DT cooking
What a fantastic day we have had in 1A. The children have been making banana sandwiches as part of our DT Food. This is part of our curriculum and the children will be making two further recipes over the course of the year. We washed our hands and tied back our hair to make sure we were safe. After getting our ingredients together we used skills like cutting, slicing, spreading and sprinkling. Some of us loved the sandwiches, others weren’t keen. I am happy to say everybody had a taste! Well done for trying something new 1A!
Help at home by encouraging your child to join in with the preparation or cooking of food.
Design and Technology (Food) – 2C
We completed our DT Food learning for this term this week. This is part of our curriculum and the children will be making two further recipes over the course of the year. We made banana sandwiches using peeling, cutting, slicing, spreading and sprinkling skills.
Help at home by encouraging your child to join in with the preparation or cooking of food.
Marvellous Maths
This week our Year 1 children have been learning all about odd and even numbers.. They are incredibly secure at counting from 0-10 and fantastic at counting backwards.
We have been recognising the value of numicon and organising it into odd and even numbers.
‘Even numbers have a flat top’.
‘Odd numbers are made of pairs and one more’.
We did the same with numerals!
Help at home: by discussing numbers and how they reach their value. E.g. ‘4 is made of 2 pairs, 5 is made of 2 pairs and one more.’
We are artists!
We were developing our subject knowledge as artists this week. The children were given a range of different artwork ranging from paintings to sculptures. The children were great at recognising some of the artists and the names of the artwork. They sorted the images however they wished in their groups and talked about their choices. A lot of the groups categorised them according to figurative or abstract and they showed a great understanding of these terms. They were able to discuss their favourite pieces using accurate vocabulary.
Reading and writing
This half term, KS1 are reading ‘Not Now, Bernard’ by David McKee. Before reading the book, we had a good look at the front cover and made a few inferences based on the pictures. We had a discussion about what the book might be about before reading it. We used clues on the front cover to help us with this. We’re then using it to write descriptions using adjectives. We’ll write them about the monster in the book and our own invented monsters too.
The monster has sharp, pointy teeth. He is huge and purple. He is loud and scary.
Help at home by reading every night to your child. It is fine (and beneficial) to read and re-read books many times.
Design and Technology (Food) – 1,2B
We completed our DT Food learning for this term this week. This is part of our curriculum and the children will be making two further recipes over the course of the year. We made banana sandwiches using peeling, cutting, slicing, spreading and sprinkling skills.
Help at home by encouraging your child to join in with the preparation or cooking of food.
Reading – Varjak Paw by S.F. Said
In recent Reading sessions, Year 3 and 4 enjoyed reading an extract from Varjak Paw by S.F. Said.
We practised key our retrieval and inference skills – two key aspects of reading.
Marshall came in on Monday and said, ‘I’ve bought Varjak Paw over the weekend so I continue reading the whole book!’
Help at home by reading every day with your child.
Diving Below Zero in Year 5 Maths
This week in Year 5 maths we have begun our new unit on negative numbers, and the children have already shown great curiosity as they explored what happens when numbers drop below zero. We discussed real-life examples such as temperatures, lifts travelling underground, and money in a bank account to help the class understand how the number line continues past zero into negative values. The children practised counting forwards and backwards through zero, comparing and ordering negative numbers, and creating change stories with negative values. It has been brilliant to see so many children challenging themselves and explaining their reasoning with growing confidence.
Help at home: ask your child to explain how the number line works when it goes below zero and challenge them to give you a real-life example of a negative number.
Each Peach Pear Plum
We’ve had such a busy week! We enjoyed celebrating World Nursery Rhyme Week, marking Remembrance Day, taking part in Odd Socks Day and supporting Children in Need.
World Nursery Rhyme Week
Children loved taking part in World Nursery Rhyme Week, singing and exploring some of our favourite rhymes. Nursery rhymes play an important role in early years education for many reasons. Here’s an overview of a few of them.
If you’d like to find out even more, you can read about seven key benefits of nursery rhymes for young children on the BBC Tiny Happy People website.
Each Peach Pear Plum
Linked to World Nursery Rhyme Week, we’ve been reading the classic Ahlberg book, Each Peach Pear Plum. We listened for rhyming words and spotted familiar fairy-tale and nursery-rhyme characters hidden in the illustrations.
History: Household objects from the past
The illustrations in our focus story inspired discussions about household objects from the past and we learnt about some objects that we had never seen before. We compared these to objects we might have at home, in the present.
In addition to pictures, we looked carefully at some old household artefacts and had a go at sorting past and present objects.
Ask your child which objects from the past they can spot in this picture from the story. Can they remember what they are called and what they are used for?
Phonics
This week, we focused on the new GPCs (Grapheme-phoneme correspondence) v, w, x, y.
We’ve also learnt some new tricky words; and, has, his, her. Tricky words are words that should be read by sight.
Help at home – Please continue to revisit this week’s sounds and tricky words using the ‘Learn at home’ sheets.
Poem Of The week
This week’s poem is called ‘Shoes‘.
Reminders
- It’s our Number Stay and Learn session on Tuesday 18 November (9–10am). We hope you can join us for a short maths lesson, followed by some time in the classroom taking part in maths activities with your child.
- Please make sure all uniform is clearly named. Please could you also double-check that your child has brought home the correct uniform, as jumpers and cardigans can sometimes end up in the wrong place!
- Rain, rain and more rain! Please ensure that your child has a pair of wellington boots at school so that they can enjoy learning outside in all weathers.
Next week:
We’ll read Night Monkey, Day Monkey and explore how the two monkeys experience the world at different times of day. We’ll also be learning about daytime and night time activities, including discovering some amazing nocturnal animals.
Reading – Michael Rosen Day
We enjoyed an online meeting with Michael Rosen today. The children were absolutely enchanted by him reading poems and telling stories. Listen to more of his work here. (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.)
