Oliver’s Vegetables
This week, children enjoyed drawing and painting daffodils to create a Mother’s Day card. Before children drew them, we talked about the shape and colour of the stem and the petals on the flower. They were all really proud of their pictures and couldn’t wait to take them home; we hope you liked them.
To continue with our ‘growing’ themed learning, during group time this week, we talked about fruit and vegetables and how to eat healthily. We listened to lots of stories about vegetables, including ‘Oliver’s Vegetables’, ‘The Runaway Pea‘ and ‘Colin and Lee, Carrot and Pea’.
In the Sensory area, we explored lots of different vegetables. We enjoyed popping sugar snap peas open and chopping a cauliflower into pieces. We also had great fun peeling layers off some brussel sprouts, which was a super fiddly finger challenge, as well!
Next week, we’re going to talk about how we keep our bodies healthy. One of the things we’ll discuss is how to look after our teeth. When your child is brushing their teeth, talk to them about the importance of good oral hygiene. When do they brush their teeth and how often? How do they brush their teeth? What do they use? Have they ever visited the dentist? What happened?
Jack and the Beanstalk
It has been another fun-filled week in reception!
Jack and the Beanstalk
This week, we’ve been reading the traditional story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’.
We discussed how this story has been retold many times and some versions of the story are different. Just by looking at two front covers, we could spot similarities and differences.
The story I heard had a musical instrument.
They both have Jack on the front.
He has the chicken in that one.
Word of the week
Every week, we look at a new adventurous word. We call this our ‘word of the week’. This week, our word of the week was ‘gigantic’ – linked to the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. The children have enjoyed using the word during role plays and in their writing.
Can you spot our word in any of the writing below?
Observational drawing
This week, we have focused on drawing daffodils using oil pastels.
Planting a (magic) bean
After listening to the story, the children all agreed that we should plant our own bean.
We then wrote instructions to explain to others how they could plant a bean too!
Maths
In Maths, we’ve been exploring the composition of numbers by investigating the numbers within 7 e.g. seeing that 7 can be made of 5 and 2.
We have also used our magic bean machine to combine two numbers.
Phonics
This week, we have continued to read longer words with the chunking method.
We have also begun to read root words that make up compound words and discussing how the two root words create a new word with a new meaning.
Can your child show you the chunking method to read these words?
fantastic helmet zooming winking
Read these root words, then combine to make a compound word.
roof top farm yard car park
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 Spring Wind.
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.
Reminders and Dates
Reception’s Class Assembly- 24.03.23 3pm
You are invited to our class assembly, where we’d love to share our learning with you.
Easter Disco – 3.30 -4.30 24.03.23
The Friends of Scholes have arranged the Easter Disco after school. Parents are not required to attend. The price (£3.50) includes a drink and a bag of sweets. If you would like your child to attend the disco, payment must be made on the Gateway app.
Reception trip to The Railway Museum, York- 30.03.23
Please drop-off and collect your child at the usual times. School can provide a packed lunch but if you’d prefer your child to bring their own, this is also fine. Every child will need a suitable backpack that they are able to carry themselves throughout the day.
Bikeability
Year 5 have been working hard over the last couple of weeks to improve their cycling skills in school. They began on the playground working on being able to stop safely, going around obstacles and learning hand signals. When they were ready, they were let lose on the roads of Scholes. On the road they were learning to get on and off a bike safely, checking it was safe to stop and set off, and being aware of parked vehicles. They battled poor weather – freezing temperatures and torrential rain – but they thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
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English – verbs
This week in Year 2 we are learning about verbs. Our school defines a verb as ‘a doing or a being word’. Today, Year 2 went out onto the playground for a lesson about verbs. We imagined that we were getting up on a morning and getting ready for school. This involved acting out lots and lots of verbs. We slept, we yawned, we stretched and then we brushed our teeth!
The children loved doing their learning on the playground and said that it would help them to remember what type of word class a verb is.
When we returned to the classroom, we recapped some of the verbs we had learnt. We also wrote some of the verbs in the past and present tense.
Help at home by discussing verbs as you do tasks at home.
Class 5/6A News
Well, that was a week with a difference! The weather has been up to all sorts of mischief this week, but thankfully it hasn’t disrupted Class 5/6A’s learning. Let’s see what they have been getting up to.
In Maths, Year 5 have been exploring fractions represented as decimals, focusing in particular on tenths and hundredths. To help us make the connections, we have visualised objects or numbers being split into ten and one hundred equal parts respectively to identify the fraction, and then representing this in decimal form, via the use of a place value chart.
Topic has seen us continue our Computing learning with the microbit devices. This week we have turned our devices into a Magic 8 ball-style fortune teller, and also a counter. The pupils have worked hard in understanding the various coding block which form an algorithm and using an emulator to trial their code before downloading it onto the microbit.
Writing this week has concentrated on understanding the rules around the punctuation of direct speech. Help at home: Parents, when you read at home with your child, get them to identify examples of direct speech in their books and have them explain why they are punctuated correctly.
In Living and Learning, we have discussed the importance of friends and family and maintaining happy and healthy relationships with these individuals. We have particularly looked at ourselves and he role we play in these relationships, identifying what qualities we look for a in a friend, and why might people choose to be friends or spend time with ourselves.
Finally, a huge thank you to those pupils and parents who managed to make it into school on Friday despite the wintry conditions. Ensuring regular attendance at school will really help with your child’s development and learning.
Have a great weekend!
Mr. Robson
Snow!
Children had great fun in the garden exploring the snow on Thursday. They tried to catch the snowflakes on their tongues and enjoyed making snowballs. We talked about the changes in weather and what would happen to the snow if the sun came out.
Before we went outside, we talked about what we needed to wear. We put an extra set of layers on to make sure that we stayed warm and dry. Children also wore hats and gloves. Can your child put on their own coat, hat and gloves? We’re always looking for ways to help children become more independent; this is a great place to start and something that you can easily help with at home. Try getting ready a few minutes earlier. Depending on what your child can already do, try challenging them to do the next thing independently. If they can put their coat on, can they put on their own mittens, or even trickier, some gloves?
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Spring 2 Week 3!
Can you believe we’re half way through Spring 2 already?! We’ve got even more great things planned for the rest of the term, so watch this space! Here’s what we’ve been learning this week.
The Hundred Decker Bus
This week, we’ve been reading another ‘Hundred Decker’ story by Mike Smith. The Hundred Decker Bus
In this story, a driver who is bored of his daily routine decides to take himself and his passengers on a long ‘adventure’. As more people get on the bus, more decks need to be built!
Linked to the story, we’ve been comparing cities/towns to the countryside, discussing similarities and differences. Countryside is our ‘word of the week’.
We’ve also been playing ‘eye spy’ in our writing task, looking closely at just one of the decks.
Did you know?…
Each morning before phonics, the children take part in an independent writing challenge. They look at an interesting ‘image of the day’ and simply write anything that they notice. This has really boosted the children’s confidence to ‘have a go’ at writing on their own. Take a look at some of this fantastic independent writing.
Computing
This week, we’ve been using Bee-bots. Bee-bots are an early coding resource. Children have to program the bee using directional and ‘GO’ buttons. They have to pre-plan the algorithm they need to enter, to successfully get the bee to its intended location.
RE/ Living and Learning
We’ve been thinking about how special times are celebrated. Wednesday 8 March was the Hindu festival Holi. Here’s what the children remembered about the festival.
For the celebration, they celebrate colours, Spring, love and new life!- Ted
They got messy with paint!- Mollie B
The temple was very special- Tilly
They eat lunch (at the temple)… it’s really nice and special- Esther
We decorated outlines of people with colourful Holi paint.
As a time to celebrate with friends and family, we linked Holi to our living and learning statement: I recognise that friends and family are important. We spoke about our loved ones in our families and some children chose to draw their family too.
Snow much fun!
Snow always brings much excitement. We’ve enjoyed short bursts of time exploring the snow. On Thursday, we had a snowman building competition to see who could build the tallest snowman in ten minutes. Each team decided on a name for their snowman. We had Timmy, Daisy, Mr. Grinch, Chocolate, Slippery, Stanley and Cupcake ⛄ Well done to team Chocolate, who built the tallest snowman at 73cm!
Maths
In Maths, we’ve been comparing numbers and noticing whether change creates a number that is more or less than another.
In provision, we used the ‘bus stop’ number story to explore subtraction (creating less) and recorded our number stories.
Phonics
Spring 2 week 3 has been a review of phase 3 sounds, reading words with two or more digraphs. We review tricky words daily.
Tricky words can be just that-tricky! We’ve previously introduced a few fun games you can play at home to practice tricky words. Here’s another you could try…
Tricky word stick person (a modified version of the ‘hangman’ game)
We often play this game in class. Write the correct number of dashes for your chosen tricky word and let your child make guesses. Encourage your child to use letter names rather than sounds for spelling tricky words. Draw a part of the stick man for each incorrect guess- you can give extra chances by adding a hat, shoes, gloves etc. to the stick person!
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 the traditional nursery rhyme Pat-a-cake, Pat-a-cake
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.
As a traditional nursery rhyme, we spoke to the children about how words might change in different versions of the song- you will see this in our video.
Reminders and Dates
Comic Relief: Red Nose Day- 17.03.23 We will be marking the occasion in school with a non-uniform day and invite you to make a donation. Find out more about Comic Relief:
https://www.comicrelief.com/rednoseday/
Reception’s Class Assembly- 24.03.23 3pm You are invited to our class assembly, where we’d love to share our learning with you.
Reception trip to The Railway Museum, York- 30.03.23 Please drop-off and collect your child at the usual times. School can provide a packed lunch but if you’d prefer your child to bring their own, this is also fine. Every child will need a suitable backpack that they are able to carry themselves throughout the day. More details and a letter will be sent home.
Maths – money, money, money!
In Year 2 Maths we are currently learning about money. We are able to recognise coins and notes, and differentiate between pounds and pence, but we are still working on this! We have also been learning to make amounts of money by choosing the correct pounds, pence and notes.
We have used our knowledge of addition and multiplication to perform calculations about money. Next week we will use our knowledge of partitioning, grouping and subtraction to help us with our next block of learning.
Help at home – by showing your child coins and notes and discussing their value. You can also use the money and practice addition.
Writing – all things Dragons!
This half-term our class novel is ‘The Boy Who Grew Dragons’ by author, Andy Shepherd. We are really enjoying reading the book and discovering the mischief that the dragon in the story causes for the main character, Tomas.
Last week in Y2, we drew our own dragons and wrote some adjectives to describe our dragons. We then put the adjectives into some expanded noun phrases.
We have also been learning about possessive apostrophes. We know that these types of apostrophes are used to show belonging/ possession.
See some of our fantastic work below!
Help at home – by encouraging your child to use adjectives to describe things around the home or characters in books you are reading.
Science – working scientifically
This half term our science topic is working scientifically.
During this topic, we will be comparing different roads types and conducting investigations to find out what the best road surface is.
The scientist we will be finding out about is John McAdam. He invented a new way to build roads so that they were smooth, hard and allowed rain to drain away.
