Y5 reading: non-fiction
This week, Year 5 have practised a rang of reading skills using the same non-fiction text.
We started off by exploring and evaluating the text. This is a great way of ensuring we understand a text (and ones with read before) and helps us to become critical, reflective readers – we really enjoy it, too!
Challenge your child by completing the same activity with them about a book they’re reading at home.
Then, we practised our retrieval skills. However, we’re pretty good at retrieving information from the text so we had a challenge. Instead of being given the questions, we were given the answer and had to work out what the question would’ve been. Help at home by trying this strategy when you’re reading with your child.
In our next lesson, we learnt how to tell the difference between facts and opinions. We applied our knowledge by identifying some facts and opinions from the text. As a challenge, we created our own.
In our final lesson, we read and analysed another non-fiction text:
We evaluated the articles against each other, formed our own opinions and looked for similarities and differences. Ask your child which article they preferred and why.
Rocket word fun!
Here are some games to make learning the rocket words fun and engaging for your child.
BOO!
Preparation/Equipment:
Write the words on individual pieces of paper and fold into a cup.
Write the word BOO on some of the individual pieces of paper and fold into a cup.
How to play:
Take it in turns to pick a word out of the cup and read it.
If you get BOO put all your words back.
The winner is the person with the most words at the end of the game.
Splat!
Equipment:
Words on card/paper
Fly swatter
How to play:
Splat the words with the fly swatter and get your child to say the words OR
ask your child to splat the words as they read them.
Living and Learning- I don’t interrupt (with my mouth or my hand).
We have started the year with another Living and Learning statement that relates directly to manners – at home (where waiting our turn and not interrupting helps us to get on well with others) and in the classroom (where we try to avoid putting our hand up if it means the speaker feels like they’re being interrupted or hurried up).
We enjoyed a group activity where we were given different classroom scenarios. After discussion, we decided if the scenario was something that we should or shouldn’t interrupt our learning for. Would you agree or disagree with the placement of the scenarios in this photo? 
Keeping active – skipping
All year 1 and 2 classes enjoyed a skipping lesson from Jodi from Skipping School last week. We worked on our individual and big rope technique. Year 2 will be entering a competition later in the year (which Miss Parling will be setting up an after school skipping club for). Children can bring skipping ropes to school to use at playtimes and lunchtimes (please name them clearly).
Time to talk
We love hearing about what your child has been up to at the weekend during our time to talk sessions. It’s a great chance for your child to build their self-confidence by speaking in front of their peers. It’s also a valuable time to develop their communication and language skills.
If your child brings a time to talk sheet (which you can get from the parent partnership board in the classroom) on a Monday, they’ll be able to share their Monday news with their key worker group. You can also email pictures to support your child to remember what they did at the weekend.
As well as sharing time to talk sheets from home, your child gets the chance to draw a picture, label it (initial sound/word) or write a caption/sentence about their weekend. This is an opportunity for your child to write about something that is meaningful to them.
In this example the child has labelled her picture with the word red.
In this example the child has written a sentence – I went to a party.
In this example the children enjoyed writing a list of jobs for the pirate crew – sweep the deck, walk the plank, fight the baddies, find the treasure.
When writing a sentence we encourage your child to think about their sentence, say their sentence aloud, count how many words are in their sentence and then write it. Finally, don’t forget to check it! Below is a picture prompt your child will be familiar with when writing a sentence.
Toys, ice and shapes.
Children were keen to return to Nursery after the Christmas holidays; some were so excited they came running through the door! We loved hearing about your adventures and seeing lots of the photos that you kindly sent in.
This week, we read ‘Kipper’s Toy Box’ and talked about the different toys that we got for Christmas. The new Toy Shop role play area was popular and children especially enjoyed navigating the remote controlled cars around a track. It was quite tricky to use the controls to make the cars turn and go straight through the tunnel but the children helped each other and kept trying until they got the cars to the finish line.
Outside, on one of the chillier mornings, we found some ice. Children were really excited and keen to touch it and find out how it got there.
In group times, we learnt about simple 2D shapes. Some children continued their learning outside independently; they spotted some shapes in our outdoor area. Towards the end of the week, we began to make our own shapes, a bit like the ones that we watched on the Mr Maker shape song (CBeebies). We’ll continue learning about shapes next week. Please complete the Home Link shape activity and return it to Nursery.
Fantastic beasts and Y5/6 made them
This week, in our writing lessons, we’ve made up our own Star Wars inspired beasts. After recapping some previous learning earlier in the week (determiners, parenthesis, expanded noun phrases – ask your child to explain each of these terms) we worked in pairs to write a short descriptive paragraph about an animal from a book about Star Wars characters, which was really cool!
Then, we created – using some images from the book as a prompt – our own beasts!
Next week, we’re going to write a non-chronological report based on our beastly creations.
Ask your child about their creature – what could they write about?
Challenge your child by asking them to identify the relative clauses in this news post.
Thursday’s PE blast
What a sporty day we had today!
We had brilliant basketball sessions today with Leeds Becket Basketball Coach. We learned a range of new skills: stance, dribble, pass and bounce.
Learning new skills is sometimes frustrating because we want to be able to do it all straight away. We learned how to be resilient and try our best.
We also had super skipping sessions with Jodi, who showed us many new tricks to take to our play times and PE lessons. 
This was fun and in contrast to the basketball skills we also learned today.
We will certainly need a rest tonight.
Well done everybody for trying your best and having a go!
Learning letter sounds – Ssss
This week, our older children have started to learn about the sounds that letters make. We listened to the Jolly Phonics ‘s’ song and learnt the action (weave hand in an s /snake shape and say ‘ssss’).
To begin with, children are learning to recognise the letter and say the sound. We learn to say the pure sounds that letters make, so for ‘s’, we say ‘sssssss’ rather than ‘suh’.
Children are learning to hear the initial sounds in words by playing eye-spy type games. Some children may try to write the letter, but at this stage in Nursery, our main focus will be learning to hear the sounds in words. Phonics learning in Foundation 2 will have a greater focus on writing and letter formation.
Science – materials and their properties
We have a started a Science based mini-topic called What’s the matter? We are learning about different materials and their properties. Help at home by talking about what different household objects are made of.
- Why are some chairs wooden but others are plastic or metal?
- Why is the bath plastic but the sink is ceramic in the bathroom but metal in the kitchen?
- Do you have carpet, laminate, wood, lino or tile floors? Why are different floor coverings chosen in different rooms?