History – Heroes!
We are really enjoying our History topic this half term all about real life heroes! We have been studying Nelson Mandela and Leonora Cohen and how they changed the world by fighting for what they believed in.
We have learnt lots of facts about both people. Try asking your child about Nelson Mandela or Leonora Cohen so they can show off what they know! I have been very impressed at how well the children have understood the ideas we have been talking about.
In this week’s lesson, we learnt about how Leonora Cohen protested for women to have the right to vote. We learnt she went to the Tower of London and threw an iron bar at a glass cabinet containing the Crown Jewels. We discussed whether this was the right thing to do or not. After we had discussed this, we got into small groups and acted out the incident, thinking carefully about how Leonora would have been feeling before, during and after the event.
Help at home by talking to your children about what they have learnt, including the vocabulary which has been sent home on today’s homework sheet.
Auditions for Y5/6 Production: Porridge
If you would like to audition for a specific role in this year’s production, please read on!
- Select a role you would like to audition for.
- Select no more than one page of dialogue to practise from the script.
- Rehearse for your audition which will take place on one of the following days:
Tuesday 23rd May
Wednesday 24th May
Thursday 25th May
Please tell your class teacher which role you will be auditioning for on Friday 19th May.
Writing: Expanded Noun Phrases
Over the next two weeks, in Writing, we will be exploring, planning and writing a WWII recount as if we are evacuees. Yesterday, the children looked at and created Expanded Noun Phrases (ENPs) that they could use in their piece of writing.
An ENP is made up of a ‘determiner adjective, adjective noun’ or ‘determiner adjective noun’. Here are a few we made:
- a picturesque view
- several weary, emotional evacuees
- many worried, exhausted mothers
- the congested, humid train
Help at home: Take a look at ENPs on BBC bitesize or create your own ENPs for this picture.
History: The End Of WWII
In History, we are nearing the end of our WWII topic and therefore looking at VE day. VE day stands for Victory in Europe day. This day was celebrated on the 8th May 1945. The children looked at a variety of photos that showed the celebrations that took place. We also discussed how the return of men (from the army) impacted the women’s role during WWII.
They then created their own freeze frames or dramas recreating the scenes.
Living and Learning: healthy eating
Over the past few weeks, Year 3 have been learning about healthy eating and how to make healthy choices regarding food.
As a school, we promote a happy and healthy lifestyle. Eating and drinking healthily doesn’t necessarily mean only eating fruit, broccoli and peas but it means having a balanced diet.
As part of our lesson, we discussed this pie chart called the Eatwell Guide. It shows us how much of eat food group we should aim to be eating in a day.
Aiming to have at least five pieces of fruit and vegetables a day means that our body is getting the important nutrients and vitamins that it needs.
Help at home by challenging your child and see how many different fruit and vegetables they can name!
Tom Palmer virtual visit
Tom Palmer is an author who writes children’s books and today, Year 4 had a virtual visit with him! Some of the year 4’s recognised his name and some of his books as we have some of them in the library.
He began by talking about how he got into writing…
As a child, he didn’t enjoy reading, didn’t think he was any good at it and didn’t like it until his mum tricked him into it by using football! He began to read comics and newspapers about football and this helped him practise his reading and he started to love it! His love for reading then inspired him to become an author and his ideas for different books come mainly from football, animals and war. “Write about what you love,” said Tom. This was great to hear as we always encourage Year 4 to use what you love and know to help you write and read.
Question time!
A handful of Year 4s asked Tom a question such as;
How long does it take for you to write a book?
It depends! Some books take 6 weeks to write and some take 6 months… it depends what I’m writing about and how long the book is.
What gave you inspiration for ‘Arctic Star’?
My wife used to work on HMS Belfast so her stories about the ship inspired me to write about a war ship.
Why have you set some of your stories in Leeds?
I set some of my stories in Leeds because I’m from Leeds! Writing about somewhere that I know makes it easier as I can add more detail to it.
Help at home by researching Tom Palmer and some of his books.
We are physicists!
This half term, we are physicists. Our topic is all about forces and magnets.
Last week, Year 3 explored which objects were/were not magnetic using magnets.
After careful observation, we concluded that some metal objects were magnetic.
We then recorded this information in a table in our books.
Help at home by asking your child what a metal needs to contain for it to be magnetic.
Living and Learning: Healthy Eating
In Living and Learning, we discussed the importance of a balanced diet and the advice of ‘five-a-day’. We looked at the different portion sizes that counted towards your five-a-day and talked about the differences in fresh, dried, tinned and cooked fruit and vegetables.
Did you know:
- you should only have 150ml of fruit juice a day?
- if you drink a fruit smoothie, it only counts as one portion no matter how many different fruits are in there?
- dried fruit should be eaten as a dessert rather than a snack to prevent tooth decay?
- it is healthier to buy tinned fruit in juices rather than syrup?
Help at home: Visit the NHS website which gives more information about portion sizes and healthy choices. Then, with this knowledge, why not try to plan, prepare and enjoy a healthy meal which contributes towards your five-a-day.
SATs Week!
After much preparation, Y6 completed their SATs tests this week. They have all worked extremely hard and should all be proud of themselves.
As a reward, we enjoyed an afternoon at Moortown park and ate some ice-creams as well!
Well done Y6 – have a great weekend!
Summer 1: Week 4
This week, we’ve been learning about tropical rainforests. We’ve been painting animal patterns, finding the Amazon Rainforest on Google Maps, making jungles in the playdough area and writing sentences about our favourite animals.
Literacy
We’ve been reading Walking Through the Jungle by Julie Lacome.
This repeating story was great for retelling. We talked about what a verb is and looked for them in the story: walking, running, leaping, swinging, creeping and wading. Click here to watch us act out the story!
Help at home: Can you hear the verbs? Can you think of a new verb to describe an action?
In our writing, we’ve been re-writing parts of the story in our own words.
Phonics
This week, we focused on reading and writing longer words and compound words. We learnt 4 new tricky words: there, when, what, one.
Help at home: Do the weekly home learning phonics sheets. You’re child will have two sheets in their bookbag.
Maths
This week, we continued to develop our understanding of the composition of numbers to 10 using different representations. We investigated different ways to represent 10 sausages from the counting rhyme, ‘10 Fat Sausages’. We also use our fingers, 10-frames and Hungarian number patterns to begin to explore ‘5 and a bit’ numbers to 10.
We used butterbeans to represent the sausages. We put 10 sausages into a cup and pretended to sizzle them. We tipped the 10 sausages onto a plate and checked how many were burnt and how many were not burnt.
Help at home: Use a frying pan/saucepan and double-sided objects (you could make your own counters out of card) to represent 10 fat sausages. Sing the song and drop your objects into the pan. How many ‘sausages’ are burnt? How many are not burnt? How many altogether?
Here’s an example
Poetry Picnic
This week’s poem was called A Little Shell. We hope you enjoy it!
Diary dates
- Monday 15 May – School closed: training day
- Monday 29 May – Friday 02 June – Half-term holiday
- NEW Learning journey drop in dates
Monday 03 July – 9am – 9.30am
Tuesday 04 July – 9am – 9.30am & 3.15pm-3.45pmFriday 07 July – 9am – 9.30am
Have a fantastic weekend. Don’t forget to email your pictures from home…
moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org
See you on Tuesday!