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.
Total Warrior
Last week, year 6 had an absolutely brilliant time at Total Warrior at Bramham Park. The excitement built as we allocated running numbers and tied our bands around our heads. The race began and we were off – through stinking bogs, sliding into muddy rivers, climbing over wall and sliding through tubes. When we thought it was nearly over, we had to face a freezing water-filled skip, dunking ourselves below the muddy surface. The end involved sliding down a gigantic water slide to the claps and cheers of our audience. We apologise to parents for all the muddy clothes, but we had a great time!
Clean up!
Our focus has been environmentally based owing to our book Clean Up!
This book has helped us to think about how to look after our oceans, animals and earth. It has helped us to understand that we are responsible for our own litter. The children have extended their vocabulary through the use of: recycle, sanctuary, island and pollution.
Here are some insightful quotes from the children…
A sanctuary is a place where they take animals to be rescued.-Norah
An island is a big patch of land with sea and sand.-Stanley
When we find some rubbish, my Mummy picks it up and puts it in her pocket.-Leo
Take it home to put it in your bin.-Poppy
We need to take all the litter out to clean up the ocean.-Prisha
No-one wants to go to the beach with litter everywhere!-Sofia
We have been using tweezers to help collect litter from our ‘sea’ in the water tray. Here are some other brilliant ways we have enjoyed learning through our provision:
We are doing incredibly well with our learning and consolidation in Maths. We know so much about counting, doubles, odd and even numbers, one more/one less, the composition of numbers etc -we like to show off and have a go at everything during ‘Challenge Time’!
Thankyou for listening to your child read regularly and for adding comments to their reading records. We will check the online books to see which children have read the most times this half term…there will be prizes!
Other pics of our fun learning this week:
Home-Link
Please take a photograph of your child reading their e-book in their favourite spot at home. Send your pictures to our email address.
Library visit
The Junior Leadership Team enjoyed a visit to Scholes Library last week and were welcomed by Madeline. It is the first time the children have been to the library since the start of Covid, so it felt very different and exciting.
Madeline explained how the system works within the library and explained how every child could register and get their own library card. The cards can be used at any local library and children and adults can borrow up to fifteen books at a time. Madeline explained where the fiction and non-fiction books were for key stage 2 and then the children enjoyed listening to a story before they were let loose choosing books. They selected five books to take back to school for others to enjoy – it was quite a tough decision as there were so many fabulous new books to choose from. These have been distributed across the classes for everyone to enjoy.
So, get yourselves along to the library and get registered. You can then enjoy an array of wonderful books to read at home. Happy reading!
Rainbow Fish
Our focus book has been ‘The Rainbow Fish’ by Marcus Pfister.
In this book the Rainbow Fish shares it’s shiny scales with its friends. We had a class shiny scale and passed it onto a friend when we noticed them doing something praise worthy. Here are a few reasons that the children passed on the shiny scale:
I gave it to Stanley because he’s my very best friend.-Leo
Ella because she was doing good swimming.-Freya
I gave the shimmering scale to Max because he is my best friend.-Jack
Jacob because he’s a good friend and has good manners.-Marshall
Our provision has reflected this under water theme and the children have completed many related challenges:
Our new artist is Katsushika Hokusai. He is famous for his paintings, drawings and printings. In Literacy we read non-fiction text about him and answered comprehension questions about his life. Does your child remember where he was born? We had a go at recreating some of his sea art through printing and painting. We also drew our own fish and cut it out.
Swimming was brilliant for Rainbow this week, they completed so many laps in their triathlon. The swimming coach gave them all a shared Golden Assembly certificate. It is proudly displayed in the classroom.
The weather has really enabled us to enjoy our outdoor learning. Thankyou for remembering to apply sun lotion to your child on a morning and for sending them with sunhats. Please continue this throughout the coming weeks. Here we are having a little Sports Day initiation too.
Home-Link
You may have spotted our outdoor Fish and Chip shop. This week, could your child write a price list/menu for our new shop. Please send your photographs of the work to us.
On the Farm
It has been a fun filled farm themed week!
We have continued our learning on our topic Life on Earth by exploring animals that may live and work on a farm.
We began our week by reading Farmyard Hullabaloo
In Literacy, we worked together to read a page from the story. We used our tricky word knowledge and phonics skills to decode the words.
We wrote our own sentences about different animals.
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In maths, we have been exploring 10 frames. We have built on our previous knowledge to make number bonds of 10.
Can your child tell you what number bond is been represented below?
In the classroom, we have continued to watch the development of our caterpillars.
Two of them are in the cocoon at the top. Oliver
The caterpillars are in a cocoon. Lucille
The caterpillars are in a cocoon ready to be a butterfly. Raife
In art, we have used clay to create minibeasts.
Check out our other fun learning inside and outside the classroom.
Home -Link
Write a list of animals that often live on farms. Do you know what their babies are called?
Mad About Minibeasts
We have all been ‘Mad About Minibeasts‘ this week. This is a fantastic book that has educated us on many of the minibeasts that we can find in our outdoor area.
It has been wonderful to see children turning over stones and tree stumps to find woodlice, worms or centipedes. Children have also been finding spider’s webs and following ants to their nests. We have been trying to build our own minibeast house. Our provision indoors has also reflected our book.
In Literacy we have been looking at rhyme in the book and making up some of our own. We have also written some short acrostic minibeast poems. Please continue to help your child at home by encouraging them to write for a variety of purposes (lists, maps, letters, stories etc). When helping them perhaps point out a letter they may need to practice the correct formation of or enable them to write the correct sound that they can hear in a word. This will really help your child on their journey to achieving the age related expectation for Reception. Remember the following too:
We certainly do enjoy writing and drawing!
In Maths we have been composing 5 in lots of different ways.
Here are some other photographs of our learning this week:
Home Link
This week could your child draw a picture of their favourite minbeast and write a fact about it.
Crunching Munching Caterpillar
It has been lovely to be back at school this week. The children have enjoyed sharing their half term experiences with the class.
In Literacy, we have read the story – Crunching Munching Caterpillar.
After reading, the children noticed similarities and differences between this story and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Both caterpillars ate leaves. Max
There are holes in the book or an eaten page. Ella
They are both really hungry. Charlie
They both get into a cocoon. Bea
In Science, we have explored the lifecycle of a butterfly. We are looking forward to observing this with our own class caterpillars.
We have also created a wormery. By representing their habitat in a box, we have begun to observe how they tunnel through soil.
In Maths, we have been counting to 20 and beyond.
We ended our week with an egg rolling competition and a special visitor … singing sensation Egg Sheeran!
Well done to our winners.
In our areas, we have gone mini-beast mad! Check out some of our super learning.
Home Link
This half-term our topic is Life on Earth. For the next few weeks we are exploding mini-beasts.
Become a mini-beast detective!
You many choose to draw a picture of the mini-beasts you find, record how many mini-beasts you see in your garden or observe how different mini-beast move.