Safer Internet Day
Today is National Safer Internet Day. To celebrate this, and as part of our current topic (computing), Year 5 and 6 have spent some time thinking about how we can stay safe online.
We focused specifically on online persuasion: the idea that much of what we see online is designed to persuade us to act in a certain way.
We started off by searching ‘Plumber Leeds’ on Bing. You can Help at home by searching this with your child and seeing if they can explain to you what we noticed about the top results (hint: sponsorship).
Then, we learnt about cookies and how they store information about our digital footprint. As part of our learning about cookies, we learnt about what pop ups are, why they can be a bad thing and, most importantly, what we should do if we come across one online.
We learnt about how online games persuade us to stay on them for longer and spend money – and what’s in it for the games companies (who, despite the fact that one game earnt a whopping £1.38bn last year in revenue, advertise as being free for all).
Finally, we reflected on our learning and made pledges for how we can stay safe, happy and healthy online.
Help at home by asking your child what they pledged. Or, you could also help at home by asking your child the questions below.
Sport Relief – The Big Summit Sofa Challenge Friday 06 March
We are very excited to announce that Scholes (Elmet) Primary School will be the starting point of the BBC’s Big Summit Sofa Challenge on Friday 06 March.
Harry Gration, Amy Garcia and Paul Hudson from BBC Look North will join in with Wake Up Shake Up as their warm-up before they set off at 10am. They will then head towards Barwick, pulling and pushing their red sofa 100 miles, incorporating some of Yorkshire’s biggest climbs. We will be making banners, flags and as much noise as we can to create an amazing send off for the celebrity team.
It would be amazing if we were able to start this challenge off with a generous donation and so we are inviting the children to come to school in their sports kit, in exchange for a £1 contribution.
The BBC television cameras will also be in school to film us and talk to as many people as they can – some may even feature on the news that night.
They have asked that we encourage as many parents, family and friends to stay after they have dropped children off in the morning, so please feel free to show your support and join in with the fun!
Thank you in anticipation of your support.
PE – gymnastics
This week, in our PE session, 56OB finished off a unit of gymnastics learning by getting out the equipment in the hall. We had a great time using our balance, coordination and strength to tackle a range of tricky equipment – lots of us were super resilient, too!
Here’s a few action shots…
Ask your child what they’ve been learning about in PE recently. Challenge them to explain what impact this has had on their physical and mental health.
Computer Coding!
As part of our computing topic, we’ve been programming our own games on Scratch. We used to decomposition to break down making a game into smaller, more manageable chunks.
We’ve written algorithms using sequence and selection to tell the computer what to do and when. It’s been very tricky though. We’ve constantly had to debug our code for errors – it’s really hard so we’ve made plenty of mistakes. But we’ve all enjoyed the process and the children this week commented that they felt proud of their learning.
Here’s a few pictures of our games. They’re not finished yet but you should be able to see that they’re super impressive.
Challenge your child by asking them to explain the algorithms to you. For a further challenge, can they talk about their own games using some of our topic vocabulary: sequence & selection, decomposition, algorithm, variable.
Home Link – More or fewer?
During some of our maths activities and during day to day play in Nursery, we have been comparing quantities of objects. Many children understood the concept of who had ‘more’ or the ‘most’ but children were less familiar with the word ‘fewer’.
Try to use this language at home as you play and during everyday tasks. You could make a game to play by gathering a handful of objects e.g Lego bricks, coins, buttons, beads or anything small that can be counted. Put them into a bag or box and take turns to put your hands in and pull out a handful of objects. Who has more? Who has fewer?
To encourage your child to think even more, try asking questions, such as:
- What can you tell me about the number of objects?
- I think I have more than you – how could we check?
- What makes you think you collected more?
- Who do you think collected more objects?
- Who collected fewer objects?
- Have a go at taking handfuls of different sizes. For example,
sometimes take a big handful of items and the next time only take
a small handful of items.
Handy hint – we have been learning to use the word ‘fewer’ to describe
a smaller number of countable objects, such as coins, buttons, people or
pencils. ‘Less’ would be used to describe smaller amount of something
that cannot be individually counted, such as money, water or time.
Unicorns, dinosaurs and balancing on the cracks!
Whilst we haven’t had much frost, snow or ice yet this winter, it was quite chilly one morning this week. So much so, that children decided they needed to do something to warm up. We had great fun chalking an obstacle course on the path. It began with children talking about cracks in the ground; we drew some lines/cracks to carefully balance along and then drew some lava to jump over and stepping stones to hop between. Children took turns to balance along the cracks and jump over the hot lava.
Physical Development is one of the Prime areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage. Children working within the 30-50 month developmental band should:
- Move freely and with pleasure and confidence in a range of ways, such as
slithering, shuffling, rolling, crawling, walking, running, jumping, skipping, sliding and hopping. - Mount stairs, steps or climbing equipment using alternate feet.
- Walk downstairs, two feet to each step while carrying a small object.
- Run skilfully and negotiates space successfully, adjusting speed or direction to avoid obstacles.
- Can stand momentarily on one foot when shown.
Children continued to enjoy the dinosaur enhancements and as requested last week, the new unicorn rainbow drops in the sensory area were very popular, with both boys and girls. There was lots of scooping, filling, emptying and pouring.
Over the last few weeks, children have continually returned to a game where they play ‘librarians’. As a result of this continued interest, we’ve created a mini library role play area in the Sunshine room and during group time, children enjoyed visiting the school library.
PE – HIIT fitness with Joe Wicks
Due to a visit from Dog’s Trust, we couldn’t get all the gymnastics equipment out today but that didn’t mean we missed our PE session. KS1 did some HIIT (high intensity interval training) as part of our lesson. The children were so active and we could really feel it in our legs after! Why not have a go at home?
Dog’s Trust Visit
We have found out about all about the great work that the Dog’s Trust do to care for and rehome dogs.
It was interesting to learn about a day in the life of a dog at the centre.
We also got taught some great ways to keep safe around dogs to make us and the dog feel safe when playing, feeding or stroking a dog.
Did you know the dogs at the Dog’s Trust even go to dog school?
They learn tricks and skills to help them become great pets for their new owners.
The Leeds centre rehomed 876 dogs last year. The money you help our school raise will help them to continue to support and care for the dogs, buy toys, blankets, beds and important medicine and treatment.
School Council visit the Dog’s Trust
18 excited school council members visited the Leeds Dog’s Trust centre.
We were guided though the centre with a look behind the scenes.
The staff at the Dog’s Trust were very grateful for our first donation of £517!
Thank you to everyone that donated on our recent film night.
The Dogs Trust
The School Council have voted for the Dogs Trust to be the schools chosen charity. Today, we went to a special assembly from the Dogs Trust. We all sat and listened very well in the hall. We were told some ways to keep safe when we are around dogs. For example, how to play fetch, how to feed a dog and how its important not to enter a kennel when the dog is sleeping. We also learnt how they train a dog to sit.
We also talked about ways to show a dog we love them. The children came up with lots of ideas.
“We can stroke them.”
“We can play with them.”
“We can take them for a walk.”
“We can give them treats.”
Home-link – 3 challenge cubes
Can your child tell you how to keep safe around dogs?
Please email quotes from your child. This will support us in our assessment by providing evidence towards the Understanding the World, Health and Self-Care and Communication and Language strands of the EYFS.