Happy Half Term!
We hope that you’ve all had a good rest over half term and have enjoyed some fun family outings. Please remember to send us one or two photographs of your activities or bring a leaflet into Nursery. We’ll be looking at them in the first week back; they are a brilliant way to encourage communication and listening.
Scholesf1@spherefederation.org
Living and Learning-homework
Wow! There has been some fantastic creative homework this week. I can show different ways to stay safe was our prompt. Look at what we did in response…
Living and Learning-books for discussion.
We took out two books from our recent visit to Sholes village library. Both books prompted valuable discussions. The first, ‘Living with Mum and living with Dad’ allowed children to discuss their own family. We appreciated that all families are unique and the most important thing is that we are loved.
The second book, ‘Hooray for Knickers’, was very funny. It reminded us of our ‘pants are private’ rule. This rule comes from the NSPCC as an important message for preventing abuse. There is a catchy song and video that all children enjoying singing in KS1. What books will you take out of the library during this holiday?
Pirate Party
We have all had a brilliant day celebrating Pirate Pete’s birthday and the end of our pirate topic. Thank you for providing all the amazing costumes that the children were wearing today – everyone looked fantastic!
We especially enjoyed dancing at the front of Wake Up Shake Up and teaching the whole school a pirate dance we have been practising all week!
In the afternoon, we had a visit from Pirate Pete, we all sang happy birthday to him and had some pirate punch!
Have a great half term!
Year 5 game-makers
In our reading sessions this week, Y5 have practised their skills by creating there own board game.
Each day, we practised a different reading skill.
Before creating our own questions for our board game.
Today, we enjoyed playing our games (and practising our reading skills, too).
Here’s our reviews…
I really liked playing out board game especially the fact finding questions.
I enjoyed creating our board game because I’ve never done it before.
I really enjoyed playing this board game because it helps with our social skills and our teamwork as well as our reading.
I liked this week because we got to make our own questions.
Herd Farm Residential
Monday 11th – 13th February 2019- Herd Farm
At the beginning of this week, the Year 4 children went on a residential visit to Herd Farm, Eccup. It was a fantastic experience for the children, which will no doubt be remembered as one of the highlights of their year.
The 3-day trip was packed full of exciting activities: the giant swing, archery, an assault course, a zip wire, orienteering, puzzle palace, songs around a campfire and a muddy night walk.
For many children, valuable life skills were learned and happy memories made.
Here is what some of the children said:
“It was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.” Lucas
“I did the zip wire all by myself!” James
“I loved singing songs around the campfire with my friends.” Lily
“I just want to be there now – we had so much fun!” Matilda
Thank you to all the staff who volunteered their time and effort to spend a wonderful 3 days away.
Photos of the trip will be uploaded once they have all been collected.
Den Day
As part of our class novel topic, year 5/6 have been designing and building their own shelters.
Den building
Year 5 and 6 have had a thrilling morning creating wonderful shelters and dens. They had to work hard in their teams to build strong structures using only piping and canes. They had to ensure their dens were waterproof. The adults thoroughly enjoyed testing this with buckets of icy cold water!
Drama for writing (and Living and Learning – consent)
To enhance our Big Topic, we have been involved in some drama workshops delivered by The West Yorkshire Playhouse this week. They were based on the Katie and…. books by James Mayhew. We used Katie and the Dinosaurs and were transported into a wonderful imaginary world of dinosaurs. The children immersed themselves in the drama and produced some writing describing the dinosaurs they created.
The Living and Learning part involved the important topic of consent. We asked children for their consent to be photographed and we also asked Paul, our facilitator, for his consent too. This sets a good example for children and helps them to realise that they can consent (and withdraw their consent) for their photograph or video to be taken.
Keeping active – starting good habits
Every Friday, each class takes it in turns to lead the daily Wake Up Shake Up (WUSU) session, which is part of our commitment to provide 30 active minutes every day (in addition to our PE lessons). It was F2’s first chance to lead this week. They were really excited and showed us their two favourite dances. Young children enjoy being active and find it easy to join in, without feeling self-conscious, so we hope this continues. Well done, F2!
