Class News

New spelling list!

This half-term, instead of learning eight different words each week, we’d like you to learn these 40 words over the whole half-term. Lots of research suggests that learning more spellings over a longer time leads to better remembering how to spell them in the long term. 

How you decide to do this is up to you. You might decide to focus on the trickiest words first. Or, you might decide to learn 8 words a week and really focus on these whilst still practising the others, too. For some of you, you might already feel confident with some of the words so might choose to not practise these at all.

However you decide to do it, is up to you. The important thing is that you’re learning them and learning how you like to learn them best. 

Each week, we’ll choose eight random words to test you on. These tests aren’t pressured. They might just help you figure out which words you need to practise more. 

Learning spellings in this way might feel quite different – or even scary – but it shouldn’t. In fact, you’ve actually got less words to learn this half-term than you normally would. 

We’ll keep thinking about this in school and we’ll regularly talk about how we can best practise these words at home. 

If you need some ideas for practical things to do, check out the Super Spelling Strategies Guide on the school website. 

Circle time

This week, Year 3 took advantage of the sunshine and had our circle time outside on the new grass.

Our circle time this week revolved around speaking about people we trust. The class offered examples of people in their lives that they trust and explained why.

We then talked about keeping secrets and how we should always tell a trusted adult if we are worried about someone, even if they have asked us to keep it a secret.

Spellings 3.2

Welcome back!

I can’t believe it is already the last half term of Year 3 – the year has flown!

This half term, we are continuing to practise the 40 spellings from half term 2.2. There were a few tricky words in the list that I feel the class will benefit from some extra practise with.

Instead of learning eight different words each week, we’d like your child to learn these 40 words over the whole half-term. Lots of research suggests that learning more spellings over a longer time leads to better remembering how to spell them in the long term.

Any questions please ask!

Summer 2: Week 1

I can’t believe it’s the last half-term. Where has this school year gone?

This week, we’ve dived straight into our new topic, Let’s make a splash! Over the next few weeks, we’ll be thinking about days at the beach – we even have our own beach! We’ll investigate floating and sinking, locate seaside towns on a map, talk about what we see at the seaside that we don’t see in Leeds and talk about seaside holidays of the past.
Literacy
This week, we’ve been reading One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab by Jeff Sayre and April Sayre. Before reading the book, we looked carefully at the front cover and discussed where the story is set.

Have you ever been somewhere like this?

HB – I’ve been to Serbia and there’s a beach there.
HFW – I’ve been to Whitby and there’s lots of house. I have a house there.
JZ – I have been to a lake in the Lake District.
SB – I’ve been to a Spain beach.
FlM – I’ve been to Saltburn and I saw an ice cream shack.
HW – I’ve been to Lanzarote and I went to a flamingo beach.
HM – I’ve been to Robin Hood Bay. I did rock hammering to see if there’s ammonites inside.
LC – I went to a beach in France. I went with my family and lots of cousins.
MB – I built sandcastles. I have a bucket that looks like a real castle.

When reading this book, we found it rather funny! This book also helped us with our maths learning.
Yesterday, I challenged the children to work out how many legs there are ALTOGETHER in our classroom. We counted in 2s all the way up to 66!

Maths
Counting beyond 20 has been an important focus this week.  For the children to develop familiarity with the structure and the pattern of counting, we have been practising these key skills:

• tagging each object in a group of up to 10 objects
• knowing that the last number counted gives the total in the set
• counting movements, such as jumps, hops, sounds, etc.
• developing strategies to keep track of what has and has not been counted when counting larger sets of objects, e.g. rearranging objects into groups and rows
• developing strategies for counting larger amounts that can’t be moved, e.g. using a pen to cross through each object
  

Help at home: Practise counting things that can’t be moved. Can you use one of the strategies we’ve been using in school? You could use the patterns below, patterns on wrapping paper or draw your own patterns to count.

Poetry picnic
We’ve been practising our prosody skills when reading this week’s poem. Click here to check out our fantastic actions!

Maypole dancing
This week, we’ve been practising our Maypole dance ready for the Summer Fair next month. We are looking forward to opening the fair.
This half-term is very busy! Please make sure you’ve noted down the below events.

Diary dates
19 June – Moving from Reception to Year 1 parent Zoom meeting – 6pm
23 June – PTA non-uniform day
03,04 & 07 July – Learning journey drop ins
06 July – Trip to Temple Newsam Farm
7 July – PTA Summer Fair
13 July – Sports Day
18 July – Sports Day – reserve date

Design and Technology

This week we have started our new topic all about Design and Technology. We have been learning about the design process. It involves three stages (plan, make, evaluate) and is always repeating.

Today, we evaluated some products to see if they had been badly or well designed. We pointed out problems and thought about solutions. Can you spot the problems with these products.

Our project this half term is to build a new chair for baby bear and we can’t wait to get going.

Help at home by looking at the vocabulary in this week’s talk time.

Robinwood Residential 2023

This week has been Y6’s residential!

We arrived on Wednesday morning and were thrown straight into activities!

These have included; Zip-line, caving, dungeon, piranha pool, trapeze, canoeing, raft building and climbing wall! Here’s some pictures of us below!

Plenty more of fun activities await us tomorrow!

Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check

During the week beginning  the 12th of June, Year 4 will be completing their statutory Multiplication Tables Check.

This check:

• tests them on their facts up to 12 x 12.
• gives them 6 seconds to answer each question.
• gives 3 seconds in between each question.
• can only be completed once.

Year 4 have been working their socks off all year learning their facts by using times table grids, TTRS and Maths Frame. Please encourage your child/children to practise all their times table facts this week and onwards to ensure they achieve their best scores. TTRS sound check mimicks the official check so this is a great way to practise!

As a challenge for those who are confident on all the facts, see if you can type the answer, delete it and type it again in the space of 6 seconds to make sure you aren’t rushing!

Help at home by timing yourself when completing the times table grids. Then try to beat your time!

Living and Learning: physical health

During the last two weeks of half term, Year 3 focussed on the importance of physical health in our Living and Learning lessons.

We learnt about the benefits of being active for 60 minutes every day. Some examples are:

• exercise warms you up
• your heart gets stronger
• improves your attention span
• helps you learn
• improves your memory
• helps you sleep better
• makes you feel happier

Help at home by asking your child how much physical activity they have done that day!

Living and Learning: Physical Health

In L&L, we learned about how physical activity can help our physical health as well as our mental health.

It is recommended that a child gets at least 60 minutes of physical activity every day to help reduce the chance of developing diseases and to help maintain healthy bones and muscles.

60 minutes  of physical activity could be walking, running, or anything that makes your heart beat faster.

We also talked about how physical activity releases chemicals into our brains to make us feel good. We also learnt that when we exercise, we have more energy which then means we can concentrate more and means we are more energised and alert!

Help at home: Try out a new sport or type of physical activity over the half term!

Summer 1: Week 6

This week, we’ve been learning about the human body. Before introducing our focus called See inside Your Body, I asked the children, “Does anybody know a fact about the human body?”

JQ – The skull protects your brain.
TH – This is your knee bone.
LC – Sometimes when you fall over, your body bleeds.
AP – Your heart beats 1,500 beats a day. My Mummy told me that.
HM – Your heart pumps blood around your body.
FlM – “The longest bone in your body is your leg and the shortest is in your ear.
SL – Whatever you do, your skeleton copies that.

We’ve looked at the human skeleton, drew pictures of our own skeletons and labelled some of the 206 bones we have in our body! The children were amazed that babies have about 300 bones! We also had lots of fun learning the skeleton dance.

We also looked at some x-ray pictures. We talked x-rays are important and why we might have one.
On Wednesday, we learnt about our five senses – hearing, touch, sight, smell and taste. We went on a senses walk around school and drew pictures of things we could hear, touch, see and smell. We talked about the sense we didn’t use and the children drew a picture of something they ate at snack time or for lunch.
PE
On Monday, the children practised their skipping skills. Many children found skipping quite tricky. Miss Gaunt was very impressed with their fantastic determination and perseverance.
Maths
This week, we introduced the Rekenreks to the children.  We continued to  practise our subitising skills by using our ‘fast eyes’ to subitise the beads on a Rekenrek. A Rekenrek allows the children to further develop their subitising skills as they explore the structure of small numbers, while building a foundation for further learning in Year 1.
We know to make sure all the beads are at the right-hand side of the rack. This is called the ‘ready position’. We then pause (think), place (one finger) and push (the beads) using the ‘one finger push’ method.

Poetry picnic
This week’s poem was all about looking after baby monkeys. Click here to watch us.

Here are some highlights from our last week of Summer 1…

Butterfly news
This afternoon, we released 3 of our butterflies! We got to watch one of the butterflies emerging from its chrysalis.

Reminders

• Now the weather’s getting warmer, please remember to apply your child’s sun cream before they come to school! Your child can reapply their sun cream before lunch with adult guidance.
• Please continue to read your e-books and your favourite stories next week.
• Next half-term, PE will continue to be on Monday and Thursday.
• Tuesday 06 June – Class photos
• Monday 19 June -Parent presentation (Zoom): Reception to Y1 transition

Well, that’s another half-term done and dusted. I can’t believe we’ve only got only one half-term left in Reception. Where has this year gone?
I hope you all have a fantastic week off. Don’t forget to send me lots of pictures. See you on Monday 05 June for your final half-term in Reception.