Class News

Goldilocks pantomime

Thank you to Friends of Scholes Primary (FOSP) for paying for us to watch a panto. We really enjoyed it and there were lots of important messages for us to take away too:

• be kind
• listen to other people
• we can all be friends
• laugh and have fun

It’s beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas…

We are all feeling full of festive cheer this week after a virtual visit from Santa!

He left a video for us to watch and even rang our classroom to tell us he had left presents for each class.

We have completed lots of Christmas challenges in both classrooms; decorating pine cone trees; making Christmas pictures using shapes; writing about our class elf and wrapping gifts in the post office.

We also became gardeners and planted some bulbs. They are currently sleeping and we can’t wait to see them grow.

Home-Link

Design some Christmas wrapping paper. Can you use a repeated pattern in your design?

Notices

Thursday – Christmas dinner day

Friday – Non-Uniform and  Christmas party snack

Living and learning : emotions

We have been talking about our emotions in our living and learning lessons. It is important to recognise our own emotions and well as other people’s emotions. Even if we feel a certain way, this feeling will not last forever and that is okay.

Fiery finale to our history topic – The Great Fire of London

We have really enjoyed our history topic – The Great Fire of London.

We have learned so much and saw how London might’ve burned today. We made some houses out of tissue boxes. Two houses were close together and 2 were spaced apart (with a firebreak in between). We then set fire to them. Ask your child what happened!

Writing Workshop – A Virtual Visit

Yesterday in Year 3/4, we had an amazing writing workshop with visiting author Adam Bushnell.

Each Year 3/4 class had approximately an hour’s creative writing all about Ancient Greek myths. The workshop was held via Zoom, which is proving to be effective in engaging our children.

Adam Bushnell was a primary school teacher and is now a published author of both fiction and academia. He works as a ‘visiting author’ in the UK and internationally delivering writing workshops and staff training. He is the author of fifteen books of children’s fiction including and he has recorded audio versions of some of  these books. His first novel, ‘Quests in Epica’ was released in the summer of 2016 and was illustrated by  multi award winning illustrator Ross Collins.

He has written The Kings of Ancient Greece – a great book for the children to read all about classic Greek myths.

Some feedback from 3/4 children:

“I loved it! He was really fun and full of facts.  I wrote my own Greek myth too!” 

“He made me want to write my best myth.”

“He brought the Ancient Greeks to life – almost!” 

Thank you to Adam who inspired our children at Scholes.

Ask your child about the virtual visit so they can share their experiences with you.

Author Visit Adam Bushnell

We had great fun today when we had a zoom chat with author, Adam Bushnell.

He helped us to create our own mythical creatures and heroes so we could plan our own Greek myths.

3,4O: Super Scientists

We continued our learning about sound by carrying out an investigation into the relationship between volume and vibrations.

First, we observed the vibrations when we played the musical instruments louder or fainter.

We found that the louder the volume, the bigger the vibrations – remember, the vibrations cause particles in the air to vibrate which in turn creates sound.

Then, we carried out a more scientific investigation using a decibel metre. Decibels are the unit we use to measure sound. We played the instruments and recorded the volume.

Finally, just like scientists would, we created a graph to show our results. Take a look at a few of ours…

Isolating at home? This learning is for you.

Here is some home learning for when you can’t be with us at school.

Remember to send pictures of your child’s home learning to scholesf2@spherefederation.org.

Maths

For this week’s maths learning, we are continuing to learn about the number 5. Spread the activities across the week, at your own pace. For video sessions, your child’s learning will be most effective if you sit with them to pause the clip and check / praise / support your child as the clip moves on.

Sessions 1-3 – White Rose Maths Alive in 5!

 Number 5 picture story

One way that we learn about number bonds and number composition in class, is through number stories. Look at the picture below and ask your child what they notice about the picture (‘There are 5 elves’/ ‘There are 5 presents’)

Next, have a look at the differences and talk about them in full number sentences, for example:

Q: How many elves are wearing trousers, and how many are wearing skirts?

A: There are 2 elves wearing trouses, there are 3 elves wearing skirts. There are 5 elves altogether.

Q: How many elves are wearing belts and how many are not wearing belts?

A: There are 4 elves wearing belts, there is 1 elf not wearing a belt. There are 5 elves altogether.

What other features, questions and number sentences can you come up with?

Phonics

This week we will be continuing to recap our phase 2 sounds.

Watch and join in the Jolly Phonics songs.

(This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.)

Lesson 1– Blending

Read each word by saying the sounds then blending together.

Lesson 2– Recapping sementing to write and digraphs at the end of words

 Grab a piece of paper and a writing tool. Ask your child to write the following words- Remind them the think about which representation of the sound they should use at the end of a word:

Lesson 3– Recap Phase 1- listening for blends.

Play ‘eye spy’ together, by sounding out things you can see in the environment. For example:

“eye spy with my little eye, something that sounds like t-a-p” and the child would say “tap”

You can swap roles so your child has a go with both sounding out and blending words.

Lesson 4: These are our tricky words we have learnt so far. They are tricky because we can’t use our phonics to help us read them.

Can you read each word?

Play tricky word pairs. Write the word twice and lay face down. Take turn to find matching pairs of the words. Ensure you both say each word you turn over.

Literacy

This week, we are reading The Jolly Christmas Postman

Lesson 1– Read the book if you have it at home or watch the story below, read by a VERY special reader!

Make a story map of the Postman’s journey. Which characters did he visit along the way?

Lesson 2– In the story, some characters are sent cards. Make your own Christmas card with your own design on the front. Don’t forget the important features:

• We write To and the person’s name, so that the person who the card is for, knows that the card is for them.
• We write From/ Love from, and then your name so the person who the card is for, knows who has sent them the card-you!

Lesson 3- In the story, The Jolly Christmas Postman meets Humpty Dumpty. Can you make a list of things that Humpty Dumpty needs to be repaired and to feel better, after his fall.

Lesson 4- Which is your favourite character that the postman meets in the story? Talk about why they are your favourite. Can you use your imagination to come up with a Christmas adventure for your favourite character? Tell an adult your story and create a story board of pictures.

Topic

Choose some of these activities to complete throughout the week. These are based on our topic – Christmas.  They may spark other interests and ideas that result in other learning opportunities. Let your child lead the learning!

New books!

Recently, we made a significant investment in some new ‘dip in’ books for all classes across KS2.

It was very exciting when they were delivered and our book shelves are now full to the brim with exciting and engaging non-fiction / poetry books.

We spent some time this week enjoying them – it was awesome to share what we were learning with other people in the class.

3,4O: certificates

We’ve enjoyed another great week in 3,4O. We’ve been historians, writers, mathematicians, athletes, friends, team mates – the list could go on!

Here are this week’s certificate winners…

For great learning…

Ethan – You’ve smashed your learning across all subjects this week. You’re ready to learn and you always try your hardest.

For living and learning…

Jessica – You’re a great friend to many people and a generally awesome member of Team 3,4O. Keep being kind!

For sport and physical activity…

Harry – For demonstrating excellent teamwork during our PE lessons. You are passionate about sport and help others to enjoy it, too.

For Times Table Rockstars…

Noah – You consistently use TTR to improve your times table recall and have done for some time. Keep it up!