Class News

Remarkable Writing

From Mr Owen, who’s leading the Y5,6 home learning writing sessions…

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share some of the fantastic writing that’s been happening in Y5 and Y6 recently, both at home and in school. Children have been creating their own planets, including maps and loads of links to geography learning. Classes in Moortown, Scholes (Elmet) and St James’ have all been working on the same projects, and the end products look great! Children should be really proud of what they’ve created.

Here are just some of the great examples that I’ve been sent. If you’d like to send yours in, I’d love to see it! (Send me an email – davidowen@spherefederation.org)

In St James’… How awesome is this?

In Moortown, Y6… What a great effort!

In my class: Moortown, Y5… This one even had an accompanying video!

This one included lots of the things we’ve been working on recently and included great vocabulary:

Scholes (Elmet) children have been really creative too…

At St James’ again… Working hard to create amazing planets!

Amazing presentation, fantastic ideas and great writing skills on show!

Awesome Writing

Check out these great examples of the main news section of a news report (from our writing: texts lessons this week). We looked at these, and celebrated these, during our daily Zoom yesterday. I’m sure you’ll agree they’re pretty impressive!

Wow! You could read either of those in a paper or online – well done!

This news post might remind us of two really important things:

1. Your class teacher wants to see your learning – particularly your writing. Send it in to us so we can give you feedback, either individually or during our daily Zoom.
2. Don’t forget to join our daily Zoom. It means you can share / celebrate your learning, get feedback about some learning you’ve completed at home or, perhaps most importantly, catch up with your friends. If you join in, I guarantee you’ll feel happier, healthier and more motivated.

Volcano Alert!

Volcanoes

This week, we’re really enjoying our Natural Disasters topic work on volcanoes.  Children have been reading First News articles in reading skills lessons, and creating their own volcano news article in writing lessons.

In topic, we’ve been learning about the layers of the earth and how volcanoes are formed.

Some families have made their own volcanoes from paper mache and real-life lava!

If you want to try this at home as a fun, craft activity, follow these links:

Make the volcano 

Make the lava

We love to see what you’re doing – please email your teacher with photos or messages of your creations. Thank you for your continued support!

Week Commencing 25.01.20: Home Learning

Story Link activities to select throughout the week

Literacy

Can you write a recipe for Gruffalo Crumble?  Write a list of all of the ingredients you will need. Think about the things that the mouse might find in a deep dark wood.

Can you make a sign to warn people about the Gruffalo ? What would you write on your sign? Think of some interesting warning words.

Can you draw and label a map of the mouse’s journey through the deep dark wood? Who did he meet first in the story? Where did he find the owl?

Understanding the World

Find out about owls and some other birds of prey by watching Andy’s Secret Hideout.

Can you find out some more interesting facts about owls?

Do you have any dried spaghetti at home? How does it feel, is it hard or soft?  Adults could you cook the pasta and watch it with your child. Talk about the changes. How does it feel once it has been cooked? Now you have your own bowl of scrambled snake to enjoy.

Expressive Arts and Design

Can you make a Gruffalo or a mouse headband? Use some paper and sellotape then colour it in. You could then act out the story. Are you going to be the mouse or the Gruffalo?

Physical Development

Using your fiddly fingers thread some tubes of pasta onto a piece of string, ribbon or an old shoelace. Can you add on eyes and make your snake slither around?

If you haven’t got any pasta you could make a paper chain snake or cut out a spiral snake from some paper.

Cosmic yoga – Here is a cosmic yoga video that links to owls. It tells the story of Tallulah the owlet. We really enjoy cosmic yoga at school and we hope that you do at home too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aje33UPixE&t=552

Online Gruffalo Activities

Click here and play some Gruffalo games.

Monster maker – make your own Gruffalo – choose your own face, body and legs. What would you call the new Gruffalo? If you have access to a printer you can print it out and colour it in.

Hide and Seek – play the matching game with the Gruffalo cards.

Menu matcher – is a short quiz about the Gruffalo story.

Zoom Meetings

We really enjoyed seeing and chatting to the children who were able to join our Zoom sessions last week. The Zoom session you were invited to is a recurring session during term time.  Please join at the same day and time with the link that you were sent.

W/C 25.01.21 Be ready for a ‘Scavenger Hunt’. We will ask you to go and find different things in your house to show and chat about.

W/C 01.02.21 We will ask your child to join in Dough Disco during the Zoom call. Please could you have some play dough ready. Here is a simple recipe to make your own if needed.

Have a brilliant week of learning and fun! Remember to email photographs of learning to scholesf2@spherefederation.org

Remote Learning 25.01 – Goldilocks and the Three Bears

This week, our learning is going to be themed around the well known traditional tale, ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’. If you have a copy at home, read it together before starting the activities. If you don’t have a copy of the story, you can listen to it using this link.

Reading

• Have you heard this story before? Can you remember what happens?
• What do the Bears say each time they find something else that Goldilocks has touched? “Someone’s been eating/sitting/sleeping…” Try to encourage your child to join in with the repeated phrases as you read the story.
• Once you’ve heard the story a few times, have a go at re-telling the story. This is an important part of the Early Years reading curriculum and we often use pictures and props to help us re-tell stories. Do you have 3 teddy bears that you could use to retell the story at home? You could find 3 different sized bowls and spoons too. If you’d like to make some story props instead, and you have a printer, you can download some printable ones here.
• If you have the CBeebies Story Time App, you can download the story to read, too. Details on how to download the App are available on the link.

Phonics

A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to make some sound effects linked to ‘Zog’ using your voice. In Nursery, we use voice sound cards during group time to make different noises. Have a go at home and see if you can think of some more sounds. What would Little Bear say when he sees his chair has broken? What does Goldilocks say when she tastes Little Bears porridge?

If you’d like to continue learning about ‘Voice sounds’, here’s a video link to a voice sounds game with a cheeky character, Felix! At the end of the video, there’s a funny face paper plate craft activity too.  You could play the same game at home and make or print some picture cards.

• If you’d like to continue learning about ‘Voice sounds’, here’s a video link to a voice sounds game with a cheeky character called Felix! At the end of the video, there’s a funny face paper plate craft activity too.  You could play the same game at home and make your own picture cards (or print some).

 Mark-Making

• • Can you draw a picture of Goldilocks? Make sure you give her lots of long, golden curls. If you like to paint, you could paint a picture of your favourite teddy bear.
  • How many bears are in the story? Try to draw a big bear for Daddy Bear and a smaller bear for Baby Bear. What size would Mummy Bear be?
  • Where do the Three Bears live? Draw a picture of their house. What shape are the windows and door?

Mathematics

• Ask your child to help you find 3 different sized bowls and spoons. Which is the biggest? Smallest? Arrange them in size order.

• Watch this week’s Key Worker video. Create your own repeating colour pattern using Duplo or Lego bricks. Keep it simple, just pick two colours.

Extension ideas

– You might have a threading set at home or some coloured beads. Can you make a repeating colour pattern using the buttons or beads?

– Create a repeating pattern using pictures or objects instead of colours. Remember to keep it simple, choosing just 2 different items. E.g.  Apple, carrot, apple, carrot, apple…

Creative

• • This activity is always a big hit in Nursery, but it is messy! Use your different sized bowls and spoons and put them inside an empty plastic storage box/tray to catch some of the mess. Add some porridge oats (or some rice crispies/rice/pasta) to the bowls for your child mix, scoop and pour the oats. Children love to scoop and pour in our sensory area – it’s easily swept or vacuumed up at the end of the day. We usually use dry ingredients, but you can add water if you want to add to the sensory play experience (and mess)!

• Make your own porridge together and taste it. What does it taste like? Do you add anything to your porridge? Does it make it sweeter?
• Need some quiet time? Grab a drink and some fruit and snuggle on the sofa to watch this CBeebies ballet version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
• In the story, Goldilocks thinks that one bed is too soft and one is too hard. What does this mean? Can you find any objects in your house that are soft and hard? What other words could you use to describe the texture of items? Rough, bumpy, smooth, furry etc.
• Here’s another of the songs that we enjoy listening to before lunch at Nursery.

 Physical Development

Fiddly Fingers

This is linked to our ‘Independence’ activity this week. What can you find that uses a zip? For example: Zip-lock bags,  purses/wallets, bags, pencil cases, wash bags, jackets and clothing. Allow your child time to investigate ‘zips’ and how they work. If you have an old bag or purse/wallet, let your child use it in their role play at home – they love to fill them with items and incorporate them into their play. Becoming familiar with how zips work, and learning how to use them in a range of contexts, will help them progress onto eventually fastening their own coats.

Movement

Get a few pairs of socks and roll them into a balls. Cut out some different sized spots (big/small) using paper and spread them out on the floor. Ask children to aim at the spots. Did it land on the big or small spot? How many are on the big spot? If the bowls you chose for the maths activity aren’t breakable, you could aim into Daddy Bear’s bowl instead!

 Independence skills

Next time you go out for a walk, make sure you allow some extra time for your child to put their own coat on. If they can already do this, encourage them to do their own zip up. This is a really important skill and one which we would be teaching daily at Nursery. If you’d like a few ideas on how to help, there are some hints and tips available on the links below – check which are appropriate for your child.

• Putting coats on – Scroll to the bottom of the web page for 2 video clips. In Nursery, we usually start by putting our hoods on first and then finding the arm holes. We don’t always have much space for ‘through the rabbit holes’ and flipping coats over our heads, although children love to do it this way!
• Zips fact sheet – Here’s a fact sheet with a few ideas or you could watch this video clip that shows small steps in teaching children how to use zips. In the video, the lady refers to the zip as ‘food’ and a ‘mouth’. In Nursery, we often call the zip the ‘train’ and put it into the ‘station’ so it can run up the track.

Key Worker activity and videos

In our Key Worker activity this week, Mrs Beesley has some bears that she needs your help to sort. We’ve done a similar activity in group time before so see if you can remember what to do. When you’ve watched the videos, have a go at sorting some of your own toys, such as Duplo bricks or cars. Maybe you’ll have a tin of Quality Street left over from Christmas that you haven’t eaten yet and you could sort the sweets! (You don’t? We’re surprised!)

Key Worker activity – Bear sorting

Key Worker Song – When Goldilocks went to the house of the Bears

 Friday Story Time

Miss Morris is going to read this week’s story, which is also about a bear. In this story, the little bear is trying to learn the names of different colours. It’s called ‘Wobble Bear says Yellow’ and is written by Ian Whybrow.

Zoom sessions (for children learning at home)

This week, in our Zoom Key Worker sessions, we’re going to sing some of our favourite Nursery rhymes. Join in at home and sing a-long to the rhymes with Mrs Gosper; she loves music and rhymes!

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Incy Wincy Spider

I’m a Little Teapot

Home learning heroes

We’ve had some lovely emails from people learning at home. Thank you for keeping in touch with your teachers and keeping your brains busy.

Things are feeling tough for some people, but just do what you can and have a day off every now and again, if you need to!

Jake is really enjoying the science videos.

Happy Friday!

Hello everyone!

I hope you’re all ok today and feeling happy. You’ve made it through another week of home learning and lockdown, so congratulations. Some of you might be finding it hard to get motivated to complete your home learning, but remember that it’s still important to do your work and that we really care about what you’re producing at home. We think you’re amazing to adjust to this strange new way of living.

The weather has been rubbish this week – so much rain! I hope you managed to get outside for some fresh air at some point each day as this is so important for you mental health.

Don’t forget that each class has a Zoom at 2pm daily. Thank you to those people who attend regularly. We love to see you and hear about what you’ve been up to. It cheers us up too! If you haven’t been on a Zoom yet, give it a go!

Remember you can contact us at any point via email. We love to hear about what work you’ve produced, what you’ve been doing, what you’ve been baking or eating and anything else you want to tell us about. If you’re finding any learning tricky, just let us know and we will support you.

We can’t wait to get you all back in the classroom and make sure you keep in touch.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Mrs H.x

Week Commencing 18.01.20: Home Learning

Story Link activities to select throughout the week

Literacy

1. Design and label your own character to match the story. You may choose to draw, paint or use real vegetables.

2. Pick a character to draw and add a speech bubble. What is your character saying?

Understanding the World

1. Find some fruits and vegetables around your house. Sort them into different groups.

You might sort by colour, size or texture.

2. If you have frozen peas in your freezer have a look at them in their frozen

state. Feel them, what do they feel like? Watch them defrost. How long does it take?

Does it defrost more quickly in different places around your house?

Expressive Arts and Design

1. Draw a vegetable.

Use your own imagination or this drawing tutorial.

How to draw broccoli

2. Use a mash potato masher to make some super art.

Physical Development

1.      With an adult, cut some fruit or vegetables to make a heathy snack.

How many pieces did you cut?

2.      Superhero PE – create your own moves or use these below.

Zoom sessions

Next week, the children who are learning from home will be invited to a zoom session with their teacher. This zoom session will be with a group of children from their class. You will find the  focus of the zoom session on the website each Friday. Sometimes your child will need to bring something along with them. Your child does not have to join in with these zooms, they are optional. Unfortunately the timings of these zooms cannot be changed as most teachers are teaching  in school. Look out for the link to your child’s zoom which will be sent via email on a Friday.

We are looking forward to seeing you all.

Remote Learning – Zoom sessions

Next week, if your child is learning from home, they will be invited to a Zoom session along with some of their friends from Nursery. Your child does not have to join in with these Zooms, they are optional. Unfortunately, the timings cannot be changed as most staff are teaching in school.

The Zooms will replicate the Key Worker sessions that your child is part of at Nursery. Sometimes, your child will need something to help them to join in with the session. Watch out for a website post each Friday – this will tell you what you will need to have ready. Don’t worry, hopefully it’ll be something you already have and quick to find!

Our first Zoom will be a dough disco session. Your child will need a small piece of dough, about as big as a ping pong ball.

Look out for an email on Friday 15th January, this will contain the invite to your child’s Zoom session.  This invite will be the SAME each week, so make sure you save/mark the email as important as you will need it every week.  If your child is learning from home and you don’t have an email by the end of the day, please send us an email. (scholesf1@spherefederation.org)

An adult will need to be present during these Zooms to ensure that your child can join in.

We are really looking forward to seeing you all next week at our very own dough disco.

Remote learning 18.01 – Winter

In Nursery, when we get some wintry weather, we often quickly adapt our daily plans to learn about ice and snow and to read winter themed stories. Obviously, planning for remote learning makes this a bit trickier, so we’ve planned these activities based upon the forecast of some more cold weather heading in our direction! If this doesn’t happen, please pick and choose the activities that you can do, and save some of the others for the next cold day!

Reading

There are lots of great stories that take place in a snowy setting. You might have ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’ at home or a favourite story that involves penguins or polar bears. Here’s a story for you to watch called ‘The Snowy Day’.

• How do you feel like when you open the curtains, look out of the window and see snow?
• Can you remember the sound that Peter’s feet made as he walked through the snow? We love listening to the ‘crunch’ of freshly fallen snow!
• What tracks did Peter find in the snow? Have you ever seen some tracks in the snow? What made the tracks?
• Peter put a snowball in his pocket. What happened? Where did the snowball go?

Phonics

In Nursery, we practise our listening skills when we’re singing and using instruments. We have to shake the instruments until we hear the music stop. Find something at home that you can use to make a noise – this could be an instrument, a pot with rice in or a wooden spoon and a pan! Shake or bang along to the music and remember to listen carefully for when to stop.

 Mark-Making

• Draw a snowman. Think carefully about what shape you need to use for the body and head. How many eyes do you need to draw? What shape could you use for a carrot nose?
• Paint a winter picture. What colours would you use?
• Draw around your hands and carefully cut them out to make some paper gloves. Add patterns to decorate the gloves. Will they be spotty or stripy?
• Add a small amount of water to a baking tray (shallow) and put it out overnight when the weather forecast is cold. Hopefully, when you return to it in the morning, you will have a thin sheet of ice. Bring it inside and have a go at painting on it. What happens?

Mathematics

• You will need a large snowman outline (cut out white paper circles or draw one onto paper) and some buttons/pompoms/beads for buttons. Just like in our previous Gingerbread Man activity, put 1-6 buttons on the snowman and count how many buttons the snowman has. Encourage children to count carefully, pointing/touching each button as they say each number. Some children will work with numbers up to 3 confidently, others may be able to work with numbers to 5 or 10. Choose the number of buttons according to your child’s confidence levels.
• On a different day, instead of counting how many buttons are already on the snowman, ask children to select a given number of buttons from a pile. They may find this tricky and sometimes forget to stop! Keep the numbers small, below 3-4 to start with. (If your child can do this, increase the numbers up to 10.) Remind your child how many buttons they need to get and what number they are going to ‘stop’ at. Keep checking as they count – have they reached the ‘stop’ number yet?

• If your child is working confidently counting up to 6, introduce a dice. Roll the dice once each and add the corresponding number of buttons to your snowman. Which snowman has the fewest/most buttons?

Extension ideas

Some of our older children might enjoy playing the ‘Snowman Dice Game’ from Twinkl. The mark making skills required might be a too challenging for some children, but you could always draw the pieces onto paper and then collect each part as you roll the dice.

Creative

• Create a winter tree picture using some twigs that you collect from your garden or a walk. You will need some coloured paper, twigs, glue, cotton buds and white paint.

• Need some quiet time? Grab your favourite snack and a blanket and enjoy watching ‘The Snowman’ by Raymond Briggs.
• Are you wearing a woolly jumper to keep warm? Here’s Aunty Mable and Pippin in an old episode of ‘Come Outside’ telling us all about how they are made.

Understanding the World

• Talk to your child about the seasons. The BBC has a short video clip that you could watch to discuss things that you can see changing as the seasons change. Children might be able to spot some of the autumnal changes that we talked about in Nursery before Christmas.
• What season is it now? How do we know? What clothes do we wear in winter? How is this different to summer time? Listen to this song all about winter – Did you talk about some of the things in this video?
• On your next walk, have a look for some signs of winter. We’ve created a Winter Scavenger Hunt sheet for you to print or copy. Take it with you on your walk and tick off the items as you find them.

If your child comments on some of the changes that they see and you have time, please make a note of the words that they use and send us an email with their comments. (Please note it down word for word, just as they say it!)

• Investigate freezing and melting. Choose a selection of objects (that can go in water and be frozen!) and put them into some empty pots (yogurt pots, ice cube trays) with a small amount of water. Freeze them overnight (or longer) and remove once they’re frozen. Put the frozen items into a tray and allow your child to investigate. What does it feel like? What has happened to the water? Play with the ice and watch what happens to them over time. Talk about the changes that children can see happening. What’s happening to the ice? Discuss the basic process of melting and think about other things that might melt such as ice-creams on a sunny day.

Physical Development

Fiddly Fingers

Lots of us have memories of making paper snowflakes as a child and we thought that this would be a great activity to practise our ‘snipping’ skills. You will need some paper (cut it into a square shape) and a pair of children’s scissors. Loosely, follow these instructions on how to fold your paper – don’t worry too much about this part! In Nursery, we’re interested in learning how to fold and use scissors safely, rather than a perfect snowflake at the end of the process!  Please ensure that your child is supervised when using their scissors.  Show your child where to cut and let them enjoy snipping the paper. What does it look like when you open it out?

Movement

Join in with these Cosmic yoga sessions at home. There’s a shorter clip, Winter Wonderland, and a longer story called Joybob The Polar Bear.

Independence skills

At this point of the year in Nursery, we usually have a long line of children needing help to put their gloves on before we go outside! Over the next few weeks, encourage your child to put on their own gloves. Teach them to close their fingers at first to get their hand into the glove and then to open them slightly and wiggle each finger into place. Keep trying – it’s tricky!

Key Worker activity/videos

In our Key Worker session this week, we’re going to do our ‘Dough Disco’ song. Those of you that join our Zoom sessions will be able to have another go and practise each of the moves. You’ll need a small ball of playdough (or similar), just enough to fit in your child’s palm.

We also like to sing this song on cold, snowy days. It’s called ‘5 Little Snowmen’.

Friday Story Time

Are you sitting comfortably?  Great, here’s Mrs Long with our story for this week. It’s called ‘Lost and Found’ by Oliver Jeffers.