Class News

5/6 S Certificate Celebration

This weeks certificate winners are…

For great learning…

Alfie – you have become such an active learner in class, and even if you’re unsure, you challenge yourself to participate. Well done!

For sport and physical activity…

Ellie – for demonstrating more enthusiasm during PE lessons. You’re joining in more with increased skill. Well done and keep it up!

For living and learning…

Mia – you always have a mature attitude in class and you listen well to other people. Well done.

Well done everyone!

Living and Learning: Antibullying

I know how to STOP bullying – this was our statement for the week.

We discussed the meaning of STOP in lessons and the two definitions for bullying. For homework, the children created something that showed their understanding of their learning this week. Here are some examples…

By Sadie

Freya Homework 20 Nov

By Aaron

By Luca

By Stephan

History : What’s the artefact?

We’ve had some great history lessons this week. We looked at some artefacts (old objects) and tried to guess what they were. This one is a water squirt – used to squirt water on buildings during the Great Fire of London.

The children guessed what it might be before we talked what it was used for.  We were great historians!

It might be a spear.

It’s a gun.

It’s a balloon pumper.

Challenge Cubes

Has your child been coming home and talking about challenge cubes?

Perhaps they have shown you a certificate they have earnt by getting all of their challenge cubes that week?

Each week, the children are set a ‘Rainbow of Challenges’ with the aim to encourage them to visit different activities (and therefore access different areas of learning)

There are six challenge cubes to collect each week. In the classroom, the challenges are displayed on small blackboards placed in the areas and also on our ‘challenges’ display wall.

Some challenges also include a STAR CHALLENGE, where children can earn a star on their star chart, in addition to their challenge cube.

Challenge cubes are collected in the children’s trays and counted at the end of the week.

Take a look at an example below, of the type of challenges you might expect to see in the classroom.

History: Athenia vs Sparta!

This week, we’ve been learning all about the Athenians and the Spartans!

These are two of the city states of Ancient Greece. Lots about them is similar – but there are lots of differences, too!

Today, we learnt loads of each state. Each small group were given some information about a particular aspect of life in Athenia (Athens) or Sparta: the role of women, education, economy and government.

Then, we had to go around the room and find out the rest of the information for ourselves. This meant we were learning and teaching at the same time.

Here’s what we learnt…

We’ll be using this knowledge later in the week to practise the skill of debating when was find out once and for all ‘Who is the better city-state’?

Certificates in 3/4 E

Well done to everybody who received our certificates this week – you’ve obviously stood out to your teacher for extraordinary learning or effort. Here are our certificate winners in 3/4 E :

Bobby and William – fab skills: dribbling, passing, turning and shooting in hockey.

Thomas and Cameron – excellent remembering and achieving highly!

Lily and Georgia  – demonstrating resilience when solving problems!

This week, we have also added a Times Tables Rockstars player of the week.

Well done to Esmae who has improved her ‘effort’ scores this week.

Self-isolating at home?

If you’re learning at home this week, here are a few activities for you to try and some that we have planned for Nursery. We hope you enjoy joining in at home; don’t forget to keep in touch and send us an email. Scholesf1@spherefederation.org

Five Currant Buns

• ‘5 Currant buns‘ is one of our favourite rhymes. We like to make currant buns in the playdough area using bun cases and baking tins. What could you use for  cherry on the top?  Children love to role play shops; we have created a  ‘bakery’ in Nursery with a till, some coins and order pads.
• If you have the ingredients at home, have a go at baking some currant buns. Children love to bake and its beneficial for children in so many ways.  If you don’t fancy traditional currant buns, use a basic Victoria sponge cake mixture and add some currants.

Five Little Speckled Frogs

• Sing a long to the rhyme together at home. If you have some paint, have a go at making some frog stick puppets to use to act out the rhyme.  You could paint frogs or try  printing them if you have an old sponge or scourer. You could even try and make a frog using your handprints!
• If you want to find out more about frogs, there’s an old episode of ‘Come Outside‘ all about frogs that you might like to watch.

Grand Old Duke of York

• Get a small blanket or towel and a few small soft cuddly toys. Stretch the blanket out and hold it between you and your child. Sing the rhyme and bounce the toys on the blanket. As you ‘march to the top of the hill’, raise your arms and as you ‘march down again’, crouch down lower. Children love to try and bounce the toys off as they reach the top of the hill!

Little Miss Muffet

• Do you have some porridge oats or rice crispies at home? In our sensory area, we’ve been talking about Little Miss Muffet and helping to mix her curds and whey. We used different sized bowls and scoops and children loved scooping, pouring and mixing the oats. Warning – It can be messy, but is easy to sweep/hoover up!

I’m a Little Teapot

• Let your child enjoy an extra long bath time and give them some plastic cups and jugs to play with. We’ve been using teapots in our water area at Nursery and mixing cups of tea for our friends. During group time, we’ll be singing the rhyme and decorating a teapot (outline drawn on paper) with patterns. We might use spots, stripes, circles or zig-zags.

Have fun!

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

This week’s maths learning is on our focus number 4.

Click on the screencast links below:

• Screencast 1
• Screencast 2
• Screencast 3
• Screencast 4

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.

More maths fun at home…

In class this week, we will be setting up a ‘shop’ and using pennies to pay for items. Perhaps you would like to play shop at home too?

Phonics

This week we will be learning  l/ ll and ss.

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: Screencast new sound l/ll
• Lesson 2: Screencast new sound ss
• Tricky words recap- watch the tricky words youtube video to recap all the words we have learnt in phase 2!

• We have now reached the end of phase 2! Until the end of term we will be doing lots of revision of the sounds we have learnt so far!

Here are all of our sounds on a mat. Go through the sounds each day.

Have a go at reading the following words:

Literacy

This week we are moving on to a new Pirates topic and reading the story – Pirates Love Underpants

• Lesson 1: Watch the story. Recap the main events. What characters are in the story? Create a story map of the events that happen.

• Lesson 2: Oh No! Someone has stolen the golden underpants! Can you create a WANTED poster describing the person we are looking for. Draw the person and add some word labels to describe them, using your sounds.

• Lesson 3: Make a treasure map. Add words to label the map. You might like to have a go at tea staining your map to make it look old and well-used!

• Lesson 4: Create your own pirate adventure by changing the setting or characters. Add your new characters/setting to your story map or create a new one. You can be as imaginative as you like! Make sure you tell your story to an adult, so they can let us know all about your super adventure!

Topic

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

More Nursery Rhyme Fun…

Our World Nursery Rhyme Week learning areas…

Rainbow Class Superstars singing their favourite nursery rhymes…

(click the image below)

Rhyme Week

It has been a week full of rhymes for Rhyme Week.

We performed our favourite nursery rhymes and used our characters to help us act them out.  Can you guess what rhymes we have been recreating?

Our focus book this week was – Each Peach Pear Plum.

We had lots of fun playing I spy to find the characters hiding on each page.

As well as nursery rhyme week, it was only anti-bullying week. Lots of children came to school in the socks to celebrate their individuality and how we are all unique!

Home-Link Challenge

In class, children have loved creating treasure maps and exploring the classroom and outside for treasure.  Our provision next week will be based around pirates to support their interest.

Can you create a map of a journey you go on outside or in your house? You might choose add landmarks you see, arrows to show your journey or label your map.

Email your maps to – scholesf2@spherefederation.org