Living and learning: I recognise the importance of sleep
In the 5,6 phase we have been discussing how important sleep is and how this can impact your every day life we all know how good it is!
It plays a vital role in use being happy and healthy. It can boost our immune systems and it allows us to fight off diseases and our bodies can repair themselves. It can give you more energy and allows you to focus on your learning at school. If you don’t get enough sleep, it can really impact your mood – leaving you grumpy and irritable.
The recommended amount of sleep for children is between 9 and 13 hours a night. Did you get enough sleep last night?
Welcome back!
Children returned to Nursery brilliantly this week and settled in happily. We heard all about your Easter holiday trips and visits from the Easter Bunny.
The weather was very mixed this week; we had wind, rain, hail stones and sunshine! Please make sure your child has a waterproof coat everyday as we go outside in all weather.
As well as enjoying an obstacle course, children helped to sow some vegetable seeds.
In maths, we looked at the number five. We know that we have 5 fingers on each hand and we clapped and jumped five times. We looked at objects that are all linked to the number five.
Help at home: Enjoy singing number songs linked to the number 5 together with your child such as 5 Little Ducks, 5 Little men in a flying saucer, 5 Currant Buns or 5 Little Monkeys .
In our story times, we read a very popular story by Eric Carle, called ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and started to learn about the life cycle of a butterfly.
We also had a special delivery in Nursery; children were very excited to find out what was inside the little cardboard box. Inside, we found 5 tiny, spiky caterpillars! We’ve been checking on them everyday, and just like ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’, they’re very hungry and are getting bigger and bigger each day.
Children showed an interest in looking for creepy crawlies outside. We found lots of creatures hiding under logs including wood lice, slugs and some very long worms.
Next week’s learning
We’ll continue with the children’s interest in bugs and worms. We’ll read Superworm and learn all about wriggly worms! If you don’t have the story book at home, follow the link to watch the animated version on BBC iPlayer.
Sound of the week: J for jellyfish
Nursery rhyme of the week: 12345, Once I caught a fish alive
The Bad-Tempered Ladybird
We’re excited to be back together for a happy and healthy Summer term!
This half term is called Life on Earth. We’ll be exploring minibeasts, wild animals, farm animals and the human body.
The Bad-Tempered Ladybird
This week, we’ve been reading The Bad-Tempered Ladybird by Eric Carle.
There was lots to explore in this story; feelings and appropriate behaviours, clocks/time and the comparative sizes of animals.
Frustrated is our ‘word of the week’.
In our writing, we’ve written things that make us feel happy and things that might make us feel sad or angry, like that bad-tempered ladybird!
Art; clay modelling
We’ve been using clay to make minibeasts. We looked at pictures and photos of minibeasts, before making our models. We had spiky caterpillars, wiggly worms and crawly spiders to name just a few! Clay is great for our fine motor skills. We have to work hard to mould, pull, press and shape. We’ll be continuing with our clay creations into next week.
Maths
In Maths, we’ve been counting beyond ten- to twenty. We’ve been suggesting ways to make counting easier, when we are faced with a lot of objects to count.
We’ve also been counting things that cannot be moved, or things that cannot be seen (such as sounds/actions)
In provision, we explored doubles through doubling ladybirds and recorded our findings.
Help at home- Challenge your child to count more than ten objects. Can they count the pegs on the washing line? Can they count toys in their toy box? Can they count books on a book shelf? Don’t forget to send in photos of counting at home!
Caterpillars
We’ve got some new additions to the classroom, as this week some very tiny caterpillar friends arrived! We’ve been observing them and have been writing about the caterpillar life cycle. Some of us also wrote down how we will keep them safe. We can’t wait to see them change and grow over the next few weeks.
Phonics
Summer 1 week 1 has been an introduction to reading phase 4 words. We’ve also learnt our first phase 4 tricky words; said, so, have, like
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 Pitter Patter
We talk about how a poem sometimes has rhyming words and sometimes doesn’t. Can your child tell you the rhyming words in this week’s poem? We also talk about how a poem can have a fast rhythm or a slow rhythm.
click below to watch us recite this week’s poem!
More pictures of our learning this week…
Reminders and Dates
SWIMMING DATES- Summer 1
Rainbow Class- 1 May, 15 May
Sunshine Class- 24 Apr, 8 May, 22 May
Y4 Skipping Festival
On Wednesday this week, many of the Y4s participated in a skipping festival held at Leeds Trinity University. They competed against five other schools in different techniques – including individual efforts such as the double bounce and the pretzel – and team efforts such as ‘run in, jump out’. Throughout the afternoon, there were also whole group sessions to try out different skipping exercises to music.
The children represented the school so well, showing a fantastic attitude to their teammates and trying their best, even when the competition was tough! Well done to everyone, you made us proud. 
3,4A Class News
It’s been great to see everyone back at school this week! In Writing, we have started to look at promotion texts and their features, including present tense, questions, commands and alliteration. We will be writing our own promotion about York. This links in with our new Geography topic – Explorers! We have started off by learning about global climate zones and then focusing in on the countries in Europe. Later on in the topic, we will be comparing the two cities of York and Venice.
On the same theme, we have used a non-fiction text about York to practise different reading skills including retrieval, summarising and understanding the meaning of words in context..
In Science, we have been completing our unit on light. We carried out an experiment to see what happened to the size of the shadow when we moved a light source further away from an opaque object.
Help at home by asking us what we discovered! Feel free to quiz us on the terms opaque, translucent and transparent too.
Soluble or Insoluble?
This half term, Year 5 and 6 have started a new Chemistry topic: Materials and their properties.
In this week’s Science learning, we learnt all about which materials are soluble (do dissolve in water) and which materials are insoluble (don’t dissolve in water).
We tested each material by placing an amount into a cup of water and observing whether they dissolved or not.
Independent variable: the material
Dependent variable: the solubility
Control variable: the amount of the material, the amount of water, time observed for, temperature of water
We found out which materials were soluble and recorded our results in a table!
Help at home: Ask your child to define: soluble, insoluble, dissolve, independent variable, dependent variable and control variable!
3,4C Class News – Science
This week, we investigated:
How does the distance between an object and a light source affect the size of a shadow?
We made a prediction, carried out the experiment and recorded our findings. We concluded that the shadows decrease in size when the light source is moved further away from the object.
Help at home by encouraging your child to discuss their findings from the experiment.
3,4 B Class news
It’s been a busy first week back after the Easter holidays!
Our new topic this half term is ‘Explorers’. This is a geography-based topic involving looking at climate, economy and tourism. This week we have focussed on the different climate zones and identified countries in the northern and southern hemispheres. As we move through the topic we will begin to focus primarily on York and Venice – comparing and contrasting the two cities.
In PE we are developing our basketball skills. This week we have been learning how to pass the ball with increasing accuracy – using bounce and chest passes. The children increased the distance of their throws to add more challenge. We then used our skills within Possession Ball – a fast paced team game where points are earned for successfully passing the ball to another team member without interception by the opposition.
Help at home by continuing to help your child access TTRS. Y3s, please focus on x3, x4 and x8. Y4s, focus on the times table you feel least confident with and please ensure you are doing regular TTRS soundchecks to increase your speed and confidence across all times tables.
Have a lovely weekend!
Living and Learning – personal hygiene
This week, our whole-school Living and Learning statement is ‘I know the importance of personal hygiene, including handwashing.’
In KS1, we have been discussing lots of different ways that we can keep ourselves clean and healthy such as regularly having a shower or bath, cleaning our teeth using toothpaste and washing our hands.
In 2C, we conducted an experiment where we filled a bowl of water and sprinkled pepper on the surface. The surface of the water represented our hands and the pepper represented germs. We dipped one finger into the bowl each and saw that the pepper attached itself to our fingers when we did not have soap on them. We then dipped one finger into soap and then into the water and saw that the pepper moved away from our skin and onto the side of the bowl. This showed us just how powerful soap is and how important it is that we wash our hands regularly.
We identified lots of areas around school that are touched regularly by lots and lots of people. We know that these areas are ‘hotspots’ for germs, and if we touch them, it’s best to wash our hands afterwards.
This includes: doors, door handles, anything in the toilets and play equipment. It is important to wash our hands with soap so that we do not spread germs to others, or pick them up. Germs can be harmful and might make us poorly. We also identified places in the home that might be hotspots for germs, within the bathroom and kitchen.
Help at home: by identifying some ‘hotspots’ for germs within your home. Discuss the importance of handwashing and encourage children to follow the handwashing guide to ensure their hands are super clean!
How to wash your hands NHS song | NHS (youtube.com)
(Please note this is a YouTube video. Make sure you watch your child when using YouTube as adverts or unwanted videos may follow. Thank you.)
Class novel – The Worst Witch
We are using The Worst Witch, by Jull Murphy, as our class novel this half term. We will link reading and writing learning with it too, as well as enjoying immersing ourselves in the story. We already love Mildred and her cat!
Help at home by talking about what has happened so far or read along with us (but no spoilers!).
