Maths – place value
Year 1 and 2 have been focusing on place value for the past few weeks. Knowing the order of numbers, what each digit is worth and how numbers can be partitioned (split up) are all essential.
Year 1s are sorting, ordering and comparing numbers using great than > and less than < symbols.
Year 2s are using base 10 equipment (tens and ones) place value charts, part whole models and Numicon to represent and partition numbers.
Help your child at home by talking about numbers, comparing them and finding out how many tens and ones a number has.
Homework: weekly check
Each week, children have a times tables and spelling check. This helps us to tailor our teaching to meet the needs of individual questions. In year 5/6, we have 8 questions for times tables knowledge and 8 for spelling.
As you can see in the picture, the times tables check covers multiplication, division, inverse calculations and scaling by 10 or 100. Use this as a guide when working with your children at home. Little and often will help children to retain key facts. Perhaps, while cooking, walking to school or just after a five minute daily session on Timestables Rockstars.
Class 5/6A News w/e 30th September
Another week has flown by in Class 5/6A. Let’s see what the pupils have been getting up to this week …
Our Writing focus this week has been on effective note taking and using these to create informative summaries. A whole host of topics were covered in their summaries, ranging from Shrek and Leeds Rhinos, through to the Isle of Arran and The Queen! It’s been lovely to see the pupils engage enthusiastically with subjects they are so passionate about.
In Topic, we have travelled all the way back to 3,000BCE and explored some of the ancient civilisations that existed at the time, namely the Shang Dynasty, Ancient Sumer and the Indus Valley. Next stop, Ancient Egypt. Circle Time has been reintroduced into our weekly timetable and allows the pupils the opportunity to discuss our Living and Learning focus in more depth and share their thoughts on a range of topics.
We are looking forward to welcoming parents to our ‘Watch us while we work’ session on Tuesday morning and be able to see our pupils in action in the classroom. It’s been very pleasing to see the number of pupils who had completed their reading records this week. A big well done to pupils and parents for keeping on track with their reading! Remember to keep working hard on your times tables practice. If you need access to your TT Rockstars or Numbots account, do let me know and I’ll provide you with login details.
Finally, over to our certificate winners for this week:
Summer (Learning) – Making huge progress towards independent learning in Maths, a brilliant summary on the life of The Queen, and an overall positive attitude.
Emilia (Sport) – Infectious enthusiasm which rubs off on her classmates. Showing real flair in her volleyball serving and passing.
Amelie (Living and Learning) – Constantly providing insightful and mature answers in group discussions, and for embracing our Circle Time values.
Have a great weekend!
Basketball and debating skills in 3,4B
Over the past few weeks, 3,4 B have been enjoying developing their basketball skills. Amazing passing, footwork, teamwork and enjoyment have been clear to see. We have been very impressed with the positive competition between the children and how they have been able to take into account other people’s feelings about winning/losing.
We have also been proud of the debating skills that took place this week. Somehow 7-9 year olds are excellent at expressing their opinion and displaying quick thinking to formulate a response. Linked to our topic on Greece, the children were debating which was the best city state: Athens or Sparta.
The class have been settling well into the routines of 3,4 B. We are particularly proud of their good manners.
The Everywhere Bear
Phonics
This week the children have learnt the phonemes (the sound a letter makes) o,g,c and k. The children have been listening to and saying words that begin with these phonemes (the sound a letter makes). They have also been practicing writing the graphemes (the written letter).
You may choose to play an I Spy game at home using these new phonemes (the sound a letter makes).
Maths
This week we have been focussing on our counting skills – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are.
We have explored how all sorts of things can be counted, including sounds. By singing rhymes, we have enjoyed developing our knowledge of the counting sequence.
The Everywhere Bear
We have loved listening to the story – The Everywhere Bear.
We have created our own story maps using key events from the story.
Swimming
Rainbow class have had their first swimming lesson this week. They have had lots of fun!
Poetry Picnic
Each week, we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line.
Our first poem is Chop Chop.
Check out our other learning…
Learn at home phonics sheet
Today, your child has come home with a new ‘learn at home’ phonics sheet. The sheets link to our current learning in phonics and will be sent home each Friday. Please support your child by practising their new sounds and reading skills at home.
Home-Link
Autumn is here and the children have enjoyed exploring acorns and conkers.
Go on an autumn walk and collect, draw or discuss all the signs of autumn. You may choose to collect items to bring into school or email pictures.
Sorting, threading and making friends
We’ve had a great week; there’s a lovely atmosphere in Nursery when everyone is busy and engaged in their play. Children are beginning to make friends and are chatting to staff and their peers as they play.
In our maths area, children have been exploring sorting objects in different ways. Some children sorted them by colour and others grouped them according to the size or type of object.
Have a go at sorting some toys together at home. How could you sort the cars or buttons?
The ‘Fiddly fingers’ area of the Rainbow Room has been popular this week, too. Children have enjoyed making chains out of the linking shapes and carefully threading beads onto a lace. These activities are great for strengthening children’s fingers and developing their fine motor skills.
Outside, in the garden, children are beginning to notice some signs of autumn. They’ve been collecting conkers and talking about where they found them. Next week, we’ll be learning all about autumn. Look out a brown paper bag coming home with your child this week.
Please enjoy going on a walk together over the next few days and see what ‘autumn treasure’ you can find. When you’ve filled your bag, please return it to Nursery for us to share and talk about with our friends next week.
Here are a few other photos from our fun in the September sunshine. See if you can spot what we found jumping at the bottom of the garden!
Reminders
- Please remember to send us a family photograph photo to display in our Home corner.
- Whilst we’re still enjoying the sunny afternoons, the weather is chillier in the morning and we’ve had a few showers. Please make sure your child has a warm, waterproof coat at Nursery every day.
3/4A Topic
Topic (History): Ancient Greece
As part of our learning about Ancient Greece, we had a debate about which was the best city state: Athens or Sparta. We discussed good techniques for a debate such as projecting our voices, giving evidence and listening respectfully to other people’s opinions.
3/4C Science
Science: Living things and their habitats.
We’ve been doing some fantastic learning in Science all about classifying data and how to use classification keys.
Over the past couple of weeks, the children have built up their classifying skills by asking and answering questions about what living things look like, and other features they may have, e.g., how many legs? does it have wings? how many parts in its body?
Today, the questions asked were linked to whether or not the animals were invertebrate or vertebrate. Watch this video to help.
Ask your child the difference between these animals.
Interpreting characters
We have been reading some extracts from ‘Fireborn’, a children’s novel written by Aisling Fowler. This book is set in a snowy forest in a prehistoric world and we meet the character, Twelve. The children read the extracts and highlighted key points that they thought identified what the characters were like. What are their personalities like? How do we know? The children then focused on a character called Weaponmaster Victory – a fierce, strict character that we decided we wouldn’t really like to meet!
They commented in their books, their thoughts.
” I think she is scary because she is strict with her class and they are afraid that she will punish them.’
“I think she is scary and I wouldn’t like her teaching me!”
We are getting the exciting opportunity to meet Aisling Fowler later this term as part of an author interview on Zoom. We are really looking forward to this.
Minibeast trail
This week our KS1 children have been exploring the playground on the hunt for minibeasts. In Science we are learning about habitats and micro-habitats. We searched high and low for small creatures, using magnifying glasses to understand the conditions each minibeast lives in.
