Topic – Exploring Our Green and Pleasant Land
This half term, Year 5/6 have begun an exciting new Geography topic. We’ve been diving into the natural beauty that surrounds us – both near and far – and learning how these precious places are protected and why they matter.
To kick things off, the children explored the many benefits of National Parks across the UK, from protecting wildlife and habitats to encouraging outdoor adventures and boosting our wellbeing. We’ve been amazed by the variety of landscapes and the work being done to preserve them.
Bringing the learning closer to home, the class have also been identifying green spaces within Leeds and our local area, thinking about how these spots provide a place to relax, play, and connect with nature – even in a busy city.
It’s been a brilliant start to the topic, and the children have shown real curiosity and enthusiasm. We can’t wait to continue our journey, learning more about how we can protect and appreciate the green spaces around us!
Help at Home: Ask your child about their new topic vocabulary.
Living and Learning: school rules
This week, year 5/6 have been thinking about our school rules:
- We’re respectful
- We’re ready
- We’re safe
Having only three rules helps us to remember them. Children have been getting used to the classroom and school routines and thinking about how they can be mindful of our school rules.
Help at home: Discuss how rules help our lives run smoothly and keep everyone safe. Are there any rules that only apply at home? Do you have a different set of rules depending on the scenario? On holiday, in the car, at the swimming pool, in the supermarket?
Welcome back!
We hope you all had a lovely, relaxing summer and managed to enjoy the nice weather. It has been so good this week to see the children back in school again. I know a few of them will have been feeling a little anxious on Tuesday but we hope they are feeling more relaxed and settled now. If your child has a new class teacher, please come and find us and introduce yourself or speak to us if you have any concerns.
This week, your child will bring home their new reading book and reading journal. Reading is a huge priority in school and being a competent reader allows the children to access their learning easily. Each week, your child will need to read daily at home. This is even better if they can read aloud to an adult. Please record any reading they do in the journals. They will also be set a task to complete about the book they’re reading. This needs to be completed to the same standard as the work they complete in school. Your child might need a little bit of support with this. Journals need to be in school every Friday for Book Club. We would also appreciate parents signing the journals to know that the children are reading at home.
As well as reading, your child needs to be accessing Times Tables Rockstars. Ten minutes a day would be really beneficial. Please ask your class teacher if you’ve lost your login details.
Spellings will be given out this week for the half term. Please help your child learn these words. Spellings have a great impact on a child’s writing ability so the more confident they are, the better.
Thank you so much for your support with learning at home – we appreciate it!
Design & Technology: Egg Cart Testing
This week, chidren in 5/6 have been testing their egg carts. After testing in the class room on a shorter ramp, all the eggs survived. We needed a bigger ramp! The slide provided the perfect vessel for our sudden impact test into a wall (a table) Unfortuantely, while the egg carts ran smoothly, There were some eggstreme crashes leading to some eggsplosions!
LS-TEN Skateboarding
On Monday, all six Key Stage 2 classes enjoyed the skateboarding workshop. The children had great fun learning how to jump onto a skateboard and how to move! They demonstrated excellent balancing skills.
Thanks to LS-TEN! We all had so much fun!
Over the summer, why not not visit the LS-TEN skate park and practise your new skills?
Water safety
As part of Healthy Week, Year 5 and 6 had a water safety workshop. The children were taught about the dangers of water and how to stay safe when swimming. The children recognised that there are safe places to swim, such as public pools but that others such as reservoirs can be very dangerous. We learnt some quite shocking facts about how quickly cold water can cause your body to go into shock and the fact that there are approximately 400 drownings per year.
The children were taught about life saving devices they could use such as life buoys. They also learnt that if you get into difficulty in open water, you should float on your back like a starfish. This keeps your head above the water and allows you to breathe.
We watched a useful video which you can access here.
Design and Technology
We are currently in the process of creating our own moving vehicles in design technology to keep Eggy the egg safe. The design criteria for our product was that the cars needed to be durable, safe and movable. The children had great fun drawing annotated diagrams of their designs and then calculating the dimensions. The children are using wooden dowel, axles and wooden wheels to build their cars. The children have used hack saws and G-clamps to cut the dowel to the appropriate lengths. They have built the bases of their cars so far and are now building the frames. The children are constantly thinking about safety features to ensure that Eggy survives if he/she had a collision.
Junior Warrior
Year 6 had an exciting afternoon on Friday as they took part in Junior Warrior. It was a scorching hot day which made the challenge even trickier. Junior Warrior is a huge 3km obstacle course where you scale walls, carry logs and crawl through tunnels. This is made even harder by the fact that everything is covered in mud! You could hear screams and giggles as the children made their way around this slippery course! As the children made their way to the finish line, they faced a huge water slide. This did however clean them up a bit! Thanks to all the parents that came along to support the children. I hope you managed to get the children and their clothes clean again!
A lovely day for a game of cricket!
The sun was shining down on our PE lesson today as we got to work improving our cricket skills. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been working on our batting skills – accurately holding the bat and hitting with accuracy. Today, we were improving our bowling skills using the hit and point technique. The children worked in small groups and created a game with a scoring system depending on whether they managed to hit the wicket or some cones when bowling. The children then developed this further to include batting. All the children ended the session with a game of Kwik cricket.
Help at home: Can your child explain some of the bowling and batting techniques they’ve been working on over this half term?
What a Knight!
This week, children in Year 6 have started rehearsals for this year’s production – What a Knight! Thank you parents for helping your child learn their lines. It makes a big difference.
Our chorus, Year 5, have started rehearsals for the songs. Mr Welch assures me that they sound great!
Help at home: Continue to support your child in learning their lines.