Living and learning – the 8 Rs
This week, year 5/6 debated the value of each of th 8 Rs for learning. They generated other words that might be added to the 8 Rs: respectful, relentless and being real. They used a diamond 9 to help select the most important R for learning and discussed the reason for their choice.
Our 30 Decker Bus!
Year 3/4 have been inspired by reading ‘The Hundred Decker Bus’ by Mike Smith.
The bus has 100 decks, so that everyone can go on the adventure.
So, we’ve created our own 30 decker bus! It goes all the way up the wall and over the ceiling! We’re really proud of it.
I wonder where it’ll take us?
Living and Learning – using our 8Rs for learning
In class this week, we dedicated some learning time to consider which of our 8Rs we use. Do we use them all? Or some more than others?
We called it …
‘R thinking about our thinking‘.
At various times throughout our day, we stopped to think about what ‘R’ we have used. Was it … resilience? reflection? being ready? being responsive? taking responsibility? risk-taking? remembering? or being resourceful?
Problem solving in Maths: Resilience
Topic research using iPads: being resourceful and being responsible for what we searched for.
In some lessons, we used more than we realised.
We remember our times tables and division facts and respond to the task.
Being ready, resourceful and reflective when we write.
This metacognition, or ‘thinking about thinking’, really helps the children to understand how they think, feel, act and learn. Research shows that if we reflect on how we learn, then we become better at learning. 
Living and Learning- Reflecting
Our 8Rs for learning have an animal and action to go with them. (2KL are demonstrating their glee at creating them as a class).
One of the 8Rs for learning came to life today. The animal for ‘Reflecting’ is an owl. We had the most adorable baby barn owls come to visit! Pixie and Paddy are 30 days old. They will certainly help us to reflect on what and how we’ve learnt in the future.
Golden Stars
Well done to our two recent golden stars.
Y5 reading – Boudica or Boudica?
This week, in our Y5 reading sessions, we’ve been practising our reading skills using a semi-fictional text about Boudica the Iceni Queen and her battle against the Romans. This text links directly to our big topic: Time Travel. (We’ve also learnt about the Romans in our writing, maths and topic lessons.) There was quite a lot of text to read so to help us understand the text more clearly (learning about identifying significant events and characters) we made story maps.
The next day, we focused on using our inference skills to explore the dynamics of the relationships between the key characters. To help us organise our thoughts we used a relationship grid.
Help at home by encouraging your child to discuss the different relationships characters have in the book they’re reading or a programme they’re watching on TV.
Finally, we applied our inference skills again in a different context. This time, we used an emotions graph to explain how the characters felt at key points in the story.
Help at home by encouraging your child to think about the emotions a character may experience in different points of the book they’re reading or a programme they’re watching on TV.
We’ve loved our week of Roman reading and tomorrow we’ll enjoy our weekly love of reading session.
Chips, cheesy pizzas and caterpillars
We’ve followed a number of different interests in Nursery so far this week, from chips to caterpillars!
On Monday morning, whilst having ‘tea’ in the home corner, we were eating chips and talking about where they came from. Many children suggested the supermarket and Chinese take-away, but nobody knew which vegetable they were made from. We read a story called ‘Oliver’s Vegetables’. In the story, Oliver loves chips and they’re all he wants to eat. When he visits his Grandad, Oliver is only allowed to have chips for his tea when he can find the correct plant growing in his Grandad’s allotment. After a quick trip to the shops for some potatoes, children enjoyed making chips in the afternoon. They cleaned the potatoes and were very careful when cutting them into chip shapes. Their favourite part had to be eating them!
We also found a very unusual caterpillar in Nursery on Monday. It had green and black stripes and was very hairy. It even had a big, red spike on its back. Children were really excited about it and enjoyed using the magnifying glasses to look at it closely. They drew some great observational drawings and tried hard to copy the stripes and prickles. We tried to find out more about what type of caterpillar it was; we used a nature book and searched on Google until we found an answer. It was a Pale Tussock caterpillar which will eventually become a moth.
Look what I’ve found. It’s very prickly!
After lots of pizza shop role play, children became real pizza chefs on Tuesday and made their own pizzas. They spread the tomato paste onto the pitta breads, sprinkled the cheese on top and added a few basil leaves. This provided lots of opportunities for discussion, as we watched what happened to the cheese as it melted.
Class novel – Stone Age Boy
All the year 1 and 2 classes are reading and using Stone Age Boy by Satoshi Kitamura as a stimulus for learning over the next couple of weeks. Although it is more of a picture book than a novel, it contains so much information that we will be using it as a focus for several lessons.
We will be re-telling the story, learning about life in the Stone Age and creating cave paintings using sticks and stones.
Help at home by talking about the past, present and future. Talk about major events in history including that of our own lifetimes and the more distant past. How was life different when you or your older relatives were young compared to that of your child?
Roman chariots
This week in Year 5 and 6, we’ve been learning all about the Romans. This is part of our big topic: Time Travel. We’ve been busy learning lots but we’ve particularly enjoyed making our own miniature chariots. Now we’ve made them, we’re going to write a set of instructions in our writing lessons to help other people make them, too.
First, we did some research about what Roman chariots are.
Then, we sketched some ideas.
When we felt confident, we designed our miniature versions.
Then came the most exciting part – building!
Later in the week, we’ll add our axles and wheels and then review them against the design criteria we decided on.
Cross Country competition – resilience, determination and grit!
Some year 6 children took part in the area heat of the Leeds Cross Country competition today. They ran 1,800m and had to draw on their Living and Learning skills; being ready, determination and resilience. They all enjoyed the experience and finished the race. Well done!