Nursery Rhyme and Anti-Bullying week
This week, we celebrated Nursery Rhyme Week. In Literacy, we read Each Peach, Pear Plum by Allan Ahlberg and Janet Ahlberg. When reading the story, we played ‘I Spy’. The children were encouraged to describe where the characters are using prepositional language, for example, Cinderella is hiding behind the cupboard.
After reading the book, they had to find a nursery rhyme character hiding in the classroom. The children had a go at writing the character’s name or a sentence describing where the character is hiding.
This week’s chilli challenges were all linked to nursery rhymes. Take a look at some in action…
Building a wall for Humpty Dumpty.
Playing Busy Bus with our friends in the maths area.
Baking a cake as fast as we can in the playdough area.
Catching fish in the water area.
Naming Old Macdonald’s farm animals and drawing our favourite.
Drawing number stories using 5 Little Speckled Frogs.
How many frogs are sat on the logs?
How many are in the pond?
Painting ‘Starry Night’ pictures.
On Wednesday, we looked at some past and present household artefacts and compared them. Some children had a go at drawing them using charcoal.
Living & Learning
This week is also Anti-Bullying week and yesterday we talked about the definition of bullying and what we can do to stop it. Which led onto us talking about kindness.
We made a kindness heart and talked about how we can be kind.
Florence – Including someone.
Avraj – By loving someone.
Lily – By looking after them.
Ryan – You can give them a hi-five.
Awais – Give to charity.
Seerat – Help someone who’s hurt.
Poetry Picnic
This week, we decided to learn a nursery rhyme. Check out our amazing actions!
Marvellous Maths
Thank you to all of the parents and carers who came to the maths stay & learn sessions this week. It was lovely to see so many of you! We hope you all thoroughly enjoyed it. The next stay & learn is a Funky Phonics Phase 3 session in January.
Reminders
– Library books must be returned every Friday.
– Learning Journey Drop In’s
Monday 12, Tuesday 13 & Thursday 15 December 8.50 – 9.30am or 3.15 – 3.45pm
A sign-up letter will be sent out shortly.
– PE is on Monday and Wednesday next week.
Home-Link Challenge
Junior leaders attend Youth Summit
Today, our Year 5 and 6 junior leaders, along with other children and young people from local primary and secondary schools, attended the Inner North East Community Committee Youth Summit at the Civic Hall.
We had the chance to meet and question councillors from the Moortown, Chapel Allerton and Roundhay wards and get involved with sharing views about youth activities for our local area.
We were then taken to the council chambers to meet the Lord Mayor of Leeds, Councillor Bob Gettings, where he took questions from the children. We learnt lots about his role.
The event was a great opportunity for the children to see how the council is run and give their views on issues in their local community. What great representatives of the school they were!
It was brilliant! We got to meet the Lord Mayor of Leeds.
It was amazing! We got to ask lots of questions and the Lord Mayor and councillors gave really good replies.
I liked hearing about the councillors’ experiences and what they do in their area.
I enjoyed it as you got to have a say.
Living and Learning: Anti-bullying Day and Odd Socks Day
Today has been a themed day all about anti-bullying as part of the national Anti-Bullying Week. We’ve also worn our odd socks to celebrate that we are all individual, unique and different.
First of all, we had to decide if these situations were bullying.
We discussed this in groups and after looking at our school definition of bullying, we decided that we didn’t know. This was just one incident and we didn’t know if it had happened several times.
We used drama to consider how children might feel if they were being bullied and how it would affect their mental health.
I feel sad because they are pointing and laughing at me.
I will say to the teacher that they are bullying me.
I feel upset because they are hurting my feelings.
I feel disappointed as they are leaving me out and being mean.
Our child friendly anti-bullying policy talks about an important message if you are being bullied – Start Telling Other People. The children all thought about who and how they could ask for help.
Ask your child about our two STOP acronyms: Several Times On Purpose and Start Telling Other People – one’s a definition of bullying and the other’s a solution.
Finally, we read the story, We are wonders by R J Palacio which shares the message that we are all wonders because of our differences and we should show respect to each other.
‘Look with kindness and you will always find wonder.’
Well done, Year 2, for some great discussions and understanding about this important topic today.
Anti-bullying day!
Today for our anti-bullying day, we joined the nation by focussing on the message of “reaching out”. We discussed how this had several meanings: reaching out to a trusted adult for support/advice, reaching out to the victim to see if they are okay or reaching out to make a change.
We looked at the definition of bullying which our JLT members created:
“Bullying is when you hurt someone physically or emotionally (including online), Several Times On Purpose”
Whilst we hope this would never be the case in our school, we also discussed what you can do if you were to experience bullying at Moortown Primary School:
“Start Telling Other People. You could use the Living and Learning box, the worry box, email stayingsafe@spherefederation.org or even call Childline (0800 1111).”
We celebrated the message that everyone is different and equal by wearing odd socks to school:
Art: drawing from direct observation!
In today’s art lesson, we practised drawing from direct observation. We practised drawing leaves – the subject of a lot of William Morris’ designs.
To be successful, we had to:
– be resilient
– draw lightly (so we could rub out if needed)
– draw what we could see (not what we thought was there)
– add shade to show dark and light parts of our leaf
Here are a few pieces of work!
A few reminders!
Firstly, we are now into our second week of group reading, so here are the chapters you need to read up to:
- Kensuke’s Kingdom – up to chapter 5
- The boy and the tiger – up to chapter 5
- Flood and Fang – up to chapter 6
- Alone on a wide, wide sea – up to chapter 7
- Street child – up to chapter 8
- Divine Freaks – up to chapter 6
Secondly, with our class assembly quickly approaching (Wednesday 16th November) please remember to practise your speaking parts and refresh your memory by watching the YouTube video of the song we will be singing.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/CMs_IGKxMu0
Finally, Anti-bullying day is on Monday 14th November so please remember to wear odd socks!
Science – Looking for signs of Autumn
Today in science we recapped our learning so far about the seasons. We thought about what changes happen in different seasons and the order of the seasons. Then we went outside to investigate which season it is right now. We took out the iPads and had to find evidence as to what season it is.
We found lots of evidence that the season was Autumn! Fallen leaves, leaves changing colour and lots of wind!! Here are some of the photos the children took. Well done everyone!
What have we been up to this week?
Literacy
This week, we’ve been reading Night Monkey, Day Monkey by Julia Donaldson. This led us onto talking about nocturnal and diurnal animals. Ask your child if they can remember what they mean and if they can give you an example of a nocturnal and diurnal animal.
For our writing activity, we drew a picture of the monkeys and things they saw when they were awake. Some children came up with our own ideas!
Phonics
This week, we learnt four more graphemes: v, w, x, y. The children are really enjoying their daily phonics sessions and are becoming super readers! This week, we’ve noticed lots of children using their phonics skills when labelling their Day Monkey and Night Monkey pictures.
Writing process
In phonics, we’ve started to write captions, e.g. a red sock.
To help us with the process, we follow six simple steps.
1. Think about what we want to write.
2. Say it out loud.
3. Count the words.
4. Segment each word on our phoneme fingers.
5. Write each word.
6. Check our writing makes sense.
Maths
This week, we’ve been comparing the number of objects in two sets by matching them 1:1. When comparing, we noticed that some sets had more than, fewer than and an equal number. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Three Bears needed our help to make sure they had packed an equal number of things for their picnic.
They have one plate each.
They have an equal number for forks.
It’s not equal because Daddy Bear has two bananas, Baby Bear has one and Mummy Bear has none.
We need to take one banana from Daddy Bear and give it to Mummy bear.
They all have one sun hat.
We continued our comparison learning in the maths area. We explored comparing two Numicon pieces and tried to make the scales equal.
Here are some more highlights from this week…
Click here to watch this week’s poem.
Reminders
- Please make sure your child returns their reading record book every Thursday.
- Next week is Anti-Bullying week. To kick off the week, we’re taking part in Odd Socks Day. Children can come to school on Monday wearing odd socks!
- It’s also Nursery Rhyme week. All week we’ll be learning about different nursery rhymes.
- Thank you to everyone who has signed up to one of the Marvellous Maths stay & learn sessions next Wednesday & Thursday. We look forward to welcoming you back into the classroom.
- Next Friday is Children in Need. Your child can come to school in non-uniform.
Home-Link Challenge
Living and Learning: ‘Me and My Community’ week
Last week, MPS had their first themed week of the year – me and my community. Year 3 had a busy week and learnt lots about different communities. Here’s just some of what we got up to!
We were lucky enough to start out week with a visit to St Gemma’s Hospice. The children learnt about the amazing service that is provided at the hospice and how we can do our bit to help. St Gemma’s has since been voted as our school charity for this year!
We had a visit from Linda Gledhill who spoke to the class about hearing impairments. We also learnt how to say our name in British Sign Language.
We also had a visit from the Royal National Institute of Blind People. We tried on glasses to see what it would be like to be blind.
Me and My Community Week!
Last week in school, we had a themed week. The theme was:
Me and My Community
The week saw us enjoy a whole host of different tasks, activities and fun things to do with our community!
On Tuesday, we went to Allerton Grange High School and enjoyed a drama session where we role played showcasing the things we love about Moortown Primary School.
On Wednesday, we had a visitor come and talk to us and raise our awareness of the visually impaired.
On Thursday, we had visitors from the LGBTQ+ community come and talk to us about their community.
On Friday, we had the Leeds United Football Foundation come and talk to us about diversity, equality and inclusion. Then, in the afternoon, West Yorkshire Police came and talked to us about hate crimes.
A very important, jam-packed week for everyone! Well done, Y6!