Walking Through The Jungle
This week, we’ve been Walking Through The Jungle with our story, written by Julie Lacome.
We looked closely at repeated parts of the text and used it to frame our own innovated piece of writing. First, we planned our writing; new animals, movements and endings to our story. After this, we created our very own story books. The children came up with some fantastic new vocabulary for movements through the jungle:
“Gliding”-Sofia
“Hopping”- Tristan
“Jumping”- Leo B
“Swimming”- Adriana
At this point in the school year, we’re encouraging children to extend their writing and independently start to plan and edit their work. The children are becoming enthusiastic authors!
Does your child enjoy writing stories at home?
More animal explorations…
In our classroom Curiosity Corner, we’ve continued to compare animal habitats, look at maps showing which parts of the world animals come from, read animal stories and explore animal fur or skin prints.
Our provision areas have been animal-tastic too! Making repeating patterns with animal stamps, using small world animals, building habitats, naming baby animals and more!
Jungle Dancing and Music…
This week’s story book is also a catchy song! We used the song in PE to imitate animal movements. We love expressing ourselves through dance.
Click here to have a jungle dance at home!
We’ve also been using the instruments outside, to create a jungle sound game.
Maths…
In maths, we’ve been creating number tracks. We explained how we’re able to identify which number is next in a sequence. We used our knowledge of number and our subitising skills to identify missing numbers on the number track.
New life…
Over the past few weeks we’ve been closely observing our caterpillars grow, then form their chrysalis. Our butterflies are finally starting to emerge! Next week we’ll release them to start their new life in the wild.
Take a peek at more learning from this week…
Home-link challenge…
Next week, we’ll be thinking about human life on Earth. We’ll be learning about our bodies and how we keep them clean, healthy and safe. The children will also be looking at the ways humans change over time; What were they like as babies? What can they do now that they are 4/5? What might they do in the future?
To help with our learning, please start to have these conversations at home. We’d also like you to send in a baby photo of your child, that can be used in their learning this week. You can send these in person or email them to the Reception email address. Thank you.
Jubilee Celebrations…
We’ll also be celebrating The Queen’s Jubilee next week! We’ll learn about The Royal Family, be making crowns, having our Jubilee Picnic (keeping all fingers and toes crossed for sunshine) and we’ll be having our very own royal dance. We can’t wait to celebrate!
Reading champion
We have been getting very excited about the KS2 Reading Champion Competition that is running across school and Leeds. They are searching for the best young reading ambassadors in Leeds, KS2 children who advocate reading for pleasure and encourage others to find their own love of reading.
Each class voted for a Reading Champion for their class. The nominations were brought to the Junior Leadership Team and they voted for an overall winner. They chose Ella from Year 6. She will now write a letter of support for the competition and she will be up against other schools across Leeds.
Good luck, Ella!
Living and learning: I know what consent is.
This week, the children have been talking about body image. We began by discussing what body image is. They came up with this definition:
Body image is our idea of how our body looks and how we think it looks to others. This can include our feelings and thoughts about our height, weight, shape, skin colour, appearance or attractiveness.
We discussed how our body image is influenced by a range of different things such as TV, social media, celebrities and many more. The children recognised that it is important to consider the positive aspects about yourself and when you pay someone a compliment it should be about their personality or something they’re good at, not about appearance. We should ‘fill each others buckets’ with positivity.
The children wrote on each others buckets with their compliments. There were some very happy faces by the end of the lesson.
Science: Pollination
Pollination
We learned all about the importance of bees today in our lesson on pollination.
When the bee digs into the next flower the pollen on her body rubs off onto the stigma of the new flower. This is called pollination. When the pollen lands on the stigma it travels down the style towards the ovary. Once the pollen reaches the ovary it hopes to find an ovule to attach to.
The children loved this video on the importance of looking after our vital pollinators – the message is clear!
We looked more closely at the reproduction in plants and the parts of a flower which help make new seeds. The children loved the cross over between science and art.
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Living and learning : consent
This week, we have been particularly talking about consent (permission) in our Living and Learning lessons. We talk about consent all the time though, for example, when we’re taking photos or video.
We also talked about different scenarios and how we can respond appropriately.
Geography topic : comparing the UK and Kenya
This half-term, we are geographers. As part of our Explorers topic, we’re comparing a place in the United Kingdom with a place in another country. We are comparing Kenya to the United Kingdom and Nairobi to London. We are focussing on the physical and human geography of these two places and noting the similarities between the two capital cities. Ask your child to tell you all about Nairobi.
As well as visiting Kenya, we have been learning about the seven continents, five oceans and about how the equator splits the earth into two hemispheres.
We have really enjoyed learning the continents and oceans by listening to and singing along to these great songs:
How can you help?
Google Earth is a brilliant tool to help develop children’s understanding of space, place, scale and interdependence. Zoom right in on your home and then zoom out to reveal the area of Leeds that you live in. Zoom further out to see what city you live. Zoom further for the county. A little further and you might start to spot some national parks. Further still and you can see the country that we live in. Keep zooming and you’ll see the continent we live in (though this isn’t labelled).
Quizzing your children about some locational knowledge will help them to remember important information.
- Which continent do we live in?
- Which country do we live in?
- In which hemisphere is our country located?
- Which county do we live in?
- Which city do we live in?
- Which part of Leeds do we live in?
- Which four countries make up the United Kingdom?
Living and Learning: Reading Champions
Year 5/6 C have taken part in a demorcratic decision to nominate one person from our class to be a Reading Champion.
After a lengthy discussion about what makes a suitable Reading Champion, we agreed that it was someone who was passionate about reading. We were looking for someone to be a leader – a role model, and inspiration.
After two very close rounds of voting, we decided that Lenny was our clear winner.
Lenny’s enthusiastic nature and pure joy when discussing all books is a joy to see.
Animal rangers – visit to Nursery
On Tuesday 24 May, the animal rangers will be visiting Nursery. They will be bringing along a wide range of animal species that will include a bearded dragon, rabbits, white tree frogs and many more.
This will be a great opportunity to learn interesting facts about different animals and their habitat. There will also be the opportunity to hold or touch some of the animals. Please alert your class teacher if your child has any allergies which may prevent them being around or touching any of the animals.
We are asking for a voluntary contribution per child towards the cost of the visit. This can be paid on the app. Please refer to your email for more details.
Unfortunately, on this occasion, we’re unable to invite those children that do not usually attend Nursery on Tuesday.
On the Farm
It has been a fun filled farm themed week!
We have continued our learning on our topic Life on Earth by exploring animals that may live and work on a farm.
We began our week by reading Farmyard Hullabaloo
In Literacy, we worked together to read a page from the story. We used our tricky word knowledge and phonics skills to decode the words.
We wrote our own sentences about different animals.
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In maths, we have been exploring 10 frames. We have built on our previous knowledge to make number bonds of 10.
Can your child tell you what number bond is been represented below?
In the classroom, we have continued to watch the development of our caterpillars.
Two of them are in the cocoon at the top. Oliver
The caterpillars are in a cocoon. Lucille
The caterpillars are in a cocoon ready to be a butterfly. Raife
In art, we have used clay to create minibeasts.
Check out our other fun learning inside and outside the classroom.
Home -Link
Write a list of animals that often live on farms. Do you know what their babies are called?
What the Ladybird Heard
We’ve enjoyed reading ‘What the Ladybird Heard‘ this week. It’s written by one of our favourite authors, Julia Donaldson. In the story corner, children enjoyed playing with the story props to re-tell the story and they were especially interested in the map that the burglars used to try and steal the fine prize cow.
Children made their own maps and took them outside to locate the prize/treasure that they’d hidden.
In group time, we played I Spy using the animals from the story. We had to listen very carefully to the sound. Some children noticed that some animals started with the same sound, such as ‘h’ for horse and hog. We’re working really hard to help children identify the initial sound in words at the moment. Have a go at playing I Spy at home this week to help reinforce this learning at home.
Here are a few other activities from this week:
- Exploring the texture of moon dough in the sensory area. It was very crumbly but you could also mould it in to mini sandcastles.
- Subitising spots on a ladybird
- Counting out the correct number of legs for our paper plate ladybirds
- Matching the number of spots on the ladybird to the numeral
We were also very excited to find a chrysalis on Tuesday morning! We have one caterpillar left and it’s getting bigger and bigger.
Finally, thank you to everyone that attended our drop-in session on Monday to look at your child’s Learning Journal. It was great to see parents and carers back in Nursery after such a long time of restrictions due to Covid-19. Our final drop-in session is on Wednesday 18 May from 4.15pm until 5pm, please call in if you can to have a look at what your child has been learning in Nursery this year.
Don’t forget – ‘Walk to school’ week!