Class News

Year 5/6 SK Homework

There have been some amazing talents demonstrated this week. We enjoyed dance routines, guitar music, craft, fashion design and art amongst others. It was great to hear children speaking confidently about themselves and peers being supportive.

E-saftey in Scholes.

As part of our internet safety learning, we have been looking at the different types of websites and their uses.

First, the children discussed their understanding of  website addresses, URLs and what they stand for.

https://www.ready.gov/volcanoes 

http://www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/mountains/volcanoes.htm

In particular, we looked at the difference between ‘safe’ websites with encrypted security  and those which are not secure.

We did this by checking the padlock on websites and those which have https and not just http. The ‘s’ shows us how this is secure.

We also looked at different domain names and what they are short for, like .com, .co.uk, .org, .gov, .net.

Then, we searched different website types and discussed what we found out.

New email address for homework

We have had lots of enquiries about emailing homework. The office email address is on the website but, from now on, any specific homework for year 1s or year 2s should be sent to the following addresses –

Year 6 Real Friends performance 

The Real Friends performance by Leap One and Bright Sparks Theatre Arts was a fantastic opportunity for Year 6 to learn about hate crimes and mate crimes.

During the performance, the actors asked children what manipulation means:

‘Manipulation is where someone is being controlled beyond their own will.’ – Seth

At home, you might want to follow up this performance by asking your children some questions:

• Which part was the most powerful / emotional?
• What do you know about the word ‘vulnerable’?
• What are protected characteristics?

Living and learning: Brexit

After watching a newsround report, children in 56M had a discussion about Brexit. Many children contributed their views on Britain’s current relationship with the EU and what they thought might happen after the Brexit deadline. They also asked many questions. At home, you might want to discuss these questions and share your own views. 

RSPB visit

This afternoon, we had a special visitor from the RSPB. We listened to a story all about a baby hedgehog. Everything in the hedgehog’s nest and little world was brown. The walls were brown, the floor was brown, Mummy hedgehog was brown – brown was everywhere!  One dark night, Mummy hedgehog decided it was time to leave the nest. A whole host of sights, smells, sounds, tastes and textures awaited the little hedgehog.  He enjoyed crunching a beetle in the garden; it tasted yummy. He saw colourful flowers and felt the prickles of a bramble bush on his nose. Ouch!

We talked about using our senses to explore our environment, just like the baby hedgehog had done on his adventures outside his nest.  Next, the children worked in groups to explore the Nursery garden using all of their senses.  They listened to the special call that robins use to ‘talk’ to each other and looked for different coloured flowers and plants. We enjoyed finding ‘smelly’ plants to make a special hedgehog soup.

What a great afternoon of learning in the sunshine! We’d like to thank the RSPB for joining us and running this session; we had a great time.

Number 10

This week, we’ve been looking at the number 10 and the children have engaged in many different activities to represent ten.  At the start of each lesson, the children enjoy watching the Number Block song for the number of the week.

They’ve all drawn ten in their busy books. We call this mathematical graphics. In the example below the child has drawn ten in lots of different ways.

“Ten crosses, ten circles, ten ladders”.

The children have enjoyed using pictures to tell number stories to ten.

“First there were 4 pigs, then 6 sheep came along, now there are 10 animals all together.”

The children have had a go at telling less than number stories and with support can write the numbers to show the story.

First there were 14 spots on the ten frame, then 4 rolled away, now there are 10 left.

Finally, they have enjoyed counting by 10s. We estimated how many cubes were in a jug and then grouped them by 10s to count the total number.

Challenge – 3 cubes

Can your child tell (verbally or through mathematical graphics) a number story to ten? They can use a picture from a book, create a scene using small world props or from something they can see around them.

Please email us any quotes or mathematical graphics from your child. This will support us in our assessment by providing evidence towards the number strand of the EYFS.

Children count reliably with numbers from one to 20, place them in order and say which number is one more or one less than a given number. Using quantities and objects, they add and subtract two single-digit numbers and count on or back to find the answer. They solve problems, including doubling, halving and sharing.

Monsters in the mud and rainbows

The changeable weather provoked lots of questions this week; children wondered how rainbows were formed and also talked about the different shapes of clouds. We enjoyed listening to songs about rainbows and collecting the colours we needed to create a giant rainbow collage. Children were very excited when they went outside on Tuesday –  somebody had visited the playground whilst we’d been hiding from the wind inside! There were lots of suggestions as to who the very large footprints belonged to. Trolls? Monsters? Giants?

Did you see the messy monsters in the mud in our sensory area this week? As well as learning about the letter sound ‘mmm’, children also enjoyed moving the monsters through the gloop and investigating the different properties of the mixture. Sometimes it was solid and felt very hard to touch and sometimes it was runny and slipped through our fingers. The ‘mud’ was actually a mixture of cornflour, water and colouring.

If you want to enjoy some gloopy fun at home, just try mixing some cornflour and water together and watch what happens. We’re sure you’ll enjoy it and it’s an excellent way to develop language and introduce new vocabulary to your child. (There is a recipe you could try on the BBC website if you prefer to have exact quantities. We didn’t try the egg part detailed in this experiment!)

On Friday, some children joined in with some ‘Red Nose Day’ fun. Thank you for your fund raising donations.

Dancing raisins? Yes, it’s our science lesson!

This week, we were learning about scientific processes – particularly predicting. Children were asked if they thought the type of liquid (still or fizzy water) would affect if a raisin floated or sank. Predicting in science is all about a ‘thinking guess’ and using what you know to help you.

I think the bubbles in the fizzy water will make the raisin float.

I think the raisins will sink because they are small.

I think the raisins will turn back into grapes.

The children observed how the raisins sank straight to the bottom in the still water. In the fizzy water, the raisins ‘danced’ up and down and they noticed how the bubbles stuck to the raisins and pushed them up.

Why not have a try at home? Does it work with other objects?

Amazing art

This week children had the opportunity to explore tone. They added white or black to a colour to make it lighter or darker. Don’t forget to come along to our Pop-Up Art Gallery on Tuesday 26 March at 3.30pm to view and ‘purchase’ your child’s art work.