Living and Learning: being safe
In our Living and Learning lessons, we have been thinking about being safe in a variety of situations.
Here we are sorting some activities, that all have an element of risk, depending on whether they pose a low or high risk. There were some different opinions and the children were able to justify the decisions they had made.
We also played this hazard identification game to spot and learn about potential risks when at home.
The wires are going across the carpet. Someone might trip up over them.
The candles are burning close to the curtains so they might catch fire.
There’s a hot drink near the edge of the table. Someone might knock it off and it would burn them.
Our reading fluency text this week also has a being safe theme.
The NSPCC Speak out Stay safe assembly gave a very clear message about being safe and in our weekly circle time, the children were all able to say how they would seek help (Start Telling Other People).
Help at home by reinforcing these important safety messages ready for your homework this week.
The NSPCC has also developed an adapted version of their assembly for parents/carers to use at home with their children and some resources that can be used to enable further discussion whilst doing activities with your children.
You’ll also find online safety information for families of children with additional needs and disabilities.
Childline also have a website with age-appropriate advice for primary school children on topics such as bullying. It also has games and other interactive tools.
Music & Living and Learning
Every Monday afternoon, the children have lots of fun exploring music with Miss Gaunt. Last week, they continued learning about the pulse through movement. They listened carefully to the song When the cold wind blows and responded appropriately by using coordinated movements with the parachute.
They crouched down small like hibernating hedgehogs.
They wriggled the parachute like they were shivering.
They warmed their hands by the fire.
Last week, our Living and Learning was ‘I can asses my own risks’. We looked at different activities and placed them on a ‘risk ladder’. We talked about high and low risks.
Reading – Mauna Loa
This week in Year 4 reading lessons, we are focusing our learning around a news report about Mauna Loa. Mauna Loa is a volcano in Hawaii that recently erupted in November 2022. This is very on topic for us as we are learning about volcanoes and how they are formed in Geography!
For the first lesson, we read the report together as a class, picked out any tricky or new words that we weren’t sure of and discussed the meanings. For example, ‘crimson hues’ which means ‘red colours’.
Our next task was to be real news reporters! We watched a short clip of Newsround to decide what the best tips are to reporting. We noticed that the reporter on Newsround had:
- good body language
- good eye contact
- fantastic prosody (reading with expression)
This children had 5 minutes to practise reading their report with these skills and then it was time to perform! Here are some of them in action. They all used the skills we identified really well.
Exploring our locality
On Friday, as part of our topic, Year 2 went on a walk around the local area. We planned a route around Moortown and decided to stop at five different locations to rate the noise, safety, traffic, litter, plants/trees and recycling bins in each place. The children were extremely safe and followed our school rules on our walk. We had some great discussions about what we noticed and will be evaluating our results next week.
Lunar New Year
This week, we’ve been learning all about the Lunar New Year.
On Monday, they had lots of fun moving in different ways to create a dragon parade. Click here to watch it at home.
In literacy, we found out that the Lunar New Year is traditionally celebrated in Asian countries. We used a globe to locate some of these countries.
On Wednesday, we watched a video about special traditions and thought about the differences between the Lunar New Year and the New Year celebrations held on 31st December.
AP – It goes on for 15 days.
AM – They do a dragon dance.
EC – They have a big parade.
LN – They eat Chinese food.
SSK – They make lanterns.
FM – They have a lantern festival.
AT – We clean our house.
We had a go at making our own Chinese lanterns and dragons.
We also read the story about how the Chinese Zodiac started. We looked at the Zodiac wheel to find out which animal we are.
Our focus story was The Magic Paintbrush by Julia Donaldson. We closed our eyes and imagined what we would paint if someone gave us a magic paintbrush.
EZ – I would paint a tree because I want some gold coins.
SBL – I would paint a cat because I like cats.
SB – I would paint a rainbow.
FM – I would paint a heart.#
One of this week’s chilli challenges was to have a go at writing Chinese numerals- we found some of them really tricky!
Geography – Local walk
On Tuesday this week we set off to explore Moortown on a local walk. Our aim was to visit 5 different locations and complete a survey of what we liked and disliked at each location. We looked at five different aspects of each location – noise, litter, recycling bins, safety and greenery. Each time we stopped at a location we worked with our partner to put a smiley, straight or sad face for each category. You can see some of the results below.
Today, we looked at our results and analysed them. We wanted to know which place we liked the best. In order to do that we counted up how many of each face we had for each location. The place with the most smiley faces was the winner. Lots of us found that Moortown park was one of the best places to be in Moortown – even in the freezing weather!
Help at home by talking what you like and don’t like about the local area with your child.
Living and Learning: drugs, alcohol and tobacco
The last couple of weeks have been focused on talking about drugs, alcohol and tobacco. Year 3 took part in some great learning about these substances so that once they are old enough, they can make safe and informed decisions on what they choose to do.
Our circle time was focused on this, too! We spoke about how we can stay healthy and included time to discuss how these substances can impact our health, either positively or negatively.
Help at home by asking your child how they can keep themselves safe regarding alcohol, drugs and tobacco.
Skipping school
Today, we welcomed Katie from skipping school into school for the morning. Year 2 have had a fantastic morning learnings lots of different skills in preparation for the skipping festival in the summer. Over the next few months, we will be practising all the different skips we have been taught in PE lesson and at playtimes. We really encourage children to practise at home too. Skipping ropes are available to purchase from school.
Well done, Year 2!
A HUGE well done to all the children this afternoon for performing so well in their second class assembly of the year. Thank you for coming to share this with them.
We are very proud of their confidence to speak in front of such a big audience and for taking responsibility to learn their lines and the songs and poems.
There’s a class reward for them tomorrow!
Living and Learning: Drugs, alcohol and tobacco
Over the last two weeks, we’ve been learning all about drugs, alcohol and tobacco in our L&L sessions.
We talked about what drugs, alcohol and tobacco are and the effects and impacts they can have.
We learnt that drugs can have both positive and negative impacts and discussed the difference between illegal drugs and legal drugs prescribed by doctors.
How can you help at home?
Talk to your child and recap/consolidate their learning by having conversations about drugs, alcohol and tobacco!