A day in the life…
Year 5 had a fantastic time visiting Wetherby High School yesterday. They got to experience what it would be like to be a high school student for the day. It was a jam-packed day that involved a lot of rushing around to different classrooms but the children took part in a great range of lessons. We began the day with French. This was a great link to the Latin learning we do in our school as the children could already work out the meaning of some french words. Science allowed us to consider which things in the world are living and non-living and they got the chance to use some scientific equipment – a microscope. Maths provided the children with lots of mind-boggling challenges! After lunch, one lucky group got to experience a high school PE lesson whilst the others turned their hand to cooking. What budding chefs they were!
Living and learning : Staying Safe week (visit from D:Side)
All the Year 1 and 2 classes have had a visit from D:Side this week. They talked about staying safe online and taught us some rules about being on the internet.
- always ask you parent or carer first
- only talk to people you know
- stick to places that are just right for you
Help at home by talking about internet safety and checking parental controls and the age guidelines for games.
Living and learning: RSE
Year 5 are continuing to complete their Relationship and sex education lessons and we have been discussing how our emotions change during puberty. The children understood that during puberty, they will expect a change in their hormones. This can impact on how they feel. We talked about how they can manage these changes, especially when they are feeling low, sad or angry. They cam up with some great ideas of how to relax and talk time to look after themselves, such as: having a bath, spending time outside, reading a book or even doing some art.
Help at home: Has your child been experiencing any changes in their emotions? How can you support your child through this?
The Snail and the Whale
The Snail and The Whale
We’ve been reading The Snail and The Whale, another book by one of our favourite authors, Julia Donaldson
We’ve been retelling the story in our own words and writing special blackboard messages, just like the snail trail messages in the story!
The book had some fantastic adventurous words to describe landscapes and actions. Our word of the week was humongous. We discussed the meaning of lots of other words too.
Can your child tell you what each of these words mean? They could use the images to remind them.
Maths
This week, we’ve re-visited the composition of 5 in various ways.
Transition
On Wednesday, the Reception children had a wonderful visit to their new Year 1 classroom. It was a delightful experience for the children as they met their new teacher and explored their future learning environment.
The children were excited and engaged, participating in fun activities to make them feel welcome and at ease. This visit was a positive step in helping the children transition smoothly into Year 1. They left with big smiles and lots of enthusiasm!
The dancing raisin experiment
Phonics
Summer 2 week 5 has focused on:
root word ending in: –er, –est
longer words
In provision, we’ve been reading words ending in –ed and sorting them by the sounds that –ed makes:
‘t’ final sound: jumped, helped, screeched etc.
‘id’ final sound: boasted, painted, printed etc.
Help at home; Sentence Substitution Throughout the school year, we’ve suggested lots of practical ways to explore phonics at home with easily made resources and games. There are also some great quality online phonics games. Sentence substitution is a great way to practise both reading and comprehension. The goal is to replace one word in the sentence, whilst ensuring that the sentence still makes sense. This is a free to access game on ‘Phonics Bloom’ Click here to play at home!
Poetry Picnic
Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers.
This week’s poem is Sliced Bread
The children enjoyed exploring synonyms for the word nice and came up with many alternatives, such as delightful and delicious. This sparked a lot of interest in changing and adapting various parts of the poem. Check out some of their new poems!
Nell Bank
On Friday, we set of on our trip to Nell Bank. We began by listening to a story about Pete who liked to be TIDY but maybe a little bit too much.
We worked together safely to clear up a big mess! During this activity, we explored ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle, and discussed what would happen to litter if it was left.
Afterwards, the children had the opportunity to go on a mini-beast hunt to help Pete find lots of worms. Following this, it was time to help Pete make a new home in the woods. One of their favourite parts of the day (outside of lunch, of course) was the water play area.
Ahoy there!
Children enjoyed listening to ‘Pirates Love Underpants‘ and we’ve been busy digging for treasure in the sand tray and counting gold coins in the maths area.
During maths group times, we’re learning about positional language. Next week, we’re going to use treasure maps of the Nursery garden to find some treasure. Children will need to use lots of positional language to describe where the treasure is hidden. For example, the treasure might be next to the sandpit, underneath the bridge, behind the planter or on top of the bird table.
Help at home: Try to use positional language in your day to day conversations and during play. For example -Can you put your teddy underneath the box? The car is behind the garage. The monkey is on top of the tree. Put your shoes next to the cupboard. As you look at illustrations in a story, ask questions such as ‘Where is the cat hiding?’ or ‘What can you see in front of the fence?’
The older children have also been busy visiting Reception and have enjoyed exploring and playing in their new classrooms. We’ll continue to visit over the final few weeks as part of our transition process.
Reminders-
- Please send your child with a waterproof coat everyday. The weather is very mixed at the moment and we enjoy playing out in all weather, even when it’s warm but wet!
- A few water bottles have missing names. Please take a minute to re-label your child’s bottle if it has come off.
Meet your new teacher – transition day 2024
We welcomed a visit from the children who will be in our classes in September. All the teachers in Key Stage 1 are staying in the same places from September 2024. The children were excited, apprehensive, happy and nervous – all at the same time! Feel free to pop over to say hello before we break up for the summer.
1,2B Design and Technology
1,2B completed our design and technology (food) learning today.
We used a recipe for make wraps. We cut, spread, tore and folded to create our own wrap.
Help at home by getting your child involved in food preparation.
Wrap it up!
Today, as part of our D & T learning, Class 1A set off for The Hub to make their own wraps. They were given the choice of cream cheese, ham, peppers, lettuce and cucumber of ingredients to put in their wrap. Everyone thought carefully about making healthy choices. The children used skills such as slicing, chopping, spreading, arranging and rolling and everyone tried hard to use the bridge grip when slicing. Well done Class 1A!
After all the hard work, they enjoyed the fruits of their labour. Yum!
Help at home: Perhaps you could give your child the opportunity to show off their skills by allowing them to make their own healthy wrap or sandwich at home. Or better still… perhaps they could make you one.
Money – making the same amount
In Maths, Year 2 are re-visiting money. We know how to recognise and describe each of the coins and notes. Today, we started by trying to make the same amount of money in several different ways. See some of our work below.
Key Stage 2 Sports Day
Friday saw the event of the year that we’d all been waiting for – sports day! All the children turned their hand to a range of competitive races from the sack race to the long distance. The weather was good and even the sun made an appearance. It was so good to see all the children looking happy and healthy and thank you to all the parents, grandparents and carers that came to support us! Thank you also to the crazy people that took part in the adults race – I’m sure you made your children proud!
