The Santa Trap
With Christmas near, we have based our learning on a fab festive picture book. This week, we have been busy writing all about The Santa Trap. Bradley Bartleby is a beastly brat who just wants all the best presents from Santa. And when he doesn’t get them, he decides to build the ultimate trap.
We’ve been rehearsing, drawing, innovating and creating our own Santa traps, based on the story by Jonathon Emmett.
There were so many brilliant ideas today!
Why don’t you check out our work on twitter #thesantatrap ?
Here are just a few …
Living and Learning – I respect my communities and other communities
This week we’ve been finding out about winter festivals. We’ve used information texts, books and the Internet to research a range of celebrations.
We found out that different religions celebrate different festivals throughout the winter months.
Although we’re all different, we’re all the same too! We discovered that all of the festivals are celebrated by having special family time. Special food and meals are important and cards and gifts are often given. We liked the sound of all the winter festivals!
How will your family be celebrating over the upcoming holiday?
Drama for writing
Today, we read a picture book, The Santa Trap, which inspired us to get into role.
It’s about a bad boy, Bradley. He has been behaving badly and should probably be on Santa’s naughty list.
First, we talked about Bradley’s character and made notes from the text.
We decided to act out a short sketch in pairs – Santa and Santa’s elf.
We though about what they would say to each other about the beastly brat, Bradley.
Then, we performed it to our peers.
We loved using drama techniques to bring the character’s to life.
Living and Learning – Identity
As part of our Living and Learning identity topic, the children have really gone to town with creating their own identity boxes.
We’ve loved looking through them and telling stories about what makes us who we are.
We have learned many things about ourselves and our peers that we wouldn’t have known before, such as, where we have travelled, our hobbies, quirks and traits.
Book People Book Fair
This week, we’ve a Book People book fair at school. The Book People are an online book shop, selling books at up to 70% off RRP prices. We’ve a great selection of individual books starting from £4 and a wide range of boxed books, too. Tomorrow is the last day we will be selling the books in school. We will open the book fair at 3.15pm for parents to buy and browse before the end of school. The fair is located in the main reception area.
Thank you to everyone who has already paid us a visit and bought a book.
The school earns money for the sales we make, which helps us replenish the school library, guided reading books and books for the children to enjoy in their classrooms.
Fantastic Forces
In Year 3/4, we have started out new topic, Forces, this week.
It began with a lively experiment using magnets to test how many paperclips could be ‘stuck’ together using a magnet.
The children were amazed to see how the paperclips were magnetised through each other, displaying the wonderful forces in action.
One …
Four …
- Test a magnet strength through a pull
- Magnet fishing game
- How are magnets used at home? Go around the house and find some: fridge door, hand bags, shower doors…
- Magnetism through materials
Living and Learning – being the same and being different
Blob tree
This week we have talked about being the same and being different.
We often use a blob tree to reflect on our learning and understand our emotions.
This week, we used a blob tree to identify how we are all the same (the blobs are all the same, in the same community) but can feel different at different times, or in different situations.
What we did:
- Identify two blobs that represent them and how they feel
- Explain the feelings to a partner
- Share our blobs with our peers
- Appreciate the feelings of others
Importantly, children noticed how they almost all had selected different blobs. If children had chosen the same blob, they loved telling each other why.
The blob tree is a powerful learning tool to help children understand their feelings.
Whole school topic review!
This afternoon, children from across the school came together to share what they’ve learned during our ‘big topic’ of Time Travel. It was a fantastic opportunity to practise speaking and listening skills. It’s so interesting to find out what other year groups have been learning about.
Ask your child what they ‘ve learnt? What have they enjoyed finding out about the most? What would they like to learn more about? Maybe you could learn more together, as a family.
Living and Learning: I know how to STOP bullying.
Last week, our Living and Learning statement was ‘I know how to STOP bullying.’ Our homework was to be creative and respond to the statement.
Once again, our children have demonstrated how creative they are. Just look at the range of fantastic responses we got! We were very pleased to share this week’s homework review with some of our parents.
Bullying is a very important area to think about in school and at home. Understanding what bullying is and how to stop it is vital.
Investigating Perimeter
Y4 children have been investigating the perimeter of different patio designs made with 10 square patio slabs. In each design, the slabs had to be placed edge to edge and ‘holes’ in the patio weren’t allowed.
Using tiles to represent the patio slabs, they made models of their designs and then drew them. They made predictions about what they thought the shortest and the longest perimeter would be.
Connor: “I notice that all the perimeters are even numbers. We can’t find one with a perimeter that’s odd. I’m not sure why yet.”
Seth: “We’ve found four different designs that give the longest perimeter. We think there are even more.”
Ask your child to tell you about the shortest and longest perimeters they were able to make and what types of designs generated these.
Lots of children were keen to continue the investigation at home. You could work together to find different ways to make the longest perimeter.