Amazing animal visit
We had some interesting visitors in school yesterday…
It was a chance to meet some animals and find out more about them. The children asked some excellent questions.
What does the bearded dragon eat?
How long will the snake live for?
Why are there two rabbits and two guinea pigs together?
How big will the giant snail get?
We also made sure we washed our hands after touching the animals.
Walk to School Week winners
Lots of families joined in with Walk to School Week last week. The Buffers and St Phillips car parks were busy with people walking some of the way, if they couldn’t walk all the way from home. Thank you for joining in and helping to make our school and community an even happier and healthier place to be. Here are some of our lucky winners!
Art – observational and abstract drawings
We have been looking closely at plants and flowers in our science lessons. We have also done some observations drawings of flowers last week. This week, we thought back to our learning about Paul Klee and did some abstract drawings using his style as an inspiration. Some of our flowers were upside down, different colours or with faces and other shapes on them.
We were very pleased with them and some people consented for their art to be shown on the big screen in class.
Living and learning : consent
This week, we have been particularly talking about consent (permission) in our Living and Learning lessons. We talk about consent all the time though, for example, when we’re taking photos or video.
We also talked about different scenarios and how we can respond appropriately.
Geography topic : comparing the UK and Kenya
This half-term, we are geographers. As part of our Explorers topic, we’re comparing a place in the United Kingdom with a place in another country. We are comparing Kenya to the United Kingdom and Nairobi to London. We are focussing on the physical and human geography of these two places and noting the similarities between the two capital cities. Ask your child to tell you all about Nairobi.
As well as visiting Kenya, we have been learning about the seven continents, five oceans and about how the equator splits the earth into two hemispheres.
We have really enjoyed learning the continents and oceans by listening to and singing along to these great songs:
How can you help?
Google Earth is a brilliant tool to help develop children’s understanding of space, place, scale and interdependence. Zoom right in on your home and then zoom out to reveal the area of Leeds that you live in. Zoom further out to see what city you live. Zoom further for the county. A little further and you might start to spot some national parks. Further still and you can see the country that we live in. Keep zooming and you’ll see the continent we live in (though this isn’t labelled).
Quizzing your children about some locational knowledge will help them to remember important information.
- Which continent do we live in?
- Which country do we live in?
- In which hemisphere is our country located?
- Which county do we live in?
- Which city do we live in?
- Which part of Leeds do we live in?
- Which four countries make up the United Kingdom?
Walk to School Week 16-20 May 2022
Next week is Walk to School Week (or scoot or ride).
We hope you’ll all try to take part in this, even if you can’t walk from home. The Buffers Pub and St Phillip’s Church have agreed for us to use their car parks so everyone has the opportunity to walk part of the way.
Remember to bring your raffle tickets each day you walk to put in your class boxes to be in with a chance of winning a prize!
Let’s get active!
Maths – learning doubles
We have been working really hard on our maths fluency. We are trying to learn our doubles by heart, up to double 10. There are some excellent games on White Rose One Minute Maths or Top Marks. We’ve also played matching games, snap and used ten frames and part whole models to help.
Science – green plants
In our science topic we are learning all about green plants and growing. We have planted seeds and they have started growing in some classes already!
We will learning all about what plants need to grow and the difference between evergreen and deciduous trees.
We are measuring how much our seedlings grow each week.
Living and learning – democracy
In Living and Learning, we have been learning about democracy. We try to be democratic about lots of decisions at school so children feel they have ownership and a ‘say’ in what happens.
We have voted on which book to read at storytime, which PE game to play, which Go Noodle dance to do and which maths game to play.
Help at home by maybe voting on things as a family – which movie to watch or what to have for dinner?
Outdoor PE
We have been able to use the field for some PE lessons this week. It is great to be able to use all the space to work on our movement and coordination. The sun was shining too!
