Class News

Superworm

Whilst the sun did shine a little bit more this week, it was still quite chilly in the nursery garden.  We didn’t let that stop us from exploring; we hunted for wriggly worms, slimy slugs and other bugs and we loved being able to access the music area and wobbly bridge now that the ground is a bit drier.

Our story this week was ‘Superworm’ by Julia Donaldson. We looked at some real worms that we found in the garden and talked about where they live. In the maths area, we compared the length of different worms and counted how many long and short ones there were. We continued this learning in the sensory area, counting spaghetti worms that we caught with tongs. In the dough area, children loved rolling dough to make a very long Superworm!

Help at home – Counting objects to 5

We’re working really hard on our counting skills. Here are a few things to remember when your counting together at home.

• Count anything and everything in everyday life!  Birds on the fence, coins, biscuits on a plate, apples in the bowl… 
• It is often easier to count objects accurately if they are in a line so encourage children to touch/move each object as they count it.
• Ensure that they only say one number for each object as they point to it/touch it.

We also found a snail outside and looked at the spiral patterns on the shell. In the creative area, we drew spirals and circles and made swirly snails in the dough, too.

Our other learning and interests this week have included:

– Using a straw construction set to make masks, flowers and fireworks.

– Working together to create a new Pizza shop role play area. Children drew their favourite pizzas to add to the menu and helped to gather the items that they would need, including making a pizza oven! We’ll share some more photos of our creations next week.

Next week’s learning:

We’ll find out about spiders and enjoy reading ‘Spider Sandwiches’. We’re still watching our caterpillars closely and have noticed how much bigger they are. We may even have some more wriggly visitors coming to Nursery… Can you guess what they could be?

Letter sound of the week – V for volcano

Nursery rhyme of the week – Incy Wincy Spider

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

This week, we have been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar. As a class, we created a story map to help retell the story. We used time connectives to develop our story language.

First,   Next,   After that,   Finally,  

In our writing, we have been composing sentences to retell main events of the story. Some children chose to adapt the story by changing the main character and food.

The reading challenge this week was to create a story map.

Maths

This week, we have continued to develop our subitising skills (see the quantity without counting) in complex arrangements.

We have explored creating arrangements of 6. The children explained how they could see 6.

Phonics

This week, we have continued to learn phase 4 words such as frog, shift, chimp and drum.

We’ve also learnt more phase 4 tricky words; some, come, love and do

Help at home- Please continue to work through the weekly learn at home phonics sheets, throughout the Summer term. We’ll continue to send these home each Friday.

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 called Under a Stone. Watch here.

Living and Learning

I know the importance of sleep.

The children thought about different reasons we need sleep and how to get a good night’s sleep.

It can sometimes make your eyes sting. (screens)

It wont help her brain. If she’s distracted she wont go to sleep. (iPad)

You shouldn’t have any screen one hour before bed.

If you put a calming song on your might go to sleep.

Science

The children have been amazed at the rapid growth of the caterpillars. Each day, we have observed how they have changed and recorded what we noticed

They are massive now!

They have got too big for their skin.

They are moulting.

Reminders and Dates

SWIMMING DATES- Summer 1

Rainbow Class-  1 May, 15 May

Sunshine Class- 8 May, 22  May

Living and learning – dental health

Our Living and Learning lessons have all been about dental health this week. We talked about why we need to brush our teeth, who can help us take care of our teeth and how we can take care of our teeth.

We used these pictures to talk about who and how we can take care of our teeth.

Help at home by making sure your child brushes their teeth regularly and properly.

Phase 3,4 Library visit

This week, each class had the opportunity to visit Scholes Library. We learned how we can borrow books and how the library service works.

We enjoyed spending time exploring the books and discovering new authors. Using our new class library cards, each class was able to borrow five books to read and enjoy in school.

Help at home by continuing to read regularly. Why not take a visit to Scholes Library?

3,4B Class News

This half term Year 3 and 4 have started a new geography topic – explorers. In this topic we are learning about different places within Europe and comparing and contrasting them. This week we created fact files on York and Venice – finding out lots of information such as latitude, population and area – using atlases and online search engines.

We have also linked this learning to our writing where we are producing a promotional text on either York or Venice. The children have really enjoyed carrying out independent research on their chosen city and are looking forward to publishing these pieces next week.

Help at home by continuing to listen to your child read and asking them questions as they go to help develop their understanding and encouraging your child to play on TTRS regularly.

Have a great weekend!

3,4A Class News

This term, our new class novel in Y3/4 is ‘The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane’. In Reading, we have used an extract from the book this week to practise different skills, such as understanding new vocabulary and retrieving information from the text. We have also been practising our reading fluency with a short poem about York – linking to our Geography and Writing units. We always discuss any new words the children are curious about – this week I felt very old trying to explain what the poet meant by York being ‘top of the pops’!

Help at home by continuing to listen to your child read and asking them questions as they go to help develop their understanding.

Science: reversible changes

In Science, year 5/6 have been learning about reversible changes.

We discussed how we could separate salt from water after making a salt water solution.

The children agreed that through evaporation we should be able to extract the salt. We decided to observe our experiment over a series of days. The picture shows what happened to the salt water solution over three days.

Help at home: discuss other reversible/ irreversible changes. Plan some of your own experiments to check whether a change is reversible or irreversible.

Fractions

Year 2 are currently learning all about fractions. We have learnt about half, quarter and thirds.

Each lesson we begin by recapping what each fraction represents.

Half means 2 equal parts.

Quarter means 4 equal parts.

Third means 3 equal parts.

We know equal is a very important word when discussing fractions. (Equal means the same amount). A shape for example, can be divided into several parts, but the parts may not be equal. See an example below.

We know that one half equals the same as two quarters.

We don’t just divide shapes into equal parts though. This can also be done with even numbers.

Help at home: by finding objects around the house (such as fruit, sweets or toys) and encourage your child to divide them into groups of 2, 3 or 4 and discuss.

Living and Learning – Health & Prevention

In these first two weeks of the term, we have been looking at health and prevention across the phase.

Last week we learnt about different types of germs and discussed the importance of washing our hands with both soap and water. This week we have learnt about dental hygiene and looked at hygiene facts as well as healthy and unhealthy habits.

Help at home by asking us what we can do to look after our personal hygiene.

Scholes in Bloom flower bed competition winner

Larraine came in to our assembly in school on Monday this week. She announced the winner of the competition. It was chosen because of the eye-catching design featuring lovely bright coloured stripes and a love heart. The winning design will be made using flowers in the bed outside the school on Morwick Grove.

Well done to the runners up too.