Lighting the way into Autumn 2!
We’ve whizzed into Autumn 2, with a super busy week! We’ve been learning about Diwali, Guy Fawkes; The Gunpowder Plot (linked to Bonfire Night) and fire safety.
Diwali
During half term, there was a very special celebration- Diwali! We watched a video of children celebrating the Hindu ‘Festival of Lights’ and read the story Binny’s Diwali by Thrity Umrigar, which tells the story of a child sharing the celebration with her class.
We’ve been exploring the Diwali interest table, making Rangoli patterns, designing and painting Mehndi on a friend’s hand and making diya lamps at the dough table.
What can your child tell you about the festival of Diwali?
Phonics
This week, the children have learnt the digraphs (two letters that make one sound) ff, ll, ss and the phoneme j. They’ve also been practising writing the graphemes (the written letters)
Can your child tell you where you would find these digraphs (ff, ll, ss); the beginning, middle or end of a word?
You could challenge your child to write these words, by supporting them to segment the sounds that they can hear:
Maths
This week, we’ve been composing 5. We often use our fingers to represent numbers and to practise our subitising skills. Using a ‘high five’ hand, the children were introduced to an easy way to represent the number. We used hand images to make collections of 5, placing an object on each finger. We also used five frames, die frames and objects of different colours to explore which numbers can be added together to make 5.
“I have three green pom poms and two blue pom poms… that makes five!”
Light and shadows
We’ve been exploring how light can be used to create shadows! We made large models and projected a light across them, observing the shadows made on the whiteboard. Next week, we’ll be looking at light again, as we explore the differences between day and night.
Fire safety
On Thursday, we met some real life superheroes! As part of our whole school ‘Me and my community’ week, local firefighters came to talk to Reception. We were lucky enough to take a look at the fire appliance and the firefighters equipment and we even got to use the powerful hose (with a little help from the firefighters, of course!)
The children were keen to share their knowledge:
“I know about fire alarms…the smoke goes in them and it sets off an alarm for the fire”- Keira
“You save people in the water!”- Daniel
“Those are called ‘jaws of life’”- Jack
And they asked some questions about things they’d like to know:
“Have you got a mask for breathing?”- Alyzah
“Do you have a life boat?”- Bethany
“How do you get people out of water?”- Olivia S
The firefighters spoke to the children about fire alarms. We learnt that they should be tested every month.
We also spoke about fire safety on Bonfire Night. Can your child talk about some of the ways to keep safe?
You can find out more about how to keep safe this Bonfire Night, here
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.
This week’s poem is Pointy Hat
Ask your child to tell you the poem at home! Can they remember it by heart?
Learn at home phonics sheet
Today, your child has come home with a ‘learn at home’ phonics sheet. The sheets link to our current learning in phonics and will be sent home each Friday. Please support your child by practising their new sounds and reading skills at home.
Home-link challenge
Following on from our maths learning this week, please support your child to make a collection of 5 at home.
Discuss what you can see- is it 5 of the same object? If not, how many are the same/ how many are different? Your collection of 5 could be made from objects of two different colours. What does your collection tell you about the numbers we can add together, to make 5?
Reminders
Early Maths- Supporting your child to become a confident mathematician 14.11.22, 6.00pm
Attendance via Zoom- a link will be sent next week.
Maths Stay and Play 17.11.22, 9.00-9.30am
Join your child in the classroom and explore some maths activities together.
Swimming Dates
Please send swimming kits on the following dates:
Rainbow Class- 2 Nov, 16 Nov, 30 Nov
Sunshine Class- 9 Nov, 23 Nov, 7 Dec
Autumn Days
Thank you for all your autumn walk collections! The children have really loved sharing these with the class.
We spoke about why we often find lots of items on the ground and who might pick them up.
Squirrels collect them, bury them and hibernate. Grace
It’s autumn so they (leaves) were on the floor. Jack
The leaves are red, orange and green. Millie
Phonics
This week, the children have reviewed all the phonemes from the half term. They’ve also been practicing writing the graphemes (the written letters). We have been challenging the children by asking them to spell words using the letters that they know. Can your child tell you what phonemes (the sound a letter makes) they can hear in these words?
| b-a-t | l-i-p | b-i-g | h-a-t | f-i-n |
Maths
This week, we have used language of comparison to describe sets of objects that we can see. Using the vocabulary ‘more than’ and ‘fewer than’, we described how many objects were in each set.
Using these sentence stems, can your child compare these sets?
___ has more than___
___ has fewer than ___
Leaf Man
We have been listening to the story Leaf Man.
We enjoyed an autumn walk around our school field to explore signs of autumn. The children were inspired to create their own leaf man and artwork using leaves.
Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog (it’s along the play bar) and turn off auto play – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.
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.
This week’s poem is Five Little Pumpkins.
Ask your child to say the poem to you at home! The words were sent home with your child on Friday. Can they remember it?
Reading journal celebration
The year 5’s have really increased their enthusiasm for reading this week. They have made sure they’ve been reading as much as possible at home and they’re remembering to log this in their journals and get their parents to sign them – well done. The quality of work produced in the journals has also improved. It’s really clear that some children are taking great pride in completing their weekly home task. These ones in particular stood out this week – brilliant!
Make sure you continue to read daily and complete your tasks at home.
A little glimpse of our week
Week six has been and gone. The weeks have been flying especially because 3,4 are very impressive in their attitude towards learning. In science, we have all created our own classification key to identify different leaves. Perhaps if you go for an Autumn walk you can ask your child to identify the tree a leaf is from? Or encourage them to tell you you some facts about how to describe the leaf: lobes, teeth, veins or leaflets. In Maths, we have focused on number facts, place value and column addition. In our spelling lesson, we have looked at suffixes (different endings) that can be added to a root word (e.g. hope-hoping, hoped). The sun has continued to be on our side so we have been making the most of developing our basketball skills outside.
Class 5/6A News
Hard to believe that we only have two weeks of this half-term left! Let’s catch up on what Class 5/6A have been getting up to this week.
A big thank you to everyone who came to see us in our Watch Us While We Work session earlier this week. It was great to be able to welcome you into our classrooms, and we hope you came away from the session with some useful tools to support your child’s learning at home.
Ancient Egypt has been the focus for the majority of our learning this week. In Reading, we held a debate on whether Howard Carter (who discovered the intact tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun in November 1922) was a positive figure in history. Our pupils used a variety of resources to build a case for their argument, and then practiced their debating, reasoning and listening skills to discuss the question.
In Topic, we have looked at how the Ancient Egyptians used the River Nile to survive and prosper, and wrote our names on papyrus in hieroglyphics. Science saw us delve into the murky world of bacteria and microbes, and building on our learning from earlier in the term, use Carl Linnaeus’ classification system to create a key for various microbes.
Good luck to all of our Year 6 pupils who will be competing in the cross-country competition at Brigshaw High School on Monday. We wish you the best of luck! Next Friday sees Class 5/6A hosting their class assembly. We look forward to welcoming the parents and families of Class 5/6A into school for our performance.
Just time to look back on our certificate winners for this week.
Living and Learning – Gene. Showing real maturity with his answers in class discussions, providing thoughtful responses and always showing respect to his classmates.
Sport – Bethany C. Gave 110% in our circuit training this week. Tackled every exercise with enthusiasm and a huge smile on her face.
Great learning – Amelia. Constantly produces well-presented work in all subjects, a willingness to learn and makes the right choice first time, every time!
Have a lovely weekend!
Y2 Spellings
We’ve had another fantastic week in 2C so far. I have been extremely proud of how each child has been practising their spellings in preparation for their spelling test every other week. Here is our current spelling list:
- of
- once
- one
- our
- pull
- push
- put
- said
- saw
- says
Help at home by practicing sounding out spellings with your children. Why not get them to use coloured pencils or pens? This will help them to memorise spellings more easily and will encourage neat handwriting!
The Everywhere Bear
Phonics
This week the children have learnt the phonemes (the sound a letter makes) o,g,c and k. The children have been listening to and saying words that begin with these phonemes (the sound a letter makes). They have also been practicing writing the graphemes (the written letter).
You may choose to play an I Spy game at home using these new phonemes (the sound a letter makes).
Maths
This week we have been focussing on our counting skills – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are.
We have explored how all sorts of things can be counted, including sounds. By singing rhymes, we have enjoyed developing our knowledge of the counting sequence.
The Everywhere Bear
We have loved listening to the story – The Everywhere Bear.
We have created our own story maps using key events from the story.
Swimming
Rainbow class have had their first swimming lesson this week. They have had lots of fun!
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.
Our first poem is Chop Chop.
Check out our other learning…
Learn at home phonics sheet
Today, your child has come home with a new ‘learn at home’ phonics sheet. The sheets link to our current learning in phonics and will be sent home each Friday. Please support your child by practising their new sounds and reading skills at home.
Home-Link
Autumn is here and the children have enjoyed exploring acorns and conkers.
Go on an autumn walk and collect, draw or discuss all the signs of autumn. You may choose to collect items to bring into school or email pictures.
3/4A Topic
Topic (History): Ancient Greece
As part of our learning about Ancient Greece, we had a debate about which was the best city state: Athens or Sparta. We discussed good techniques for a debate such as projecting our voices, giving evidence and listening respectfully to other people’s opinions.
Where has that week gone?
It’s hard to imagine we are at the end of our third week of term, time is flying by so fast at the moment! Another superb week of learning in Class 5/6A. Year 5 started the week by reading the Hilaire Belloc poem “Matilda” and using our inference reading skills to determine how certain characters acted when experiencing particular emotions. In Maths, Y5 have been using Gattegno charts to answer place value questions, and partitioning numbers up to 1,000,000!
I am immensely proud of all of Class 5/6A for their efforts in Writing this week. All week we have been building up towards writing a passage to depict how we would open the package if we were in Lil’s shoes in our class novel; “Secrets of a Sun King”. Using a variety of sentence starters, similes, metaphors and adverbials, they have produced some superb pieces which will be adorning the walls of the classroom next week. Our Y5 class ended the week practising our debating skills; using structured sentence openers to put their point across whilst respecting the opinions of others. We had some entertaining debates over how fun poetry can be, and if tomato ketchup was the best accompaniment for chips.
If your child comes home tonight shouting “Salve!” (Pronounced ‘sal-way’), then they are greeting you in Latin. We have had a lot of fun today greeting each other and beginning our journey for this year into Latin.
Finally to this week’s winners ………
For great learning…
Sadie – consistently working hard in all lessons, showing a significant improvement in her arithmetic test score, and producing an excellent piece of writing to depict a character’s dilemma on opening a parcel which didn’t belong to her.
For sport and physical activity…
Elisa– Raring to go after injury, she has given 110% in P.E this week. Displaying great teamworking skills in our warm-up games, and excellent hand-eye coordination in our volleyball passing.
For living and learning…
Travis– Our focus this week has been using good manners and throughout school you are always showing this; warm greetings for friends and teachers, using please and thank you, and asking questions in a respectful manner. Great job!
Have a great weekend!
Welcome to Reception- week 2
Reception have had another fantastic week of settling into the classroom and getting to know eachother. We’re doing so well at remembering our morning routines and classroom rules, such as ‘3,2,1,stop’
We’ve particularly enjoyed outdoor explorations, planting some flowers and finding vegetables that have grown in our garden planters. We have some real nature lovers in Reception, who have been carefully handling worms, wood lice and spiders and sharing facts about them.
We’ve been using our artistic skills to paint and draw self-portraits and have been having a go at writing our name every day.
We also started our phonics lessons this week. The children have shown great listening and were proud to learn their first four sounds (s,a,t,p) We’ve been having a go at writing them too!
In music, the children made their very own marching band with Mrs Myers and had so much fun marching around the classrooms and outdoor area.
Take a peek at even more learning from this week:
Learn at home phonics sheet…
Today, your child has come home with a ‘learn at home’ phonics sheet. The sheets link to our current learning in phonics and will be sent home each Friday. Please support your child by practising their new sounds and reading skills at home.
Home link…
Next week, we’ll be talking about our families and using the book The Great Big Book of Families by Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith, as our talking point. To help the children in our discussions, please send in a photograph of your child with their family. You can send the photos to the Reception email address.
Reminders…
- PE lessons start on Wednesday. Don’t forget to come to school in PE kits on Wednesday and Friday. If you’re in Sunshine Class, you’ll also need your swimming kit on Wednesday. Thank you.