Carnival Music Workshop
Today, children across Year 3,4 enjoyed a music workshop on ‘Tamboo Bamboo’ with Leeds for Learning (ArtForms Music) in conjunction with our Topic learning about Carnival. Tamboo Bamboo originates from the carnival traditions of The West Indies (specifically, Trinidad & Tobago) and is a percussion instrument. Here are some photos of 3,4A enjoying the session.
Tadpoles
Have you seen the tadpoles in Nursery? Children are fascinated watching them wriggle and swim around the tank. We’ve been learning about the life cycle of a frog and know that the next stage in the cycle is for the tadpoles to grow back legs. We keep looking at them closely to check for signs of legs.
In maths, we’ve been singing ‘5 Little Speckled Frogs‘ and have been carefully counting how many frogs are left on the log after each verse.
How many frogs jumped into the pond?
How many are on the log?
If there are 3 frogs on the log, how many are there in the pond?
In the sensory area, children loved playing in the ‘frogspawn’ (or tapioca)! It was very gloopy and had lots of tiny little jelly balls that were very tricky to hold between your fingers.
We looked at pictures of frogspawn and had a go at printing using bubble wrap. It looked just like the balls of jelly in frogspawn! In the fiddly fingers area, we used used our pincer grip to pick up the marbles and balance them on the suction pads.
Outside, children have enjoyed playing with some bats and balls. We used the bats to knock the balls of the cones and had great fun running to pick them all up again. We also practised our throwing skills; we aimed the balls at the 5 speckled frogs on the log and tried to knock them off. When we’d had our turn, we collected the frogs that we had knocked off and put them into a five frame to see how many there were.
Farmyard Hullabaloo!
Our ‘Life on Earth’ explorations have taken us to the farm this week!
Farmyard Hullabaloo
We’ve been reading Farmyard Hullabaloo– our second collection of animal poems by Giles Andreae.
We’ve continued to identify rhyme by predicting missing words and continuing rhyming strings.
In our writing, we’ve been writing facts about farm animals.
Herd is our ‘word of the week’- we learnt that ‘herd’ is used to describe a group of hooved animals.
Help at home- Ask your child if they can remember some of the rhyming words to finish these word strings or they could even create their own rhyming word string.
Maths; comparsion, number order and identifying missing numbers
In Maths, we’ve been using the staircase pattern and number tracks to compare numbers and describe how we know where to place each number in a sequence:
I know that 7 goes next, because 7 is one more than 6.
I’ve already got 10 on the track, so I know that 9 is missing. There is a space next to 10 and 9 is one less than 10.
In provision, we’ve continued to tell and create our own number stories.
PE; Foot-Tech Academy
On Monday’s training day, the early years and KS1 teaching staff had a fantastic training session with Foot-Tech Academy, where we learnt some new approaches and games that we can apply to our current PE teaching.
The children continue to thrive in their Foot-Tech sessions, through games that allow them to explore a range of movement skills and encourage them to be active and enjoy exercise. Most of all, they have so much fun and can’t wait to share what they’ve been doing.
A mini bug ball!
We’ve had some creepy crawling crazy fun, at our mini bug ball today! We enjoyed singing and dancing along to minibeast themed songs in the hall and played ‘collect the pollen’ during our outdoor PE session.
The children loved dressing up and talking about their costumes. Thank you for your support at home, getting the children ready for our bug-tastic day!
Phonics
Summer 1 week 5 has focused on root words ending in:
–ing, –ed /t/, –ed /id/ /ed/ –est. We’ve learnt the tricky words; out, today
We’ve now learnt all of the phase 4 tricky words and completed the tricky words we will learn in Reception! For the rest of the Summer term, we will review all of the tricky words we have learnt.
In provision, we’ve been reading ‘facts’ and sorting them into ‘yes’ or ‘no’ depending on whether the statements were true or false.
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 The Fox
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 Rainbow Class recite this week’s poem!
More pictures of our learning this week…
Reminders and Dates
SWIMMING DATES- Summer 1 and Summer 2
Rainbow Class- 24 May, 14 June, 28 June, 12 July
Sunshine Class- 7 June, 21 June, 5 July, 19 July
Living and Learning – physical and mental health
This week’s Living and Learning statement is ‘I know that being physically active is mentally and physically healthy’.
In KS1 we have been discussing the importance of having 60 minutes of exercise per day.
We keep active in school every day through WUSU, PE and play during break and lunch times.
One child in 2C said ‘I walk to school every morning. This is part of my exercise.’
We also talked about the importance of rest and that we need both exercise and rest to keep our bodies and minds healthy.
We calculated how long we spend being physically active each day and how we can make small changes to stay active for longer.
History – suffragettes
We have been learning all about Leonora Cohen in our history topic. She was a suffragette from Leeds and a very inspirational woman! We talked about how she fought for the right for women to vote and have equal rights. She designed and wore this dress, which is displayed at Abbey House Museum. We then designed an outfit she might’ve worn.
Writing: expanded noun phrases
This week, we’ve been thinking about how to make our writing more interesting for the reader – really thinking about the audience for our writing. The children will be writing a recount from the perspective of a child evacuee from World War II. They had pictures of evacuees, their journey and their new lives and they had to work in teams to generate expanded noun phrases. These are made up of a determiner, adjective and noun. They had to include some adventurous vocabulary to try and impress me.
Help at home: Ask your child what an expanded noun phrase is. Can they create some for you to read?
Science – germinating peas
We have been growing all sorts of things in our lessons lessons this half term. We recently wanted to find out about the best conditions to germinate peas. We put some in a dark, cold place (the fridge), some in a warm dark place (the cupboard) and some in a warm, light place (the windowsill). They all germinated – but at different rates. The root and shoot also grew at different rates, depending on the conditions.
We have planted them out now to continue to grow in soil.
Help at home by re-creating a growing experiment or planting, growing and looking after plants at home.
Art – group artwork
In our history topic we have been learning about Nelson Mandela and how he fought for equality. Each class created a modern art inspired group piece of him.
Help at home by talking about why he was a hero and how equal rights are so important.
Incy Wincy Spider
This week, children have been searching for spiders in Nursery, although not everybody liked it when we found them! We sang Incy Wincy Spider and enjoyed building a channel using the guttering to wash the spiders into the water tray outside.
We made spiders in the malleable area using playdough. First, we had to roll a ball to make the body and then we rolled sausage shapes to add on the legs. Some children managed to count 8 legs to put on their spiders!
In our phonics group time, the older children learnt a new sound – J. We looked at some objects and had to listen carefully to the sound that they started with. Can you hear a ‘j’ sound at the beginning of the word? Which is the odd one out?
Help at home:
For children moving into Reception in September, play games like ‘I spy’ where you have to listen carefully to the initial sounds in words. Get three objects, two that begin with the same sound and one that starts with a different sound. Can they spot the odd one out and tell you why? E.g. car, cookie, banana.
For children that are in yellow group and will stay in Nursery next year, begin to listen to sounds around you as you’re out and about. What can children hear in their environment? Can they hear birds singing, a fridge humming, a bell ringing?
Next week, we’re looking forward to watching the chrysalides that we’ve put into the butterfly garden. Will we get to see them hatch? Watch this space!
Have you seen the tadpoles in the Rainbow room? We’ll also be learning about the life cycle of a frog and singing the number rhyme 5 Little Speckled Frogs. (This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip).
Rumble in the Jungle
This week our focus book has been Rumble in the Jungle.
The book is a collection of fun animal poems. Whilst reading, the children enjoyed listening for rhyming words and noticing the patterns made with the words.
The letters are slithering like a snake.
They match the shape of a snake.
That’s how a snake moves.
Maths
In maths this week, we have continued to develop our understanding of the composition of numbers to 10. Using the rhyme ’10 Fat Sausages’, we have found different ways to represent 10.
We have also used 10 frames and dice patterns to show ‘5 and a bit’ numbers to 10.
Help at home
Use the language – First, then and now to create a number story to match the picture.
Phonics
This week we have continued to read longer words as well as compound words such as windmill, handstand and lunchbox.
We’ve learnt the tricky words; there, when, what and one.
Help at home- Please continue to work through the weekly learn at home phonics sheets. We’ll continue to send these home each Friday.
Poetry Picnic
Our poem this week was A Little Shell.
Other learning
Reminders and Dates
Monday 15 May- School Closed: Training Day
Friday 19 May – Mini Bug Ball: Please don’t go to the expense of buying anything new – creative adaptations of something you’ve already got will be fantastic. Outfits need to be suitable for school, safe and warm enough to be worn all day.
SWIMMING DATES- Summer 1
Swimming in cancelled on Wednesday 17 May. Therefore, Rainbow will swim on the final week of the half-term Wednesday 24 May.