Seaside Poems and environments
This week, we’ve explored differences and similarities between cities and the seaside.
Literacy
We’ve been reading Seaside Poems– collected by Jill Bennett. We used the poems to explore features of coastal environments- the seaside.
Later in the week, we were introduced to our word of the week: city.
We sorted pictures of cities and the seaside.
We revisited the name of the city we live in and some features that Leeds has, that makes it a city.
In our writing, we also compared the environments of the city and seaside. We wrote about what we would see in each.
Maths
We have focused on deepening our understanding of numbers to 10, including the composition of each number.
Phonics
This week, we’ve continued to focus on phase 4 words with long vowel sounds.
In provision, we’ve been reading words on boats and matching them to the correct picture.
Art; Watercolour landscapes
We’ve been painting coastal landscapes, using famous existing paintings as our inspiration!
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 I Have a Little Frog.
click here to watch Reception recite this week’s poem
Check out our other learning…
Transition to year 1- Zoom meeting
As the weather becomes brighter and we near the end of the academic year you may be thinking about your child’s next steps as they journey into Year 1. Moving to Year 1 is perhaps a less significant change for children, and that’s because we’re a happy and healthy place to learn where we all know each other.
A zoom meeting for parent’s starts our transition process, here you will meet the Key Stage 1 staff and find out about the Year 1 curriculum.
The zoom meeting is on Monday 17 June at 6pm please follow the link that will be emailed to you.
The next step is for your child to spend some time in the Year 1 classrooms. They’ll meet the teachers and join in with the learning, they’ll get a taste of what it’s like to be in Year 1. The whole-school transition, later in July, completes the process, by spending a morning with their new class teacher.
This is a really exciting time of year, moving on and taking those next steps whilst continuing to strengthen the effective learning behaviours they have established in Reception.
Reminders and Dates
-A little reminder to please encourage children to come into class on their own each morning, in preparation for transition to year one. There is a more detailed explanation of why we encourage this on a previous post. Thank you for your support.
Swimming
Rainbow- 26 June, 10 July
Sunshine- 19 June, 3 July, 17 July
Design and technology – running stitch
In Years 3 and 4 we are learning about design and technology this half term, with a focus on sewing. We have been learning about the design process and how a product comes into being, before now moving onto the more practical side of things. We are practising the skill of using a needle and thread first with a binka (a firm piece of fabric with holes in to help beginners learn to sew). We’ve found that this takes some resilience! We’ve done really well though and were able to sew a ‘running stitch’.
Help at home: why not have a go at mending that hole or missing button? 
Living and Learning
This week our Living and Learning statement is ‘I seek help if I am unhappy with a relationship’.
In 2C we had a good chat about all of the different things that we can do if we are unhappy in a relationship. We know that we have many different types of relationships like families, friends, peers ect.
Signs of feeling unhappy in a relationship might include:
- feeling disrespected
- feeling left out
- feeling unheard
- being made to feel sad or uncomfortable
Today, each table group brain-stormed lots of ways that we could help ourselves if we did feel unhappy within a relationship. Here are some of the ideas we came up with.
Water Safety
This morning, we in Y6 had a visitor who came in to talk to us all about water safety.
We covered lots of different important subjects during the morning:
- water safety (this included how to be safe in and around bodies of water)
- dangers of open water (what dangers may we encounter whilst in or around open water and what we can do to avoid these)
- how to say safe (the water safety code)
- land based rescue
After a short break, our Y6s then learnt all about:
- dealing with emergency (what to do in an emergency, how to help someone, which numbers to call)
- unconsciousness (checking for danger, recovery position including how to get check their breathing and get them into the recovery position)
Well done, Y6!
Happy and Healthy playtimes
In KS1 we talk a lot about what a happy and healthy playtime should look like, sound like and feel like. Before playtime and lunch, teachers ask the students to name some ways we can achieve this.
We talk about things that we should not do and also things that we can do! Here are some of the ideas that children often come up with.
A happy and healthy playtime should:
- Look: happy, children smiling, no one is left out, everyone chatting to friends.
- Sound: laughter, fun, excitement, relaxation.
- Feel: enjoyable, friendly, kind, fun.
We are proud to be a happy and healthy place to learn at Scholes Elmet Primary School!
Design and technology: running and back stitch
Children have been sharpening their sewing skills. They all expertly threaded their needles and remembered the running stitch from year 3/4. They learned how to create a continuous stitch by using the back stitch.
At home: have a go at mending that missing button; sew up that hole in the cushion; or just practise sewing in a straight line. 
More photos from Robin Wood
Fantastic Football!
Well, what a day!
Today it was Boston Spa Football Gala and Mr Catherall and myself took some year 5’s and 6’s to try our luck in the football tournament. We had a boys team and a mixed team. The boys fought hard against some really strong teams and tried their best. The mixed team were on fire today and walked away being gala winners and are now the proud winners of a very big, shiny trophy! They worked amazingly as a team, great communication between all the girls and boys and even though they were exhausted, they tried their best to the bitter end! Lily was an amazing goalkeeper and did some amazing saves! Elisa, Thomas and Jeevan scored the winning goals in the final. Thomas was ‘Man of the Match’ – well done! Thank you to all the parents who supported us today – we couldn’t have done it without you!
I will polish the trophy ready for school on Monday! Well done to all the players today – you made us very proud and represented our school fantastically.
Journeys
Children returned to Nursery happily on Monday and enjoyed telling us about their holiday adventures. These conversations led to us to talk about different types of transport, including trains, boats and planes.
We sorted and counted lots of vehicles in the maths area and built a train with carriages in the construction area. Children made tickets to sell to the passengers as they got on board.
During story times, we’ve enjoyed hearing about the adventures of ‘The Little Red Train‘ and watching a song about a magic train ride. We looked closely at the detailed illustrations in the Little Red Train books and talked about the different places that Duffy, the driver, visited. Was it the city, countryside or seaside? How did they know?
Children drew a map of the journey; the train started in the city and travelled past farms in the countryside and went through a dark tunnel before it reached the seaside.
Children loved using the remote controlled cars this week and were able to move them backwards and forwards between the obstacles.
In group time, we talked about night and day and next week, we’ll move on to ordering key events in our daily routines .
Help at home: Talk to your child about day and night time. What activities do people do in the day and at night? What do they do in the morning/afternoon/evening?
After lots of interest in pouring the PVA glue between containers in the craft area, we decided to add to slime to our sensory area. It was a big, albeit messy, hit!
We’ve also enjoyed fire fighter role play (Do you like our safety helmets?), making planes and spaceships and practising our cutting skills.
Next week’s learning:
For the final half term, we’ll revisit all of the sounds we have learnt and we will focus on key phonics skills such as identifying initial sounds, spotting rhymes and segmenting and blending words.
Over the next few weeks, our focus will be on oral ‘segmenting and blending’ skills. This is when we segment words into sounds and learn how to blend them together. Segmenting and blending orally is an important skill for children to acquire before they begin the more formal teaching of phonics in Reception. We practise segmenting and blending sounds that we can hear in words, we don’t expect children to recognise or write the letters in Nursery. This skill is quite tricky and can take children some time to grasp; it will continue to be taught throughout the Foundation Stage.
To segment ‘bus’, we would say ‘b – u – s’ . We always use pure sounds and try to avoid putting ‘uh’ on the end of a sound. E.g. ‘ssss’ not ‘suh’.
Please don’t hesitate to ask Nursery staff for any further information with how to support your child at home.
3,4A Class News
A new half-term means new topics! This week, we have started our DT unit and have been learning about the design process before we go on to design and sew our own products.
In Writing, we are learning about what makes a good instruction text, looking at features such as adverbs and imperative verbs. We will be writing our own recipes to show off these skills.
Help at home by asking your child about their learning. Can they give you an example of an adverb? What job does an adverb do?
In PE, we have started a series of tennis lessons and this week, focused on developing our throwing and catching skills.
In Y3 Maths, we are learning about shape and have started by looking at different types of angles. See below where we identified right angles around the classroom.
