Class News

Walking through the jungle

This week we’ve gone WILD exploring animals! We’ve been constructing animal habitats, making animal artwork and sorting images of deserts and rainforests.

Walking through the jungle

We’ve been reading Walking Through the Jungle by Julie Lacome.

This repeating story was great for retelling from start to finish, as we recalled the ‘action words’ used throughout the story: walking, running, leaping, swinging, creeping and wading.

In our writing, we’ve been re-writing parts of the story in our own words.

Design and Technology; using a tool

Last week, we shared pictures of our ‘bug hotel’ project. This week, we’ve been adding to our construction by filling the structure with lots of hiding places for our minibeast friends. We looked closely at designs of existing minibeast homes and noticed that we needed to add holes to our pieces of wood. We’ve been carefully using the hand drills to create holes, holding the tool firmly in place and using our strength to wind the handle.

Maths; composing 5

In Maths, we’ve been composing 5 and using the song ‘5 little monkeys’ to explore the parts that make the whole number.

We’ve been using full sentences to explain what we can see on our fingers, as we move through the song:

“There are three monkeys on the bed, there are two monkeys that have bumped their head, there are five monkeys altogether”

We’ve represented our parts on a Hungarian frame (or  ‘die frame’):

Help at home- Use 5 toys or teddies at home, to sing and act out your own version of ‘5 little monkeys’ (ie. ‘5 little teddies jumping on the bed…’) Pause after each object is removed (fallen off the bed) and encourage your child to describe the parts of 5 they see, using the full sentences described above.

Market stall maths!

Over the past two weeks, Rainbow and Sunshine class have enjoyed ‘paying’ for snack at the ‘market’ The children had to choose the correct coin (1p or 2p) depending on whether they wanted snack or snack and milk. The shop keeper had to collect the coins and give change if needed and then we counted the coins together- we even did a fantastic job of counting in 2’s, adding the 2p coins first! We recorded how much the market stall had taken each day.

Phonics

Summer 1 week 3 has focused on phase 4 words with short vowels and longer words. We’ve learnt the tricky words; were, here, little, says

In provision, we’ve been playing the game ‘Please Mr. Crocodile’ to revisit the phase 4 tricky words that we’ve learnt so far.

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

One week in every half term, we focus on a traditional nursery rhyme. This week we’ve been reciting Sing a song of sixpence

More pictures of our learning this week…

Reminders and Dates

Monday 8 May- Bank Holiday for The Coronation of King Charles III

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

Rainbow Class-  17 May

Sunshine Class- 10 May, 24 May

Coronation celebrations!

This afternoon we have had a fantastic time celebrating the Coronation of King Charles III. We had a special picnic as a school in the lunch hall. We also had the opportunity to go to different classrooms around the school, to play games. At the end of the day we had a little party back in our classrooms whilst we enjoyed some lovely snacks brought from home!

Have a fantastic Coronation weekend everybody! From Miss Young, Mrs Latham and Miss Lowry.

Imagining life as an evacuee

This half term, children in 5/6 have been learning about what life was like in Britain during World War II. After carrying out some research, watching some interviews and reading our class novel (Letters From a Lighthouse) we acted out what it would have been like for evacuees meeting their host family for the first time.

A home: discuss how it might feel having to move away from your home due to war. Link the experience of life in World War II to the experiences of refugees today. 

Reproduction of flowers

In science children have been desecting flowers and conducting secondary research into finding out about how flowers reproduce. They have learned about how some flowers and plants, such as tulips, use pollinators to help reproduce while others (potatoes and strawberries) are asexual.

At home: grow  some potatoes in a large tub or conduct a pollinator count as the weather improves. Take a walk in a wild meadow and count how many bees you see over a certain time. Watch as they visit flowers can carry pollen from one flower to another.  

Creating Music

Children in 5/6 have been composing their own music using tuned and percussion instruments.

At home: discuss some of the musical elements that children have learned this year. This might include timbre – the particular sound that an instrument makes; pitch – how high or low a note is; tempo – how fast or slow music is played; and dynamics – how loud or quiet a piece of music is played. 

Living and Learning – balanced diet

This week’s Living and Learning statement is ‘I know the importance of a healthy diet’.

This week we discussed what a healthy diet might look like and what sort of things we should try to eat. We talked about how we need to have a good balance of different food groups to keep our bodies healthy.

We also discussed how we should aim to eat more of one food group and less of another. For example we should eat more foods like fruit and vegetables,  and less of sugary foods like sweets and cakes.

Why not watch this clip at home and see how you can have an even more healthy, balanced diet at home? Keeping my body healthy – BBC Teach

Science – growing plants

This half term we are looking at plants and what they need to survive.

We have planted seeds, bulbs and peas and put some of them into different conditions. We started off by planting bulbs (see below).

We kept watering two of our bulbs and they started to grow! See our 3 week progress picture below. We noticed that these bulbs started to grow roots, and several green shoots started to grow from the top.

The bulbs that were not watered did not grow at all and have started to turn brown.

We also planted 6 different types of seeds. Our sunflowers have been the most successful so far. We decided to move them to their own pots to grow the best that they can.

Once the plants grow a little bigger, we are hoping to plant them outside, around our KS1 playground.

It has been brilliant to see how engaged the children have been with the Science topic this half term. We can’t wait to see how our plants grow and what will happen next.

Help at home by encouraging children to plant some seeds, bulbs or peas of their own!

Times Table Rockstars!

A massive well done to 5,6B who have won the TTR tournament two weeks in a row. They have worked super hard at home to make sure they are learning their times tables and have worked hard as a team to continue their winning streak. I wonder if it will be three weeks in a row?!

Wiggly worms!

We’ve loved searching for worms in the garden this week and learning about where they live.  In the maths area, we compared the length of different worms and sorted them into short worms and long worms.

We continued sorting worms in the sensory area; children enjoyed using the tongs to try and pick the longest worm that they could find!

Here are a few other photos from this week, including making perfumes with flowers in the water area, exploring spirals in the creative area and using paper clips to help develop our fine motor skills in the Fiddly Fingers area.

We’ve been watching our caterpillars getting bigger and bigger. We’re waiting to see what happens next. In the book corner, children have been retelling the story of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ using the props and the puppet theatre.

Help at home: If you have a copy of the story at home, use the illustrations  to help your child retell the story in their own words. Can they use some of the repeated language from the story? For example…He was still hungry!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

This week, we have been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Using story props and sequencing cards, we have been able to retell the story.

In our writing, we have been composing sentences to retell main events of the story.

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.

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.

Other learning areas

The children have loved creating their own bug houses in the model area as well as building a bug hotel outside for real minibeasts.

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 have got bigger!

One has a white stripe now.

They look spiky.

Reminders and Dates

Friday 5 May – Non-uniform day with everyone invited to dress in red, white and blue to mark the coronation of King Charles.

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

Rainbow Class- 19 Apr, 3 May, 17 May

Sunshine Class- 26 Apr, 10 May, 24 May

We know that Rainbow class missed a swimming session in Spring 2 due to the pool closure. This should be made up in Summer 2, which is a 7 week term.