Living and Learning – Democracy
Living and Learning: I can take part in democratic decisions.
This week, we have been learning about democracy as part of our Living and Learning.
In class, we voted for who we thought was a Champion Reader. We talked about the importance of reading regularly and reading a variety of different texts.
The candidates were voted for anonymously by the members of each class.
The winners were:
3,4 A – Jimmy
3,4 B – Jessica
3,4 C – Archie
Well done to everyone who took part. A great example of democracy in the classroom!
The day Y3,4 met a real poet!
Yesterday, we were lucky enough to welcome Andy Tooze into our school.
We watched him perform some of his poems and had a go at writing our own (in just seven minutes!). The children had a lot of fun and felt inspired. Today, each class read their poems aloud and published them in a book.
If your child would like one of Andy’s books, please let your child’s class teacher know. They cost £5 each when ordered through school.
Living and learning: I take part in democratic decisions.
The School Library Service is holding a competition to celebrate reading for key stage 2 children in Leeds. The children have the opportunity to be shortlisted and go to an awards ceremony and be crowned Leeds School Librarian 2022.
As a class, we discussed which children are good role models when it comes to reading. Some children never have their heads out of a book, whilst others always complete their reading journals and tasks at home. We came up with a shortlist of seven candidates and as a class we took a democratic vote. This nominated person’s name will be passed to the Junior Leadership Team and their job will be to select an overall candidate to represent our school. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that we have a winner among us!
Outdoor PE
We have been able to use the field for some PE lessons this week. It is great to be able to use all the space to work on our movement and coordination. The sun was shining too!
Easter egg rolling competition
We had great fun on Friday belatedly celebrating Easter by having an egg rolling competition. Thank you to everyone who sent in a hard-boiled decorated egg.
Learning Update – Targets and support at home
We’ve had lots of emails this week to let us know about how your child has been working towards the targets that we discussed during our parent teacher consultation meetings. Thank you for working with us to support your child. We know that parents/carers are a child’s first educator so support at home has a significant impact on future learning.
If you haven’t had a chance to work on them yet after the busy Easter holidays, have another look and see what you can do towards them this week. Lots of the activities will fit into day to day life and your child’s play time.
As some children had similar targets for some areas, we’ve put together a few ideas to help you further support your child at home. Check which targets your child was given and have a look at the corresponding activities.
Reading – Spot rhyming words in stories.
- You could visit the library and choose some new books to share together. Julia Donaldson stories are great for spotting rhymes, as well as the ‘Oi Frog‘ series of books by Kes Grey.
- Listen to a bed time story every night, the more children hear rhyming stories, the more confident they will become at spotting rhymes.
- As you read a story, pause at the end of the line where there is a rhyming word. Can your child suggest the missing rhyming word? Challenge them to think of another word that might rhyme and see how many you can think of.
- Make up silly rhymes with real or non-sense rhyming words. Children usually find these very funny!
- Sing nursery rhymes and replace the rhyming word with one that doesn’t rhyme. You could make up your own rhyme, adapting words from their favourite nursery rhyme. “Twinkle, twinkle chocolate bar, my friend drives a rusty car…”
- Listen to this rhyming song and see if you can add in your own rhyming words.
- Watch this video and play the rhyming game at home.
Writing – Encourage children to write some of their name using correct letter formation.
- Start with just the first letter of your child’s name. Gradually add in the next letters as they master each one.
- You could write letters outside using chalks or an old paintbrush dipped in water.
- If you have a shallow tray, add a thin layer of sand/shaving foam/sugar and get children to write the letter with their finger or a stick.
- Write the letter for them to trace over. Use a green dot at the point where they need to start writing the letter and put a red dot where they need to stop. Make sure that you watch them carefully to ensure that they form them correctly.
Writing – Encourage your child to pretend write such as making shopping lists or writing messages.
- Ask your child to help you make a list of things that you need from the supermarket. What sound does it start with? apples – do they have an a in their name? Can they remember how to write it? If you are baking, ask them to help write a list of ingredients that you will need.
- Role play going to a café. Ask your child to take your order and encourage them to write any sounds that they can hear, especially at the start of the word such as writing a letter m for ‘milkshake’. Praise their attempts and at this stage, it doesn’t matter if the letter is incorrect or not formed as it should be – children are still learning and may only know a limited number of letters. They may also write symbols that resemble letters, this is a great start to early writing.
- Encourage them to make cards or write messages to you or family and friends.
Maths – Counting objects 1:1 to 5
- Count anything and everything in everyday life! Birds on the fence, coins, biscuits on a plate, apples in the bowl…
- It is often easier to count objects accurately if they are in a line so encourage children to touch/move each object as they count it.
- Ensure that they only say one number for each object as they point to it/touch it.
Maths – Sing number songs to help show ‘finger numbers’ to 5
- Here are a few number rhymes for you to sing at home together. Ask children to show the number on their fingers for each verse.
- When you’re out and about, or at home, ask children to show you ‘how many’ on their fingers. At lunch time, you could ask, how many carrot sticks have you got on your plate? If you see a numeral 3 on a door, ask them to show you 3.
Maths – Subitising – How many objects are there without counting? (up to 3)
- What is subitising? Watch this short video to find out more.
- Go on a subitising walk, look out for groups of 1, 2 and 3 objects. You might look for similar objects such as dandelions in the grass that are growing close together in a group of 3 or 2 pebbles on the path. Encourage your child to notice how many there are without counting them.
- Having peas for dinner? Look at how the peas are arranged on your plate. You’ll see that some are on their own, some might be next to another pea in a group of 2 and some might be in groups of 3. Spot 1,2 and 3 peas in a group without counting them.
- Don’t go out and buy new games, but have a look in the back of your cupboards, you might already have a game that requires your child to subitise, such as ‘Spotty Dogs’ or ‘The game of Ladybirds‘ by Orchard Toys.
Have fun working with your child on their target, and remember, please let us know how you’re getting on and if you need any further help.
Crunching Munching Caterpillar
It has been lovely to be back at school this week. The children have enjoyed sharing their half term experiences with the class.
In Literacy, we have read the story – Crunching Munching Caterpillar.
After reading, the children noticed similarities and differences between this story and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Both caterpillars ate leaves. Max
There are holes in the book or an eaten page. Ella
They are both really hungry. Charlie
They both get into a cocoon. Bea
In Science, we have explored the lifecycle of a butterfly. We are looking forward to observing this with our own class caterpillars.
We have also created a wormery. By representing their habitat in a box, we have begun to observe how they tunnel through soil.
In Maths, we have been counting to 20 and beyond.
We ended our week with an egg rolling competition and a special visitor … singing sensation Egg Sheeran!
Well done to our winners.
In our areas, we have gone mini-beast mad! Check out some of our super learning.
Home Link
This half-term our topic is Life on Earth. For the next few weeks we are exploding mini-beasts.
Become a mini-beast detective!
You many choose to draw a picture of the mini-beasts you find, record how many mini-beasts you see in your garden or observe how different mini-beast move.
Supertato to the rescue!
Children returned to Nursery with beaming smiles and were excited to see their friends. We loved hearing about your holiday adventures which included cooking sausages on the BBQ and hunting for eggs in your gardens, visiting the seaside, feeding lambs at the farm and flying on orange or blue aeroplanes.
This week, we enjoyed listening to ‘Supertato‘ and finding out about what happens in the supermarket after dark! Children enjoyed making Mr Potato head characters in our fiddly fingers area, rolling little peas in the dough and using the small world figures to create their own superhero stories.
In the sensory area, the Evil Pea and his friends had escaped from the freezer! Children enjoyed scooping the frozen peas and watching what happened to them once they’d been out of the freezer for a while. They also loved mashing them to create mushy peas.
In maths, we continued to practise our sorting and counting skills, sorting the vehicles by colour and type and counting how many were in each group.
Following the children’s interest in magnetism, we’ve created a discovery area with lots of magnetic items to explore. Children carried out their own investigations around Nursery, taking the magnets into different areas to test what they would ‘stick’ to. We looked at the different items that they found the magnets were attracted to and some children noticed that lots of them were made from metal and not plastic. What super scientists we are!
Summer Term 1 Science: Plants
This term is all about growing plants. Included in this post is a list of our new vocabulary for this topic.
Yesterday, we looked at some typical flowering plants and identified their parts and functions. Photos are some children’s work will follow.
I was so impressed with the knowledge the children already had!
We progressed to ‘plant’ our own broad beans so we can see the journey they take from seed to shoot and root (simply put into a cup with water and cotton wool -we’ll check what’s happened next week).
You can support your child at home by planting your own seeds in your garden, or in a flower pot and just observe over time the changes that take place.
Or, you can watch these excellent video clips.
| stem | holds the plant upright and supports the leaves; contains tubes that allow water to travel from the roots to the rest of the plant | |
| roots | helps anchor the plant into the soil; takes up water and nutrients from the soil | |
| leaves | catch sunlight and use this to make food | |
| photosynthesis | how plants turn sunlight into food | |
| pollen | a dust-like powder that causes plants to make new seeds | |
| pollination | transferring pollen from the male parts of a flower to the female part of a flower so new plants can be made | |
| stamen | the male part of the flower which produces pollen | |
| stigma | the female part of a flower that pollen attaches to during pollination | |
| seed dispersal | the way seeds get from the parent plant to a new place so that they can grow into new plants |
Herea re some lovely pictures of children’s flowers they drew using oil pastels:
Science
Our new unit of learning for this half term is Electricity. The children had to recall their previous learning, including remembering the scientific symbols for the components of an electrical circuit. They were then asked to make a working circuit – some chose to use bulbs, whilst others used buzzers or motors. The children were then given images of different circuits using different components. They had to make predictions as to whether the circuit would work or not, and give reasons for their predictions. The children then constructed each circuit to test their predictions.
