Living and Learning : I know how to make things better
There was some fantastic homework this week showing how we can make things better. In our homework review sessions,we had the chance to look at each other’s homework and talk about what we liked and why.
Computing : using the Blue-Bot floor robots
The new floor robots, Blue-Bots, have been put to good use the last couple of weeks. We have been learning how algortihms and codes work to make the Blue-Bots go where we want them to. We have found out you have to be very precise otherwise things don’t work out how you want!
Golden Stars
Well done to our most recent golden stars!
Home Link – Listening for sounds
This week, children enjoyed reading ‘Peace at Last’. In the story, Daddy bear can’t get to sleep because there are so many sounds that he can hear in the night. He can hear Mummy bear snoring, the owls hooting, the fridge buzzing and the clock ticking.
What can you hear? Listen carefully to noises that you can hear in different places around your home and whilst you’re out and about. Talk about the sounds that your child can hear. Are they loud? quiet?
Remember to let your key worker know what sounds you heard.
Listening for environmental sounds is an important skill and is part of our early teaching of phase one phonics from Letters and Sounds. As well as listening to sounds, we also try to copy and make sounds using our voice and body.
I’ll huff and I’ll puff…
We’ve loved listening to the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’ this week and by the end of the week, many children were beginning to join in with the repeated refrains in the story. They enjoyed using the props in the book corner to re-tell the story so we will continue and consolidate this next week.
Many children have shown an interest in dinosaurs since we returned to Nursery. We’ve gradually added a few dinosaur themed enhancements to our provision to capture this interest. We have been exploring printing with dinosaur shaped stamps and making dinosaur footprints in the playdough. A few children were fascinated with the imprints and textures that the dinosaurs body/feet made as they pushed them into the dough. We also saw some great pictures in our mark making area; we had ‘Daddy and baby’ dinosaurs as well as children enjoying experimenting with patterns (stripes, circles, dots) on dinosaur outlines.
In maths, we’ve continued to look at repeating patterns (colour, shape and size) and children are beginning to be able to select what would come next. For example, in the game shown on the interactive whiteboard in this photograph, children had to look at which shape and/or colour would come next on the train.
Chinese New Year
This week, we began reading our new Literacy book called My Granny went to Market. We focused on her trip to China as this weekend it is Chinese New Year.
To begin, we looked at a map of the UK and how it is made up of four countries – England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. This children spoke about times they had visited these parts of the UK. We then looked at a map of the world. We found out that China is approximately 5000 miles away from the UK and it would taken 10 and half hours to travel there by aeroplane.
In the story, Granny visits China and buys a lantern with a Mandarin symbol which means double happiness. Some children had a go at drawing this symbol. We also learnt to say hello in Mandarin (Ni hao).
We challenged ourselves to write our names using the Mandarin alphabet and had a go at painting numbers in Mandarin.
Next, we looked at how Chinese New Year is celebrated and read the story about Jade Emperor to find out how the animals for Chinese New Year were chosen. We found out that this year is the year of the rat.
Home-link – 3 challenge cubes
Can your child tell you something they have learnt about China/ Chinese New Year?
Please email quotes from your child. This will support us in our assessment by providing evidence towards the understanding the World strand of the EYFS.
Children talk about past and present events in their own lives and in the lives of family members. They know that other children don’t always enjoy the same things, and are sensitive to this. They know about similarities and differences between themselves and others, and among families, communities and traditions.
Crazy Computing!
This term, Y5 and Y6 have started a brand new topic: computing. In this topic, we’ll blend offline computing (without a physical computer) with online computing (on the laptops/iPads) to teach a range of skills and knowledge – you can see what this knowledge is in these ARE (age-related expectations) grids.
So far, we learnt all about algorithms (a set of instructions for a computer) and evaluated some existing games using the digital computing platform, Scratch.
After the evaluation phase, we designed our own games with a partner – ask your child what the aim of their game is. We discussed some more important computing knowledge like decomposition (breaking a problem down into smaller parts), sequence and selection (how to tell a computer what to do and when, often using ‘if…then…’) and variables (something in a game that keeps track of progress – like a health bar, point system or timer).
Then, we were super excited to start creating our games. We started by creating our backdrops and then we designed our maze. It was really tricky, and we had to be super resillient, but we got there in the end. Ask your child about their recent computing learning:
What have they enjoyed most?
What have they learnt?
What will they be learning over the coming weeks?
Following instructions
In writing, we looked at a range of different instructions. We had the opportunity to follow the instructions to check if they made sense. With mixed results, children showed great resilience as balloons popped and ties knotted.
Living and learning: I know what a drug is
Ruth, from D-Side, came into school today to discuss solvent abuse. We looked at a range of household products and learned about how risky they are. We discussed symbols on packaging and their meaning. At home, you could reinforce the message of how dangerous solvent abuse is and look for symbols on your products.
Designing a computer game
Year 5/6 have been designing their own computer games this week. From Polar Drop to Crown Dodge, the ideas have been very impressive. They have thought about variables, themes and what their Sprite might look like. At home, you might want to download scratch 2 to design your own computer games.
