, the children will write a scientific conclusion.
Ask your child about the investigation. Can they tell you about different types of variables withing investigations? You could even set up a similar activity at home and see what results you get.
Living and learning : Mental Health
We’ve started a three week block of living and learning lessons around mental health this week. Being able to identify and talk about feelings and emotions is an important part of mental health. In our living and learning lessons, we have shared our feelings and emotions and talked about how emotions can change and that they don’t stay the same forever. We can look after our mental health by doing this regularly.
3,4B: writing
We’ve been enjoying our writing in 3,4B recently. During our history topic, we wrote some recounts. We imagined we were an Ancient Greek warrior returning to our homeland (Athens) after a long battle.
Check out these examples…
Throughout all our writing, we’ve been learning lots of grammar. In particular, we’ve been focussing on securing our knowledge of word classes.
We’ve learnt about lots of word classes:
nouns – a person, place or thing
proper nouns – the specific name of a person, place or thing
verbs – a doing or being word
adjectives – a word that describes a noun
It’s important to remember that the word class of a word can change. A word isn’t just a noun all of the time. It depends what it’s job is in that particular sentence.
In this sentence, walked (from the verb ‘to walk’) is a verb because it’s the action that’s been done by the dog.
The dog walked to the park.
In this sentence, walk is a noun because it’s the thing that’s being done. The verb would be ‘went’ coming from the verb ‘to be’.
The dog went for a walk.
Help at home by…
- asking your child about their writing learning
- asking them to spot nouns around the house
- practising their spellings
- reading with, and to, them (ideally, every day)
Writing: instructions
This week, children will be writing a set of instructions for our printing process in art.
Today, we had a go at reading and following a set of instructions. As you can see from the photos, we had different levels of success.
At home, discuss why you might need a set of instructions. Do all instructions share the same features? You might like to try following a set of instructions for an art project (https://artprojectsforkids.org/)
3,4 A Class News
Week 3 of this term has come and gone in a flash!
In Writing, we’ve been looking at expanded noun phrases and using them to write interesting character descriptions.
In Reading, we’ve been focusing on the skill of retrieval across three different winter poems.
In Maths, we’ve been working on column subtraction and continuing to practise our times tables.
In P.E (pictured), we have been creating sequences of different static shapes in groups and then incorporating a variety of movements between each shape.
Beyond our usual lessons, we also enjoyed our themed anti-bullying day and preparing for our upcoming class assembly!
Reading Records: WAGOLL
Your child may sometimes come home from school and say that they have seen a WAGOLL. We often use WAGOLL (What A Good One Looks Like) to demonstrate how we want a particular piece of work or behaviour to look like. Today I want to share an example of a WAGOLL Reading Record.
Our expectation for pupils is a minimum of 10 to 15 minutes reading at home each day with an adult. When the child has read with their adult, the date, book title and pages read needs to be recorded in the diary section, and the adult needs to sign this. Furthermore, if homework has been set, this must also be completed. This allows the pupil to immerse themselves into the text beyond simply reading to a target page. We are seeing an increasing number of pupils who either forget to bring their reading records or forgot to complete the homework.
It is vital that pupils are reading at home, and completing the homework when set.
Parents, please continue to support your child’s reading at home. Developing their competence in this area is vital in them being able to access the wider curriculum.