Evolution and inheritance
We had a fun science lesson today in which we discussed traits that you could inherit from your parents or grandparents. We began by seeing if we could match celebrities with their offspring. Some of these we found easy, others were a bit trickier. We discussed how we knew offspring belonged to certain adults. We identified that they had inherited skin colour, hair colour, face shape and eye colour. We then had great fun using Mr Men and Little Miss characters to create offspring and described their inherited characteristics.
The vocabulary we focused on this week was:
- inherited: the way that a trait or characteristic is passed to offspring from parents
- trait: a quality or characteristic belonging to something
Here are some examples of the offspring that we created.
3,4B Class Novel: Queen of Darkness
Last week, 3,4B began to read two books as our class novel. They both link to our current history topic and they’re both great reads. They’re also written by the same author.
As we read more of each book, we thought hard about which book we’d like to read as our new class novel. Then, on Friday, we had to decide. Because we live in a democracy (ask your child how this word links to their previous history learning about Ancient Greece), we had a vote.
We chose… (drum roll, please)
Queen of Darkness, Tony Bradman
Help at home by asking your child about what they’ve read at school:
- What’s happened so far?
- What do you predict will happen in the end?
- Who is your favourite character? Why?
- Would you recommend this book to ______? Why / why not?
As always, when you’re having this conversation, don’t forget to talk in full sentences – this really helps with our oracy (speaking and listening) skills.
Lost and Found
It has been great to see all the children this week and hear about their magical Christmas experiences.
The weather has definitely matched up to our new topic this half term – Fire and Ice.
In literacy, we have been reading the story Lost and Found.
We began by using the title and front cover to make predictions.
I think they might find a pirate ship. Leo
I think they fell off a boat and they have to swim home. Jacob
Someone might find them and bring them home. Lucille
It might be about getting lost at sea and they have to find their way home. Norah
We created a story map and actions to enable us retell the story.
Can your child spot key events in these story maps?
In Maths, we have explored numbers to five. We have used Numicon to partition numbers to five.
In the classroom this week, the children have enjoyed freeing the penguins from the ice, creating frozen themed narratives, drawing penguins, feeding the penguin words and lots of other fun learning activities.
Home Link
How fast can you melt an ice cube?
What happens if you put the ice somewhere hot/cold? What happens if you put salt on it? How different does it look after 10 minutes?
You may choose to record your results using drawings or use a timer.
Notices
New PE days – Wednesday and Friday
We are beginning our swimming lessons next week! Your child will go on alternate weeks. PE kit should be worn on both swimming and non-swimming weeks.
Swimming dates
Sunshine – 12 Jan, 26 Jan, 9 Feb
Rainbow – 19 Jan, 2 Feb, 16 Feb
Please ensure your child is in their PE kit on these days, including trainers.
New eBooks will be added to child’s online library on Friday. This will ensure they have read the text at least three times in school.
Run, run as fast as you can!
It was great to see everyone again this week and we couldn’t believe how much some of you have grown over the Christmas holidays! Thank you for your festive photos; we enjoyed looking at them and talking about your family celebrations at group time.
Children returned brilliantly to Nursery and have settled back into our routines well. It’s been very cold this week so please make sure that your child has a warm coat, a hat and some gloves every day. We’re always trying to promote independence at Nursery, so please take some time at home to help your child to learn how to put on their own coat and gloves. Gloves are especially tricky, but give it a try! Remember to label items with your child’s name too so that we can help to return them at the end of the day.
This week, we’ve been reading the well know traditional tale of The Gingerbread Man. It’s a great story for children to recall and there are lots of repeated refrains for them to use when re-telling the story. Try and tell the story together at home. Can they remember the main parts? Encourage them to use the repeated refrains. ‘Run run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Man.’ or ‘Stop! I want to eat you!’
The ginger playdough was very popular – we’ve lost count of how many gingerbread people have been made this week! Children have enjoyed investigating the cornflour gloop, too. It was hard and then sometimes runny, how strange!
Our maths focus this week, has been learning to make comparisons between objects relating to size and length. We looked at big/little/small/large gingerbread outlines and ordered them by size. During group time, we introduced some more specific vocabulary relating to height such as tall, taller, short and shorter. We stood back to back with our friends and compared our heights and we even had a go at measuring each other using ‘hands’. We carefully counted how many ‘hands’ tall we were. Mrs Crompton was 10 hands tall! Some children knew that tape measures are used to measure height and used them to measure their friends. After group time, some children went on to compare the heights of their water bottles and the size of their carrots at snack time.
Try to use some of this language at home this week in order to help your child consolidate their new vocabulary. Who is the tallest person in your family? Who is the shortest? Which teddy is the shortest? Which bottle is the tallest?
Here are a few other photographs from our play this week: constructing with 3D shapes on the light panel, learning to draw our faces in the creative area and more measuring and investigating capacity in our play ‘baking’ area.
Finally, the cold weather sparked lots of interest and discussion in the ice that children found in the garden each morning. We’ll continue with this interest next week, investigating ‘ice’ and learning more about winter time.
Information for children starting Nursery in January
It was great to meet some of you this week for your door step visit and we hope that you’re looking forward to joining us in Nursery on Monday for your ‘stay and play’ session. For those families that we were unable to meet, don’t worry, we’ll look forward to catching up with you on Monday.
Here is some of the important information that we discussed at the home visit.
‘Stay and play’ visit
- Please take a lateral flow test just before the ‘stay and play’ session and wear a mask during the visit. We’re asking that only one adult accompanies your child. If you test positive, please don’t attend and get in touch to let us know.
- Please come to the Nursery door (blue) on Monday (via Morwick Grove entrance).
- Remember to bring proof of your child’s date of birth (passport/ birth certificate).
What does my child need to bring to Nursery?
- A drawstring bag with a FULL change of clothes (underwear, socks/tights, trousers/leggings, a top and jumper.) Make sure that everything is clearly NAMED
- A NAMED pair of wellies to remain at Nursery
- Children play out in all weather, so please make sure that your child wears a a warm, waterproof coat each day and has a hat and gloves during winter. Don’t forget to NAME them all!
- A NAMED water bottle
Arrival and collection
- Red and yellow group – Entry through the main Nursery entrance at 9am.
- Blue and green group – Entry to the Sunshine room through the Nursery playground at 9am.
- Collection at the end of the day – Nursery closes at 2.15pm on Monday and 3.15pm Tuesday-Friday. Children can be collected from 3.05pm onwards (or 2.05pm on Monday) to help reduce congestion at collection times. For children attending for the morning session, collection is at 12pm.
If you have any other questions, please let us know. For non-urgent enquiries during term time, you can email us and we will try to reply as soon as we can during the working day, once we’ve finished teaching. scholesnursery@spherefederation.org If you have an urgent enquiry, please call school and speak to the office.
We look forward to seeing you all on Monday and hope that you’re getting excited about coming to play!
Have you applied for a primary school place yet?
Don’t forget, if your child is due to start school in September 2022, you need to apply for a primary school place before 15 January.
Please refer to our previous post for more details.
Welcome back!
Happy 2022!
We hope you all had a very restful and healthy Christmas. It’s lovely to have all the children back in school again.
Year 5 and 6 have started a new science unit this half term all about evolution and inheritance. They have a new set of vocabulary that they will be getting their heads around!
- evolution: change in living things over time
- inherited: the way that a trait or characteristic is passed to offspring from parents
- trait: a quality or characteristic belonging to something
- adaptation: a small change that a living thing goes through
- natural selection: a process in which living things adapt themselves in order to survive, that they don’t have any control over
- prehistoric: the time classed is ‘before history’ as it was so long ago it hasn’t been recorded or written
- variety: differences between things as part of a whole group
- fossil: the prehistoric remains of a plant or animal
Could you help your child learn these words at home? You could create some flashcards with images on that might help jog their memory, you could create a poster of the words. Could you describe one of the words and your child has to guess which word from the list it is? Be creative and have fun!
Living and Learning : I know when to interrupt (and when not to).
We have talked at length about this!
Young children often feel the need to tell adults immediately something that is in their thoughts. Sometimes this can be at an inappropriate moment. We discussed different scenarios and when it is okay and when it is not okay to interrupt.
New Year, New Science Topic
Welcome back to 2022!
The children have settled well this week and have demonstrated good learning habits and routines straight away – well done!
We’ve kicked off the term with a new science topic ‘Electricity’ and kicked off talking about electrical appliances in and around our home. Our first sparky discussion was “What is electricity? What does it do?” – there’s so much to learn! Here’s a helpful bbc clip.
Why not have this discussion at home?
Today, we’ve learned about mains and battery operated appliances and realised that some are actually both!
In the forthcoming weeks, we will be creating our own circuits from wires, batteries and bulbs and why they work (or don’t work!), so watch this space. 
Here are the scientific words children will be learning…
New topic: Romans and Anglo-Saxons
This week, we’ve started our new topic: Romans and Anglo-Saxons.
In this topic, we’ll learn loads about the Romans in Britain. We’ll use our history skills to analyse different sources of information and we’ll learn loads of key information about this period of time. We’ll be continuing our history learning in our reading and writing lessons, too – and our weekly Latin lessons, of course!
Today, we reminded ourselves about chronology and thought about when the Romans came to Britain. This timeline below is one we use in school and shows all the history we learn across school in the order happened (chronological order).
You can help at home by asking your child about their learning. Even better if you this vocabulary when having your discussions.
