Living & Learning: solving problems
This week in L&L, our statement was…
I can find solutions to different problems.
Before we try to solve a problem, we must recognise what emotions that situation is making us feel. Often, these emotions make things difficult for us because our brains are not very good at problem solving when our emotions are very high. Therefore, the first step of problem solving is trying to regulate our emotions.
Some of your children’s suggestions for regulating our emotions:
Take deep and slow breaths.
Listen to some relaxing music.
Do some colouring.
Go for a walk outside for some fresh air.
Talk to a trusted adult.
Write your feelings down.
Once our emotions are regulated, our mind is a little bit clearer and we are able to think of more appropriate and effective solutions to our problems.
Year 4 then became Agony Aunts. They were given two problems and had to work together to come up with suitable solutions to these.
I was really impressed by your children’s mature and responsible solutions to these problems. It was brilliant to see that they all knew the importance of speaking to a trusted adult whenever there’s a problem.
Help at home: practise some emotion regulation techniques with your children. Read through these problems and ask your children to come up with some solutions:
- Jalisha and her best friend Ella, both wanted the part of Cinderella in the play but Ella got the part.
- Daniel’s family are moving to Australia but he is really sad because he is going to miss his friends.
- Tom’s friend did better than him in the spelling test and keeps talking about it at break time.
Old Leos women’s and girls cricket opportunity
Local cricket club, Old Leos, have opportunities for womens and girls cricket. Please contact them for more information.
Design & Technology food: overnight oats
This week, Year 2 have prepared, eaten and evaluated our overnight oats. This is part of our Living and Learning (healthy eating) and Design and Technology (food preparation) learning.
The children have used some different food preparation skills (snipping, peeling, bridge and claw cutting technique, mixing, measuring liquids, using measuring spoons, weighing and arranging toppings) as part of this learning to create their finished product.
Then, it was the best bit – the tasting!
Finally, we evaluated our product and considered any changes we’d make next time.
Help at home: your child will be bringing this recipe home. Why not try it at home and let your child show you the skills they have learnt.
Computing: What is a sprite?
This half-term, Year 4 are computer programmers!
A computer programmer is someone who writes instructions, called code, that tell a computer what to do.
Your children have been using Scratch on the iPads to demonstrate their programming skills. On Scratch, you can program sprites to do a variety of things like move, change costumes and make sounds.
A sprite is a 2d character in a computer game.
Your children worked with a partner to program three different sprites to move in three different ways. We had some really creative ideas like an astronaut floating through space or a fish swimming underwater. It was great to see your children thinking like computer programmers and building some really effective programs.
I’m looking forward to seeing how their programs develop over the next few weeks!
Help at home: visit the Scratch website (https://scratch.mit.edu/) and practise programming. Can you get your sprite to talk? Walk? Change costume?
Reminder: stay and learn session
Number 2 – 18.03.25 9-9:30am
Bikeability
Year 5 have taken part in bikeability; they have all really enjoyed the sessions! The leaders of the session have praised the children for their brilliant behaviour, great listening skills and fantastic determination.
Help at home: Why not go out on a family bike ride this weekend and ask your children to explain how to stay safe whilst out?
Group reading week 3
Here are the target pages for this week’s group reading. These need to be read by Friday 21st March. Your child’s reading record activity needs to be completed based on the pages they’ve read.
65-storey Treehouse: up to page 83
The Accidental Secret Agent: up to page 43.
Chatty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again: up to page 43.
Chatty Chitty Bang Bang Over the Moon: up to page 53.
The Twins at St Clare’s: up to page 23.
An Elephant in the Garden: up to page 56.
Help at home: read these pages with your child and sign their reading record activity.
Writing: Grammar
This week, in writing we have been looking at lots of different grammar units: subject, verbs and objects; active and passive voice; dashes, semi-colon and colons; and relative clauses.
Every main clause must have a subject and verb and sometimes it has an object. The subject is the ‘do’er or be’er’; they are the person or thing that is doing the action. The verb is the doing or being word and the object is the person or thing that is having the action done to them.
An active sentence always follows the rule of ‘subject, verb, (object). Whereas, a passive sentence always goes ‘object, verb, subject’.
Dashes, semi-colon and colons always go after a main clause (a sentence that makes sense by itself).
A relative clause can be used to give additional information about a noun.
They are introduced by a relative pronoun like ‘that’, ‘which’, ‘who’, ‘whose’, ‘where’ and ‘when’.
Help at home: Have a go at these exam style questions.
Oracy
Today, in reading, we practised some oracy skills in order to prepare for a debate.
One partner had to describe, using good speaking skills, a picture for their partner to draw. Then, we swapped over.
We discussed how you had to choose precise words so your partner could draw accurately.
We had a lot of fun.
Help at home by playing games like this, or other barrier games, to sharpen your oracy skills!
Guided Reading Week 3
Here are the target pages for this week’s guided reading. These need to be read by Friday 21st March.
Extra Time: up to chapter 28/page 133.
Flood and Fang: up to chapter 11/page 137.
Rooftoppers: up to chapter 12/page 106.
The Girl of Ink and Stars: up to chapter 16/page 144.
Kensuke’s Kingdom: up to chapter 6/page 85.