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.
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.