Sunny days
We’ve had some beautiful, but very hot sunny weather this week. Please make sure that your child has a sun hat and water bottle in school every day. As always, please clearly label them with you child’s name.
We’ve also had lots of questions about sun cream. On sunny days, sun cream should be applied before children come to Nursery. If your child’s sun cream requires it to be re-applied after lunch, please put a NAMED bottle of sun cream in their group’s water bottle basket on the days that you would like it to be re-applied.
Living and Learning: Body Image
What is body image?
Body image describes our idea of how our body looks and how we think it is perceived by others. This can include our thoughts and feelings about our height, weight, shape, skin, colour, and our appearance and attractiveness more broadly.
We’ve been discussing this topic for this week’s Living and Learning session – and what a great discussion it was!
Overall, we decided that there art ways in which we are different from each other, like:
- different heights,
- weights,
- body builds,
- complexions,
- hair colours,
- eye colours,
- preferences,
- likes/dislikes,
- abilities,
- interests,
Some of these we, 1) can’t change, 2) can change with practice, 3) can change over time;
So, we thought about the things we are good at and compared them.
We may look very different but we often share similar strengths and weaknesses.
Designing ‘Egg’xperts!
Year 5 and 6 have begun our final topic of the year – design and technology! Our mission is to design, create and test a small buggy, fit for saving our good friend, Eggy.
This week, the children have been heavily engaged in analysing some existing products, to help generate ideas for our own designs next week.
Here are some examples of our work:
Design and Technology: Eggy needs help!
To kick off this last half term, Y5/6 are beginning a design and technology journey!
We had an urgent message from someone asking for our help…
We took a look at our new vocabulary and decided how confident we felt as a class.
- red = I’ve never heard this term before and have no clue what it means!
- amber = I’ve heard of it but wouldn’t be able to fully explain.
- green = I’m super confident about this word in a DT context!
Here are the definitions! Get practising!
Floating and sinking
This week, Year 5/6 have been investigating objects that float and sink. They were building on their existing knowledge from previous years. They began by predicting if an orange would float or sink. Once they’d tested this, they found that it floated. However, when they peeled the orange, it sank – this is to do with density of the object. They then created other comparative investigations to explore the idea of density using tin foil, candles and plasticine. Ask your child about the investigation and what they found out.
Design Technology
In this half term, we are starting our next topic which is all about Design technology.
During this topic, we will be exploring and evaluating a range of existing products, designing functional and appealing products based on given design criteria and then make the product by selecting from a range of tools and equipment to perform practical tasks (eg cutting, shaping, joining and finishing).
Throughout the topic, we will look at key questions. What is a structure? Which design in the best? How can we make it stronger? Is it fit for purpose?
Here is a lost of some of the vocabulary that will be taught in the coming weeks.
Baby Photos and Sun Protection…
Good Afternoon!
This week in class, we are talking about caring for babies and how we have changed since we were babies ourselves. To support our learning and classroom discussions, please email or send in a photograph of your child as a baby.
Sun Protection
Please ensure your child comes to school wearing sun lotion, ready for the day. They may also bring additional lotion to school, but must re-apply it independently. Please also send your child with a sun hat and make sure they have their water bottle in school.
Thank You.
Science
Our Science learning this half term is all about scientific enquiry. The children will use their science and link it to an historical event in context;the sinking of the Titanic. This topic is based around applying working scientifically skills that they have learned so far in their Science lessons, to explore some of the scientific concepts behind the Titanic, e.g. floating and sinking. They will apply skills, such as asking questions, making observations and predicting. Below is a list of vocabulary the children will be learning over the next few weeks. Can you help your child learn these words? Could you play some games to help your child memorise the definitions? Maybe a game of Pictionary!
Welcome back – the final half term!
We hope that you all had a lovely half term holiday in the sunshine. We’re looking forward to seeing some of your holiday photos and hearing all about your adventures when we return to Nursery.
Please remember to bring raincoats and sun hats (with your child’s NAME clearly marked) to Nursery everyday; we never know what the weather is going to do at the moment! Also, please refer to our previous post regarding sun cream.
Before the holidays, children remained interested in minibeasts and loved listening to ‘What the Ladybird Heard’. We drew lots of maps to try and trick the thieves (listen to the story) and we also learnt about the life cycle of a ladybird. If you remember from our earlier post, we found some tiny larvae that had just hatched in our Nursery garden. We’re hoping to find them and see if they’ve grown when we return this week.
In the creative area, children enjoyed learning the names of the parts of a ladybird’s body using a non-fiction text and we used this information to create our own ladybirds using salt dough.
Other fascinations that we explored in the final week before the holidays included building ramps for cars and towers using Duplo. There was lots of mathematical language involved in both activities with children using words such as tall/short, taller/shorter, tallest/shortest to describe their towers and further/furthest to describe the distance their cars travelled.
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Finally, before the holidays, there was a lot of excitement about holidays to the seaside and trips to the caravan. We’ll soon find out if children enjoyed their adventures and we’ll incorporate their current interests into our learning over the next few weeks. Please remember to email us if your child has a new fascination at home! scholesf1@spherefederation.org
Living and Learning: I know what a drug is
Our Living and Learning statement for the last two week has been about Drug and Alcohol education. Schools must now cover drug and alcohol education as part of statutory Health Education.
In these session, pupils build age-appropriate foundational skills and underpinning knowledge including:
- Safety rules at home for medicines and household products, including what medicines and vaccinations are and how they help to keep people healthy
- The risks and effects of using tobacco, alcohol and other drugs
- Managing pressure and influences including that from peers and the media
- How to seek help and support for themselves or others in relation to health and/or substances
Our discussions in class were mature and sensible.
Here is what the children said:
Drugs are there to prevent illnesses and some drugs can be harmful. Doctors advise patients to take prescribed drugs to make them feel better. Paracetamol is a drug which helps to relieve pain.
Children use Calpol and it is not a drug.
You shouldn’t take anyone else’s medicine.
Pupils reflected on their learning in the lesson.
• What has this lesson made them think about?
• What has it made them think about their health now?
• What has it made them think about their health for the future?