EasyPeasy! We are going live!
You should have received a letter and information booklet introducing you to the new and FREE educational app called ‘EasyPeasy’.
‘EasyPeasy’ is going live this Saturday 26th January. If you have not opted out you will receive a text message inviting you to access the many educational game ideas that you can do at home.
Each week, you will receive a text message with a new game that you can play in any location with everyday items that you’ll already have at home. EasyPeasy is designed to support learning through play!
This week the activity will be ‘stepping stones’. Let us know how you get on by commenting on the game. Look out for our comment with suggestions of how to adapt the game!
Our new big topic: Kensuke’s Kingdom
Yesterday, we kick started our new big topic: class novel (Kensuke’s Kingdom).
We started off by studying the front cover and the blurb. We made predictions about what might happen:
Then, we enjoyed reading the first chapter (we each had our own copy, too). Ask your child if they can summarise what happened in one sentence, 10 words, five words then for a challenge one word! After chapter 1, we used what we’d found out to make more informed predictions:
As the story is about a boy whose family go on a round the world yachting trip, in our topic lesson, we revised some of our geography knowledge. This week, we focussed on the countries and capital cities of Europe.
Ask your child to name as many European countries or capital cities as they can. For a challenge, ask them to explain what a bordering country is. Even more difficult, ask them to explain what the term ‘landlocked’ means and give you an example.
Living and Learning – Emotions (Mood Walk)
We have been talking about our emotions; how to recognise them, what they feel like, that they change and how to deal with difficult ones.
The Mood Walk song has helped us and is great fun!
Y5 fire safety talk
Today, Year 5 we’re visited by West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service. Luckily, there wasn’t an emergency (or a cat stuck up a tree). They visited to educate us about some basic fire safety.
We began by learning about the importance of smoke alarms – almost all of us said we had a smoke alarm which is great! Ask your child how often smoke alarms should be checked.
After watching a video of a fire taking hold (the smoke alarm went off after 20 seconds and by 3 minutes the room was completely engulfed in thick, black smoke), we thought about a few points that could keep us safe n the event of a fire:
- Close all doors before going to bed.
- Alert everyone in the house immediately.
- Put a pillow or duvet behind the door to stop smoke getting entering your room (standard house doors can resist a fire for roughly 15 minutes).
- Check smoke alarms regularly.
- Try and stand near an open window.
One of the most important things to do is to create a fire action plan. A fire action plan should be discussed as a family and means that everyone in the house knows exactly what to do in the event of a fire. When creating your fire action plan, the following points are important ones to consider…
- How will you let everyone else in the house know?
- Is there a room in the house that could be a ‘safe room’? Everyone must be able to access this room easily. A room with a sturdy door and big windows is ideal.
- Does everyone know where the keys for external doors are kept? Being able to exit the property swiftly could be crucial.
- When leaving the property, stay close to the floor.
- Who will call 999 and using what phone?
- Are there obstructions on the way out of the house?
- Does everyone in the house know who is there and what the address is? These are the two most important pieces of information that 999 call handlers will need to know.
Help your child by discussing the key points above with them. Even better, make a fire action plan.
Challenge your child by asking them to explain the triangle of fire.
PE – badminton
We enjoyed our first badminton coaching session today. Balance, agility and coordination are essential and it was fun using our badminton ‘nets’ and pom-poms!
Gold stars
Well done to our two most recent golden stars!
Pirate Pete and home-link challenge
We have had a very exciting two weeks so far with our Pirates topic. To begin, the children talked about what they already knew about pirates. They enjoyed writing words and sentences and drawing lots of pictures.
When the children went to the library on Wednesday, there was a special message waiting for them from Pirate Pete.
Pirate Pete had snuck into school and left them a message in a bottle along with a book – How to be a pirate. We read the book together and brought it back to class. The children enjoyed finding out lots of new pirate facts.
The children were so excited to get a message – they decided to write thank you letters to Pirate Pete. They also had lots of questions they wanted to ask too. They wanted to know how old he was and also what Port and Starboard meant (as they had heard it in a pirate song we had been listening to).
Dear Pirate Pete. Thank you for the book.
To Pirate Pete. Port starboard – which is left and right?
Today, when the children came to school they found two more letters (one for Rainbow class and one for Sunshine class). Pirate Pete had also sent a book to read, which told them all about his adventures at sea.
We read the Pirate Pete story together and this left the children with so many more questions and things they wanted to find out:
- What does he eat?
- How did he get a hook on his hand and foot?
- What food does he like?
- How did the shark bite him?
- Does his parrot have a name? maybe it is Scurvy.
- “He is brave” commented a child.
The children then wrote back to Pirate Pete to ask him lots of new questions.
Here there are 3 examples of children’s writing
1: How can you eat? – In this example the child has written the initial sound for each word.
2: What do you drink? – In this example the child has used their phonic knowledge to segment the words.
3: How did the shark get you? – In this example the child is beginning to write sentences using some digraphs and the correct spelling for some tricky words.
Home-link – 3 challenge cubes
Can you support your child to use a laptop/ iPad to research and find out more about a pirates life or about some of the real life pirates?
Your child can record this however they like. Please bring it in to share with the class.
You can email any pictures of your child using an iPad/laptop to find information. This will support us in our assessment by providing evidence towards the Technology strand of the EYFS.
‘Children recognise that a range of technology is used in
places such as homes and schools. They select and use
technology for particular purposes.’
There’s no such thing as a Gruffal…
Oh, what fun we’ve had reading the Gruffalo this week! Children obviously love this story; it has provided a great stimulus for conversation and is helping children to develop their early reading skills. In the large construction area, one child decided to build a ‘Gruffalo floor’ and we used this to create a puppet theatre. Children enjoyed working together to use puppets to create a show for their friends.
If you want to sing a long to a Gruffalo song that we enjoyed listening to in Nursery, here’s a link to a video you can watch at home. Julia Donaldson’s website is also full of lots of ideas and games to play too. If you have a go at making Gruffalo crumble, send us a picture and let us know what it tasted like!
The reading area has also been popular this week; we’ve added a collection of other stories written by Julia Donaldson. We’ve noticed lots of excellent early reading skills being developed.
In the Early Years Foundation Stage, when working in the 30-50 months developmental band for reading, children should begin to:
- Join in with stories and guess what might happen next.
- Listen to longer stories and talk about the main events and characters.
- Know that stories have beginnings and endings.
- Look at books independently (holding them the correct way up and turning the pages carefully).
- Talk about the illustrations and begin to understand that print is read from left to right and conveys meaning.
We also enjoyed consolidating our learning about basic 2D shapes (circle, square, rectangle and triangle) by going on a shape hunt around school. We found lots of shapes including a triangle on a sign for the swimming pool and a circle on the giant playground clock.
We played a game on the interactive whiteboard to feed the correct shape to each monster.
Den-making in Science – is it waterproof and warm?
Year 1 and 2 concluded our Science-based mini-topic with a fun afternoon of den building. We chose materials based on their properties to make our dens waterproof and warm. There were several volunteers who were more than happy to test out if it was waterproof when we were pouring water on them!
If we use plastic on the outside, it will be waterproof.
We could use carpet square to sit on inside. That will keep us warm.
Cardboard and paper is warm to sit on.
Lets put cardboard on the sides under the plastic to keep the wind out.
The Water Cycle …in a bag!
As part of our ‘What’s the Matter?’ mini-topic, we have been studying the water cycle.
We recreated the elements of the water cycle by pouring water (with blue food colouring for the sea!) into a zip lock bag and placing it in a warm area of the classroom.
Measuring skills were used.
Teamwork!
We watched the water evaporate .
At the top of the bag, small water droplets formed to show condensation.
And finally, the water vapour got heavy and trickled down back into the ‘sea’ just like precipitation.
A simple yet effective way of showing this process.