Author: Mrs Taylor

In our latest Living and Learning lessons, we’ve been learning about safety around medicines and household products.

We considered:

What are medicines?

What do they look like?

How are they used?

Why do people use them?

The children had lots to share about their experiences of taking different medicines and what they are used for.

Using different scenarios, we thought about what would be the best things to help. Sometimes a hug, some water, rest, a tissue or sleep can be enough to help someone feel better and medicine might not be needed.

One of the class talked about their inhaler medication – what it is used for and how they use it.

Then, we considered safety rules at home and how to keep themselves and others safe.

We sorted the following safety rules depending on whether they were true or false or if it depends on the situation.

We shouldn’t take someone else’s medicine. It is just for them.

Medicine should only be given by adults.

These might be tablets so they shouldn’t touch them.

They should tell an adult they have found them.

Help at home: please reinforce this key safety message at home. Make sure your child is aware of possible dangers at home, such as medicines and household products, and how to seek help if they need it.

Well done to the cast of Whoops a daisy angel! It was great to welcome you into school to watch performances this week.

We hope you agree that the children did a fantastic job and we are very proud of them all.

Mrs Taylor, Mrs Lake, Mrs Roth and Mrs Maqbool would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and we look forward to seeing all the children in 2025!

Well done to all our KS2 pupils who took part in the third Leeds Schools Sports Association cross country race at Prince Henry’s Grammar School in Otley on Saturday morning.

It was great to have some first time runners this time and many improved their race positions from last time.

Thank you to parents who supported at the event.

There is one more race this season and information will be sent about these nearer the time. Please note there is a new registration system this year with all children being registered prior to their first race to take part.

Rehearsals are going well for our Reception, Year 1 and 2 Christmas production of Whoops a daisy angel.

Following our dress rehearsal to the rest of the school on Monday, we will welcoming you to come and watch us on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon at 2:15pm.

If your child has brought a note home about their costume, please could you send this into school in a named bag by Friday. Thank you for your support.

We hope you enjoy the show!

This half term, we have been learning all about materials and their properties (chemistry).

Here’s our vocabulary for this learning.

Actions help us to remember the definitions of these words. Which words are being shown here?

We’ve been exploring materials around us.

The object is a chair. The material is plastic. Plastic is a man made material and it can sometimes be recycled.

Then, we were scientists and we investigated the most suitable material for an umbrella. It needed to be waterproof, light and strong.

Then, we used our playdough to investigate how some materials are flexible and can change shape. How has the playdough changed shape?

Help at home: have a look at home to find different things that are flexible, rigid, brittle, transparent and opaque.

This week, Year 2 have been using their food preparation skills to create their latest product, fruit smoothies.

This forms part of our Design and Technology food learning which involves following a recipe to create a product each term.

The recipe, taken from this healthy eating website, is our reading fluency text of the week so we’ve had chance to read and understand the instructions before we made our smoothies.

First, we got ready to cook by washing our hands, rolling up jumpers, putting on our aprons and tying long hair back.

We used lots of different food preparation skills including peeling, fork hold to help with claw grip (for chopping), measuring liquids and using measuring spoons.

Then, the children got to enjoy their smoothies.

We always evaluate our product afterwards to see how it could be changed next time. In a link to our learning about adjectives (words that add information about a noun), there were plenty of adjectives used to describe the smoothies – extraordinary, bubbly, fizzy, tasty, yummy, creamy and delicious.

Well done to all the children who worked safely and sensibly with Mrs Roth.

Help at home: your child has taken this recipe home. Can they demonstrate some of their food preparation skills by making this again at home.

For the next three weeks, mental health is our new theme in our Living and Learning lessons.

Talking about feelings and knowing where and how to seek help for yourself or others is very important.

People can help you if you tell them how you feel.

If something is wrong and you don’t tell an adult, it might get bigger.

Start telling other people so you can feel better.

This week, Year 2, with the help of some of the characters from the Beano, have been learning about a range of emotions.

Emotions are feelings. They can change all the time.

We all experience a whole range of emotions, from anger to happiness to fear.

Looking at someone’s face and their body language can help us to understand how others might be feeling.

How might Dennis be feeling? What clues tell you this?

We discussed why it is important to recognise and talk about our emotions and how to seek help with our feelings or if we notice a friend might need help.

Next week, we will be thinking about self care techniques that can help us to look after our own mental health. Mindfulness is one example of a self care technique. We do lots of mindfulness techniques in class – ask your child to share them with you. Also, look out for the wellbeing bingo for you to try at home.

Help at home: We’ve talked about how people’s faces and body language can help us to understand how others are feeling. What emotions are the children showing here? Maybe try some other emotions at home too.