Class News

History topic – The Great Fire of London

We have started a new history topic. Lots of our learning will be linked to The Great Fire of London. We are reading this book to support our learning:

You could search for a video of it on You Tube or there is a slideshow of the story here that you can read with your child at home.

We will be learning about where and how the fire started, why it ended up being so ‘great’ and what happened afterwards. We will also be learning about fire safety.

Help at home by asking your child about what they have learnt about The Great Fire of London so far.

Reading archaeologists 

Year 6 raced against the clock to uncover facts about pyramids this morning. At home, you could continue researching about pyramids. What’s your favourite fact? 

Descriptions and drawings of Dink!

What a great start to our creative writing today!

We loved drawing characters from descriptions.  Here is the text that we used:

Deep inside the dark cave lived a fanged, hideous creature known as Dink.
Covered from head to toe in grotesque, white spots and crusty, mud-soaked skin,
you could smell Dink before you could EVEN see him. On the very top of his
head, lived a family of lice that played all day in his bright green, unwashed hair.
His muscular body escaped from his tiny clothes which were soaked in sweat.

Look at our drawings of Dink.

This was a really fun way to read accurately, check for understanding and look at ways to create good descriptions. Why not try this at home with another text? A good one is The BFG, by Roald Dahl.

Self-isolating at home?

Self-isolating at Home?

Here are some home learning activities for when you can’t be with us at Nursery.

This week at Nursery we will be thinking about fireworks, space and fire engines.

Communication

We realise that Bonfire night will be a little bit different this year but here is a programme to watch where Woolly and Tig celebrate Bonfire night. Talk to your child about what they see on Bonfire night and how we keep safe around fireworks and sparklers.

Creative

You could create a firework picture at home. Think about the patterns they make in the sky. Try some spiral and zig- zag patterns.

 Fiddly fingers – Fine motor development

You could draw your own patterns and your child could follow them with small objects. You could use stones, pasta, beads, anything that you have around the house.

Understanding the World

We are going to be finding out about firefighters this week in Nursery. Watch this programme with your child to find out how they put out fires.

 Mathematics

Here is a counting rhyme to sing about 5 brave fire fighters.

Phonics

This week we will be learning to be good listeners. If your child can hear and distinguish sounds in the environment it helps them to hear the sounds in words. This skill will support them once they begin to read and write.

Put some objects that make sounds in a box or under a blanket. For example keys, bells, a noisy toy. Show your child the objects then cover them. Make the objects sound and ask your child to identify the object.

You can play this outside too, by going on a listening walk around your garden. What can you hear? A car? The wind? A bird?

As always lets us know how you get on with these activities by either ringing school or contacting us via our email address.  Scholesf1@spherefederation.org

A morning in Reception…

Welcome back Reception!

It was so lovely to see your happy faces arrive at school this morning. We are looking forward to another great term ahead.

A HUGE thank you to everyone who has sent in photos of their half-term activities and adventures. We saw lots of great costumes, pumpkin picking, visits to the circus, welly walks and more. We will enjoy sharing these pictures in talk-time this week.

As part of our ongoing efforts to keep you all involved in classroom life, whilst restrictions continue to be in place, this morning we filmed a little snapshot of the classroom buzz and activity. You will see that as soon as the children walk through the door, they are ready to learn!

Click here to watch a short video of our busy morning 

Keeping safe

This morning, we revisited how we are keeping safe, our hygiene routines and why it is important to follow them.

We had a swift mention of the fact that the leaders of our country have put in some ‘new rules’ to continue keeping us all safe.  Well done to Gracie who told us that Boris Johnson “is the Prime Minister” when he was mentioned!

We spoke about how great we already are in our school, at making sure we are safe. We wash our hands carefully and use the ‘vampire arm’ to catch any sneezes or coughs. We practised this again.

Well done to Lewis, who gave a very detailed description of how we wash our hands:

“with soap, front to back, through our fingers, all over them, wash it off with water”

Thank you to our parents and carers, who have obviously done an amazing job at sharing these messages at home too.

Lunches

From next week, children will be having a different school dinner menu to choose from. There is more variety in the new menu. We wonder whether this might encourage some of our packed lunch children to try a school dinner?

You are of course welcome to continue sending a packed lunch, if this is your child’s preference.  You may also choose a mixture of school dinners and packed lunch throughout the week.

Self Isolating at Home?

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

Maths

This week’s maths learning is all about the number three.

• Lesson 1 – Count one, two and three objects.
• Lesson 2  – Count one, two and three abstract materials. 
• Lesson 3 – Estimating and checking. 
• Lesson 4 – Representing number three.
• Lesson 5 – Pattern and numbers to three.

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.

Phonics

This week we will be recapping the sounds we have learnt so far and some new ones too.

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.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VknD1I0Zc4

• Lesson 1: Screencast new sound o
• Lesson 2: Screencast new sound c
• Lesson 3: Screencast new sound k

Literacy

This week we are reading the story – The Three Little Pigs.

• Lesson 1: Read or watch the story. Recap the main events. What characters are in the story?

Draw a picture of your favourite character.

Challenge: Write a label or sentence to match your picture.

• Lesson 2: Read or listen to the story.  What words could you use to describe each character? Create your own posters and add words to match each character. You can use the cards or posters below to support this activity too.

Cards Posters

• Lesson 3: Read or listen to the story. Use this story map or create your own story map to retell the story.

• Lesson 4: Create your own story by changing the setting or characters in the story. Add your new characters/setting to the story map.

Topic

Choose some of these activities to complete throughout the week. They may spark other interests and ideas that result in other learning opportunities. Let your child lead the learning!

Living and Learning – Mental health

In class, we’ve been doing a lot of talking over the past few weeks about emotions and our mental health.

Here’s a round-up of what we’ve discussed:

• Emotions, or feelings, can change all the time.
• We all experience a whole range of emotions, from anger to happiness to fear.
• Different things happen every day that make us feel good and not so good.
• There are ups and downs all the time.

But there are some things we can do to help us have more of the good feels – simple ideas of things you can do every day…

• Go outside! Get some fresh air
• Run around or play – do something active that gets your body moving
• Have you got a hobby that you enjoy? Learn something new!
• Hang out with your family or friends
• Doing something nice for someone else
• Helping others – it feels good for you too!
• Read books you like
• Listen to your favourite music – sing and dance!
• Have a good night’s sleep
• Relax…

What to do if something feels not so good
If things happen that make us feel not so good… don’t worry! There are things you can do to
feel better. Here are some ideas…
• Talk to someone about it
• Take your mind off it – do something else
• Take some deep breaths
• Count to 10!
• Know that this moment will pass
• Choose something from the list above
• If it feels very bad or not right… tell a trusted adult – they can help you!

Potion mixing

We hope that you all had a great half term and are looking forward to returning to Nursery. Thank you to everyone who has emailed us a few photographs to show us some of your adventures. We’ve seen pictures of pumpkin carving, bat biscuits and some very spooky looking costumes. Lots of you have enjoyed going on autumnal walks and visits to parks.  By now, everyone should have received an email with a Pic Collage attachment. Please remember to check your junk folder and let us know if you haven’t got it.

Did you enjoy watching the ‘Through the keyhole’ video of a morning in Nursery? Hopefully it gave you an insight into our daily life!  Here are some extra photographs of our learning before the holidays. Children loved mixing potions in our cauldron outside and saying magic words to make spells. We’ll continue with this theme at the start of the week and we’ll begin to look for new interests, too. Before the holidays, lots of children began talking about space. We’ve added a new small world space area to the Sunshine room which we’re sure children will love.

Although celebrations will be very different this year, we know that children will hear and notice fireworks this week. We’ll incorporate this into our learning too; we love to paint firework pictures and talk about the different noises that they make.

Living and Learning – mental health

We have been looking at mental health over the last few weeks. Using mindfulness techniques (we like some of the Go Noodle ones) and talking about our feelings, moods and emotions is important. The SMILERS 7 steps to wellbeing is also a simple self-help guide.

What are we learning this half-term?

Short answer: loads of exciting stuff!

If you want a bit more detail, read on…

Topic: Ancient Greece

This half-term, we’ve loads of exciting learning planned. We start our new history topic: Ancient Greece. There’s loads to learn about this incredibly important – and interesting – ancient civilisation (our curriculum statement tells you exactly what we’ll learn).

Amongst other things, we’ll learn some new knowledge: When and where was Ancient Greece? What influence did the gods have on their citizens? What is a democracy? And, the learning I’m most looking forward to, we’ll learn about and then compare two of the main states in Ancient Greece: Athenia and Sparta.

As well as improving our historical knowledge, we’ll continue to practise the key historical skills: time and chronology, using historical sources to gain information and thinking about how people interpret historical events differently.

We’ll also enrich our learning with some art, some design & technology and lots of thinking about the spiritual, moral, social and cultural aspects of our learning.

If you want to get ahead of the game with your learning, check out BBC Bitesize. 

Writing: 

In writing, we’ll move on to writing with description. We’ll write character descriptions about an encounter with a mythical beast and we’ll have a go at re-writing part of an ancient myth. In our writing, we’ll use lots of adjectives for impact and learn how to use expanded noun phrases.

Reading:

We’ll read some Greek myths, lots of descriptive writing and some poetry to help us practise our reading skills. To supplement this, we’ll have some good old-fashioned story time where we read our class novel: Give Peas a Chance. 

Maths: 

We’ll build on our learning last half-term as we move on to addition and subtraction. We’ve a helpful guide to calculations on our website that can help you practise these skills at home – it shows parents how we teach these skills in school, too (something that cropped up a few times at our recent parent teacher evening).

PE:

Danny from 5 Star Sports will continue to help us improve our games playing skills – all at an appropriate social distance of course. in our other PE lesson, we’ll think about tactics – and, in particular, how to adapt our tactics to beat our opponents.

Living & Learning:

This half-term, we’ll remind ourselves about the importance of manners, think about Anti-Bullying Week and learn about happy and healthy relationships.

As always, we want to hear from you. If you have any questions, or think we can help in any way please get in touch. Because we want to keep everyone safe, our usual playground discussions aren’t ideal. Instead, remember that you can email us anytime…

3,4O – olliecatherall@spherefederation.org

3,4EV – emmamccormick@spherefederation.org & vickyrichardson@spherefederation.org

3,4NV – nicolawadsworth@spherefederation.org & vickyrichardson@spherefederation.org