Festivals
Welcome to Autumn 2! This half term, our theme is light and dark.
We’ve covered lots of important events and topics this week…
Bonfire Night
We learnt about why some people celebrate Bonfire Night, with an introduction to The Gunpowder Plot. The children enjoyed sharing their experiences of Bonfire Night and how they celebrated at home or out and about.
In the construction area, we built replicas of The Houses of Parliament. We explored casting shadows of our models with torches and used colour paddles to make the shadows look like fire!
Diwali
We found out about the Hindu festival of lights – Diwali. Our focus book was Binny’s Diwali by Thrity Umrigar.
We also found out about the festival through sharing non-fiction texts and watching My first festivals.
Take a look at some of the activities we explored, when learning about Diwali.
Our word of the week is: festival.
Maths; identifying and composing 5
In Maths, we’ve been using our fingers to identify 5. We ‘grew our fingers’ using the peas in a pod song.
Five little peas in a pea pod pressed,
One grew, two grew, so did all the rest,
They grew and they grew and they did not stop,
Until one day the pod went pop!
Later in the week, we used 5 frames and 5-die frames to explore the different ways to compose 5.
Phonics
This week, we focused on the new digraphs ff, ll, ss and the single letter phoneme j.
We’ve also learnt the tricky word; as
Tricky words are words that should be read by sight. We start by identifying which part of the word is ‘tricky’. In as, the ‘s’ is tricky because it makes the /z/ sound.
Poetry Picnic
Each week we learn a new poem and we recite this poem every 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 Who has seen the wind?
Click the link to watch Reception recite this week’s poem! Who has seen the wind?
Help at home; World Nursery Rhyme Week
Next week, we’ll be celebrating World Nursery Rhyme Week.
If your child would like to, we’d love to share a recording of them telling their favourite nursery rhyme in class. Please send your videos to the email address below.
Dates for your diary
Anti-bullying Day and Odd Socks Day- 12.11.24 To support anti-bullying week, please send your child to school wearing a pair of odd socks (Tuesday only).
Maths Stay and Learn – 13.11.24 – 09.00 – 10.00 Please join us in the classroom to watch a short maths session and enjoy some maths activities with your child.
Children in Need – 15.11.24 Non-uniform day for Children in Need.
Swimming
Rainbow class loved their first swimming lesson this week! There were lots of happy faces splashing in the pool on Wednesday. Next week, Sunshine class will be swimming.
On your child’s swimming day, please provide a swimsuit/swim shorts, a towel and a pair of goggles if needed. No floatation equipment is required, as we provide these in school. Your child should still come to school wearing their PE kit.
Living and Learning – Me and My Community Week – Coffee Morning
Coffee morning and WUSU.
What a great success! Thank you to the members of the FOSP team who ran the coffee morning on Thursday. Thank you to the adults who supported our school community by coming to the coffee morning and joining the children at Wake Up, Shake Up!
Living and Learning – Me and My Community Week – Grandad Wheels
On Wednesday, the children enjoyed a fantastic and hilarious visit from Grandad Wheels, author, Brian Abram.
Brian, ‘Grandad Wheels’, delivered assemblies where he shared his story, told jokes and made us all laugh, as well as discussing what life is like in a wheelchair. We enjoyed listening to ‘Chaos at Cheapfoods!’. At the end of the assemblies, Brian set the children the challenge of designing a new wheelchair.
After reading a story to the Reception children in the school library, Brain visited each class so the children could share their designs. He was really impressed.
Thank you to FOSP for funding this wonderful visit.
Thank you to everyone who ordered a book from Brain – in total, £254 was raised through book orders – Brian puts this money towards two charities that support spinal injury.
@grandadwheels
Living and Learning- Me and My Community Week
Welcome back!
We’ve kick started our first week back into a themed week; Me and My Community Week.
We started learning about who makes up our school community and had a creative discussion about the meaning behind our school logo.
What do the trees/ colours/ railway represent?
Throughout the rest of the week, we’ve been learning about:
- a healthy relationship is a positive one
- Why are protected characteristics important?
- different types of family communities
- respecting others that are differernt to us
- British Values
- different types of bullying and how to seek help
- What is a charity?
- main rivers and mountains in the UK
- significant buildings in Leeds
What a fantastic and busy first week back!
Help at home: talk about what is mutual respect and tolerance, and how can we show it?
Art: observational drawing
Year 5 and 6 have been practising our observational drawing skills. We drew a line drawing of the leaves and then consider which colours (hues) to use.
Help at home: Take a winter walk and collect some items from nature. Have a go at drawing them. Can you use shade to help give your drawing form?
Our new school charity
As part of our Community Week, we have been discussing about charities and how charity is the act of giving help to those who need it. There was a list of charities for each class to research and consider. The children enjoyed discussing these with their peers. A democratic vote was made in each class and the result was brought to the Junior Leadership Team. They discussed the votes and settled on The Willow Foundation.
The main objective of the charity is to support 16-40 year olds in the UK who are newly diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. When they should be enjoying the prime of life, they’re dealing with stress, isolation, medication and hospital appointments.
Willow believes that every moment should be precious. They’re dedicated to helping young adults take much needed time out from the reality of living with serious illness, creating magic moments that become lasting memories.
If you’d like to find out more about the charity, please visit the website below.
https://www.willowfoundation.org.uk/
Fundraising that takes place this year will be donated to this charity.
Thank you for your support with this.
Scholes Community Library
All classes in school have been lucky enough to visit Scholes Library this week. It has been a fabulous opportunity to support a great community resource which we are fortunate enough to have on our school’s doorstep. Each class had the opportunity to explore the library and to bring back five books to enjoy in class.
Help at home: Visit the library with your child. You can help to engage your child with reading new books and help to support our local community at the same time.
Back to Funky Fingers with a bang!
We’ve had a brilliant evening at Funky Fingers club. We started off the session with 2 draw along videos of fireworks… after all, it is Bonfire Night!
How To Draw An Exploding Firework
(Please note that these videos do not belong to School. Please watch your child when on YouTube).
The children then used their imaginations to make various collages, drawings and models inspired by the fireworks.
KS1 Caring For Our Community
Today we launched Me and My Community Week in class. It started with a discussion about the word ‘community’ and what it means. We talked about how you can be connected with people within a community in lots of different ways. The pupils thought about the family, friendship groups, school, clubs and religious groups that we may be a part of. We wondered about the people who we are connected with through these groups.
Circle Time
During Circle Time, we played a game where we each, in turn, chose someone and thought of a way we’re connected with them and then sat down. They then had their turn to choose someone and sit down. And so it went until everyone was sat down. We learnt that some of us are connected together in different ways but we are all connected together in class by being part of the Scholes (Elmet) Primary School community.
“I’m connected with R because I saw him at Lotherton Hall in the holiday.”
“I’m connected with K because we both go to football.”
“I’m connected with D because we go to the same school.”
“I’m connected with A because we always play together.”
Caring for our community
How can you look after your family community?
“I can look after my family community by making dinner for them and whatever they want, I’d give it to them.”
“I can look after my family community by making my bed and cleaning the yard.”
“I can look after my family community by cleaning the mess downstairs and in my brother’s bedroom.”
“I would just help them and if they’re sick I would help them and give them medicine and plasters and chairs to sit on so they can rest their energy.”
How can you look after your school community?
“I can look after my school community by not getting any warnings.”
“I can look after my school community by tidying up.”
“I can look after my school community by helping people with their handwriting and telling them the sentence when they forget.”
“I can look after my school community by tidying up the classroom.”
Help at home: Talk to your child about your community and which groups or clubs they may be a part of. Who do they know from them and how are they connected to those people? You could create a spider chart of one of the clubs with strands of the people they know from it.
Community week – library visit
We were lucky enough in 5,6B to start Community week off by visiting Scholes library. Even though it is only two minutes from school, it was great to be reminded of what a little gem it is. We were given a talk on how the library runs by Madeline and what books are stocked in the library. She emphasised how easy it is to get a library card and be able to borrow books to enjoy at home. We then spent some time perusing the shelves in order to select a few books to bring back and enjoy in class.
Help at home: Encourage your child to visit the library and access this brilliant resource. It will get your child enthusiastic about reading at home!