Year 3, 4 – Writing and Maths
Well done, everyone! What a great start to this half term.
This week in Writing, we’ve been using our imaginations to explore an abandoned house! Our purpose is to describe the eerie setting in detail so that an illustrator can bring it to life through artwork.
We’ve been focusing on using Expanded Noun Phrases (ENPs) to add depth and detail to our writing. You need a determiner, adjective and noun for it to be an ENP.
Think “a crumbling, ivy-covered wall” or “a broken window with jagged glass.” Our goal is to paint a picture with words!
The classes have loved getting creative and spooky with their ideas. We can’t wait to see how our setting descriptions inspire some fantastic illustrations!
In Maths, we have been counting money and converting money from pence into pounds. At home, why not count up the change that you have? You could also explore how to make different amounts of money. For example, how many ways can you make 85p?
Cities and Seasides
Ahoy there!
We’ve ‘sailed’ into our last half-term of Reception and are ‘diving’ into our new topic- Cities and seasides.
Think maps, coastal environments and trips to the seaside. Of course, where there’s the sea, there’s pirate fun to be had!…
The Night Pirates
We’ve been reading The Night Pirates by Peter Harris.
(Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off auto play – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.)
This is a story about a group of ‘Rough, tough little girl pirates‘ who take a little boy called Tom, on an adventure.
We looked at some repeated phrases in the story and how the author had chosen to end the story exactly as it had begun.
We had a go at imagining what different characters in the story were thinking, based on their pictures and the events that had occurred in the story.
In our writing, we transcribed our rehearsed sentence (He is looking at the moon.) and then had a go at writing either a repeated phrase from the story or something we could see in an illustration from the book.
Understanding the world; Identifying land and sea on a map
Our ‘Word of the week’ is country. We know that we live in the country of England.
We’ve been looking closely at maps and atlases, both of the United Kingdom and across the world. We’ve been discussing how we can identify which parts are the land and which is the sea.
Maths; Rekenreks
We’ve been subitising, using a special maths resource this week- the Rekenrek.
We learnt to “pause, place, push” the amount we need to represent, moving the full amount in one go (that’s where our subitising skills were put into action!)
We replicated some pictoral representations of number onto the Rekenreks.
In provision, we’ve been practising our maths skills by playing a pirate-y track game.
Music; Being conductors and responding to music
Our music lesson this week saw us responding to music using our bodies- waving our arms like a conductor’s baton, in time to what we heard.
We then had an opportunity to respond to what we heard through art and drawing.
Art; Making maps and observational drawing
We’ve been making our own ‘treasure maps’ in the art area, using some real symbols you might find on a map.
In the discovery area, we’ve been looking closely at some special shells and making some observational drawings, using charcoal.
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. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called The Fox
We talk about how a poem sometimes has rhyming words and sometimes doesn’t. Can your child tell you the rhyming words in this week’s poem? We also talk about how a poem can have a fast rhythm or a slow rhythm.
We always look at two words in the poem and share the definition. This week, we looked at the following words.
sly – having or showing a cunning and sneaky nature
trunk – the main woody stem of a tree
Click here to watch Reception recite this week’s poem!
Rainy day play
The weather has been out to trick us this week. We haven’t let those summer showers dampen our mood! We play and explore in all weathers. Take a look at our rainy day fun!…
Help at home; Seaside photos
(sent in a text message earlier in the week)
Next week, we’re learning about the seaside. If you’d like to email or send in a photo of your child at the coast, they’ll be able to use it for their writing challenge. Thank you.
Dates and Reminders
Monday 16 June, 6.00-6.30pm- Zoom: Reception to Year 1 information meeting. This remote meeting is an opportunity for you to meet the Year 1 teachers and to find out a little more about Key Stage 1.
Wednesday 18 June- Class photos.
Wednesday 2 July, 10.00-11.30am- Meet your new teacher. Your child will visit their new teacher this morning.
Thursday 3 July- Class trip to Nell Bank.
Friday 4 July, 3.15-4.15pm- Rec/KS1 FOSP summer disco.
Tues 8/ Thurs 10 July, 8.35am or 3.15pm- Learning journey drop-in.
Friday 11 July, 9.15-10.30am- Sports Day.
Day 2 in the residential house!
After a good nights sleep, we all woke up feeling refreshed and ready for a fun packed day. We began by eating a delicious cooked breakfast to get us ready for the day ahead.
Today, the children had a go at canoeing. This involved learning how to use an oar and then learning how to soak each other with it! Mr Goodwin manage to drench most of his group. They were not happy!
The zip-line featured again today with lots of children conquering their fear of heights. We all looked very fashionable in our harnesses as we flew through the air. Mrs Hogarth’s team competed against the Year 6’s from St James’ at a zip-line race. We won’t let you know the result but just know that we were very annoyed!
At lunchtime, the children filled their tummies with fruit, chicken burgers, hot dogs and sandwiches. There was also a cheeky do-nut for everyone.
As we dodged the rain showers in the afternoon, some groups managed to make it through the piranha pool challenge without being gobbled up by these vicious creatures! It was pretty close though and their panicked screams could be heard for miles around.
The children are exhausted now and ready for a good night’s sleep. We are looking forward to our final morning of activities before heading home tomorrow.
Y6 Residential
A quick update…
Year 6 are having a great time on their residential so far. They’ve just finished their lunch (burgers and hot dogs – yummy!) after a super busy morning packed full of activities.
They’ll have a bit of down time now before another jam-packed afternoon of adventurous fun!
Day 1 in the residential house!
Well, that’s day one done. After a great coach trip, we finally arrived at our home for the next two nights. The walk from the coach to the centre was our first challenge as it’s all uphill. The children managed to drag the teachers to the top!
The next challenge was that the children needed to make their own beds and sort their rooms out. When this was completed, they were finally rewarded with a yummy lunch.
The afternoon saw the start of some great activities. We turned our hands to the giant swing, where our screams could be heard for miles. The children conquered their fears at the crate challenge – building a tower of crates until they fell! Others were seen hurtling down the zip line at 100 mph!
Everyone is very tired now and tucked up in bed. We are looking forward to another fun packed day tomorrow.
he crate
1A – D and T – fruit bars
This week we set off for The Hub to cook some healthy fruit bars. We practised lots of skills including:
peeling and chopping,
slicing using the bridge grip,
mashing,
and mixing.
All the children took turns and listened to instructions well and we were all excited to see the end result. Some children liked the fruit bars… but some didn’t.
“I liked them because I could taste the coconut.” – VB
“I didn’t like them because there was too much raisins.” – MH
Help at home: by looking at other recipes with your child. Perhaps you could follow them and prepare a meal for the family. The programme ‘Big Cook Little Cook’ on CBeebies has lots of ideas for child friendly recipes that you may like to try.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/big-cook-little-cook
1,2B DT food – making fruit bars
We completed our Design Technology (Food) project for this term this week. We made fruit bars. We enjoyed the mashing, cutting, measuring and mixing.
Help at home by making the recipe (or a different one) at home with your child to help them develop these skills.
DT – fruity bars!
What a fantastic first few days back at school we’ve had in 2C.
On Tuesday, we completed our last cooking lesson in Year 2. This time around, on the menu was fruity flapjack bars.
We peeled, chopped and mixed the ingredients before baking for 30 minutes. It was great to see all of the children try the food they prepared. Most of the children enjoyed the fruit bars!
‘I loved it. It was awesome!’ – MG
‘ I didn’t like it so much because I didn’t like the ingredients mixed together.’ – TS
Take a look at what we got up to, and our delicious finished product!
Living and Learning: Physical Health and Fitness
In our recent Living and Learning topic, we learnt all about physical health and fitness.
We learnt that being…
- 60 active minutes a day is needed
- being physically active helps us both physically and mentally
- being physically active can help improve our mood
- being physically active can give us more energy to help our learning
… and much more!
Well done, Y3,4!
Living and Learning: Healthy Eating
During our recent Living and Learning topic, we learnt all about healthy eating.
We know that in order to eat healthily, we need foods from all the different food groups to ensure we have a well balanced and healthy diet.
The image below shows the different food groups and how much of each should be included in our diet to make sure it is healthy.
Help at home: see if your child can remember the different food groups.