Diary entry writing
Over the last couple of weeks, we have been building up to writing our own diary entries. We read numerous stories from our class novel – Survivors and used these to generate ideas for our own writing. We based the majority of our ideas on the story of Mawson who was the sole survivor of an expedition to Antarctica. We spent some time focusing on vocabulary and generated words that would describe the landscape, emotions and the hardship of an expedition. We began to consider suitable fronted adverbials to add to our writing. These were being used to add extra detail and interest to our writing and to demonstrate our ability to vary our sentence structure. The children also needed to include relative clauses in their diary entry. Everyone worked super hard on their diaries and they were a pleasure to read.
WUSU…per Stars!
Every day, , Year 5 and 6 participate in 10 minutes of Wake Up, Shake Up to get our heart beats nice and high
Children have the option of dancing to songs from our WUSU playlist, or skipping and showing off some cool skills!
Obviously the adults like to join in too!
Geography – looking for human or physical features on maps and aerial photographs
We have been looking at maps, keys, aerial photographs and talking about physical and human geography in our topic lessons this half term. We walked around our school grounds, marked the route we took and found the things we saw on the map and aerial photograph. We also found our school on Google Earth. Does your child know their address? Help them to learn it and find where they live on a map or Google Earth.
Reading Records!
Wow! We’ve got some fabulous front covers done for our reading records – well done! Keep them coming in.
The children have an activity to complete each week. Inside the front cover, there’s a list of fun activities linked to reading. Check with your class teacher what the activity is.
Maths – place value and counting
We’ve been counting forwards and backwards from different numbers. We use a 100 square, number lines and songs to help us.
We have also been using a range of models to represent numbers.
We use real life examples to demonstrate how 10s and 1s can be used. Here we have 12 pens made up of one pack of 10 and two ones.
By seeing and making a range of representations, children are able to secure a deep understanding of numbers.
Most of the following representations focus on partitioning (splitting up a number into parts) a number into tens and ones.
The middle box on the bottom row shows 12 being made by cubes. The second picture in that box is to show how the cubes can be drawn. Children find it far quicker and easier to draw a long line to represent a ten than drawing a rectangle that is divided into ten squares.
Use these at home to support your child’s learning.
Getting to know you
This week, we’ve continued with the very important job of helping children to settle into Nursery. They’re already becoming more familiar with our routines and are beginning to get to know each other. In fact, we’re so impressed with how well children have settled, we’ll begin short Key Person group times next week.
As we’ve been getting to know everyone, we’ve been talking about our families. To encourage children to tell us more about their family life, please e-mail or bring a photograph of your child with their family to Nursery next week. These will be displayed in our home corner for children to look at and talk about with staff and their friends. scholesf1@spherefederation.org
Here are a few snaps from this week. As you can see, we’ve enjoyed building, drawing, painting, printing, creating patterns and lots more!
Reminders
- If you haven’t shown us proof of your child’s D.O.B yet, please bring it to Nursery or email us a copy.
- Is your child’s water bottle named? We still have lots of water bottles that don’t have names on and it’s very hard to give them out when there are up to 30 bottles and many duplicates. Please make sure it is labelled clearly with their name.
- More names… There are lots of cardigans, jumpers and coats that don’t have names on. Again, please make sure that you check and use a marker pen to quickly write a name on the care label. Thank you for supporting us with this – it results in much less lost property.
All About Me.
This week we have been celebrating our wonderful selves! The children have drawn: self portraits and their families. There have been lots of ‘Talk Time’ opportunities in which children have thoroughly enjoyed telling us about their unique families. Thankyou to those who have emailed a family photograph to us as children have been immensely proud to talk about their family. We have also looked at different families through the use of a book: ‘The Great Big Book of Families’ by Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith .
In Maths we have been learning about the number zero. The children came up with some fabulous number stories about zero.
First, there was two fidget spinners. Next, I gave them away. Now, I have zero.-Ronnie
First, I had three apples in my tree. Next, they all fell on the floor. Now, I have zero left!-Freya
Perhaps you could come up with your own number stories about zero using: First, Next and Now.
In Phonics we have been listening to sounds all around as well as deciding if our instruments make a high pitched or a low pitched sound.
The children are doing exceptionally well for this time of year. We are very proud of how they are settling into the routines and learning in Reception. Take a look at the learning that has been taking place in our fabulous Rainbow and Sunshine rooms or outside:
Home-link Activity- Week Commencing 27.09.21
Our current learning is All About Me! This week, we’ll focus on our homes and the different types of homes that people live in. Please send in a picture of your child’s favourite part of their house or the front of their house. You could email the photo to the email address below.
Please also feel free to use the Reception email address any time, to share achievements and learning from home. We’d love to celebrate these in class!
3,4 C Class News
This week, we have enjoyed keeping active during WUSU and on the adventure playground.
Today, we have studied OS maps and located Scholes, Roundhay Park and Leeds. We looked carefully at the OS map symbols to help us understand and read the maps.
Another fabulous week of learning! Well done, 3,4C!
Let’s get reading!
Last week, your child brought home a new reading record book. We are encouraging every child to read regularly at home and we would like parents to support us in this initiative. The children will be set a target page to read up to on a Friday and this needs to be completed by the following week. We are asking parents to sign the record books to show your child has read.
The children will also be set an activity to complete at home. This could be to draw a character and say what you like about them, it could be to generate some questions you would like to ask a character or prepare an argument for Book War. The task they’ve been set will be written on the activity page. Children need to consider the presentation of the work they produce in these books. There are also some challenges at the back of the record book that we would also like the children to have a go at. We will celebrate the reading that the children have completed and the activities every Friday in class.
Be a reading hero and get reading!
Thinking Like Scientists in PE!
Year 5 and 6 have been using their chemistry knowledge of materials, and their properties, to help develop skills in PE lessons.
We have been using a variety of equipment (made from different materials) in our games and exercises. After feeding back our thoughts of the sizes, shapes and properties of the materials, we agreed the best and worst equipment to suit each task. Turns out it’s not easy to throw a rugby ball into a basketball hoop!
Pupils have thoroughly enjoyed exploring this aspect, using their inside learning in their outside activities.
