Living and Learning: health and prevention
As part of our learning about health and prevention, we’ve been thinking about the importance of sleep.
Sleep helps your body work and can help you get better if you don’t feel well.
If you don’t have enough sleep, you feel grumpy, you can’t focus and you can’t control yourself.
If you have a busy brain it can be hard to get to sleep.
We read a story about Mia who had trouble sleeping.
Sometimes, things can stop you getting to sleep.
- loud noises
- lights
- nightmares
- being on a screen close to bedtime
- staying up too late
- being too active before bedtime
- if you are scared
- if you have a worry
To help Mia, we thought about the things that can help you get to sleep.
- calm music
- relaxation and mindfulness
- yoga
- reading a book
- counting sheep
- drinking some warm milk
- thinking of something nice that you want to dream about
- being in a dark room
- tidy away your things to have a tidy bedroom
- having a teddy or toy with you
- stop using a screen an hour before bed
As always, we encourage the children to talk to a trusted adult if they are worried about anything we cover in Living and Learning or write down a worry if they prefer.
Help at home: ask your child what they are going to try and do at home to help them with getting to sleep. We’d love to hear what helps. Have a look together at these sleep tips for children.
Writing: Chocolate Cake by Michael Rosen
Year 4 are currently writing a narrative inspired by Chocolate Cake by Michael Rosen.
A narrative is a story and its purpose is interest and entertain.
We’ve watched Michael Rosen perform this poem and your children love it! Give it a watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWrOeNKvtHI&t=46s
Our narrative is going to be about sneaking into the teacher’s staffroom and stealing a delicious treat. To help inspire this, your children got to take a sneaky trip into the staffroom to see what it’s really like.
We’ve been practising direct speech lots this week as we want to include that in our narratives. I’ve been really impressed with how well your children have grasped this as it can be tricky!
Help at home: have a brief conversation with your children and ask them to write it down using direct speech. Make sure they use all our R2s above!
Living and learning: sleep
In Living and Learning this week, we’ve been talking about sleep.
We’ve analysed our own sleep to suggest any helpful changes. We know poor quality sleep really isn’t good for us so we want to make the best possible choices to look after our body and minds.
We also debated whether “a perfect night’s sleep is impossible” in Philosophy Friday and came up with some interesting contributions.
Jensen explained, “I don’t think it’s possible for anything to be perfect but there’s always small choices you can make to have good quality sleep. You can go to bed a little earlier, stay away from devices, read and make it as peaceful as possible.”
Summer 1: Week 2
On Monday morning, a parcel arrived at school…
WE HAVE 5 CATERPILLARS!
On Wednesday, we watched a video about the life cycle of a butterfly and talked about the different stages.
Help at home: Can your child remember the four stages? Draw a picture of the life cycle.
Literacy
This week, we’ve been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. We had lots of fun drawing story maps.
After reading and retelling the story, we used our imagination to write our own versions of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We changed the main character and the food.
Maths
This week, we continued to develop our subitising skills. We used our understanding of doubles to support our subitising skills when looking at different arrangements. We created arrangements of 6 using different objects. We thought carefully about how we can arrangement the objects so it’s easier to subitise– e.g. 2 groups of 3. We then played a game called Odd One Out. We had to spot an arrangement that was not 6.
Help at home: Make arrangements of 6 using everyday objects. Get your adult to close their eyes and see if they spot if it’s changed.
DT
In the creative area, we’ve been exploring how to use hand drills to make holes in pieces of wood. On Wednesday, we used our skills to build a bug hotel for our outdoor area.
Learning outside
We’ve had a lovely week making the most of the sunny weather. The children have loved building, painting and getting wet in the water tray.
As we enter into the warmer months, please make sure your child comes to school with a hat and a water bottle. Sun cream must be applied before school.
Maths: telling the time
This week, our maths learning has been all about telling the time. Using analogue clocks, we started with o’clock and then half past, quarter past and quarter to. Next week, we will move onto 5 minute intervals.
This website can support this learning at home.
Help at home: discuss time at home. What time is it now? Where are the hands pointing to on the clock? What time will it be in an hour?
Enjoying outdoors!
What a lovely sunny week! Year 2 have enjoyed being outside in the sunshine. It has been great to explore The Green at playtimes and lunchtimes.
Year 2 can confidently talk about staying safe in the sunshine. We have been keeping hydrated, wearing sun cream and sunhats and seeking shade when we need it.
Now the weather is dry, we can enjoy our PE sessions outside. This half term, in PE, we are improving our throwing and catching skills. We have thought about games where throwing and catching are important skills, like basketball and netball.
Summer term after-school clubs
Maths: adding and subtracting fractions
We are coming to the end of our fractions topic in Year 4. I’ve been so impressed with your children’s maths this unit – they’ve wowed me!
This week, we’ve been looking at adding and subtracting fractions with the same denominator.
When the denominators are the same, to add the fractions we must add the numerator.
When the denominators are the same, to subtract the fractions we must subtract the numerator.
We’d previously learnt about converting between improper fractions (fractions where the numerator is greater than the denominator) and mixed numbers (a whole number with a proper fraction). Your children deepened this knowledge by applying it into their addition and subtractions.
Help at home: ask your children to complete these addition and subtractions:
Living and learning: the importance of sleep
Our recent Living and Learning lesson was all about the importance of sleep.
Our learning explored why sleep is so important in our lives, how it can sometimes be difficult to fall asleep or stay asleep, and how to manage this. We also considered what the children can do to help themselves have good habits that can help them to fall asleep.
Firstly, we heard a story about a girl called Mia. We had to identify the things that were STOPPING her from getting to sleep.
As a class, we had a great discussion about what can HELP Mia (and us) to get to sleep and what might STOP us from getting to sleep.
The children has some great ideas.
I cuddle on to my teddy to help me go to sleep.
I have a special light that helps me.
I like to read a bedtime story. It makes me sleepy.
I don’t watch anything on a screen before bedtime.
Help at home by talking to your child about how to get a good night’s sleep and some of the things that can be part of a bedtime routine.
We are historians!
This half-term, we are historians. We will be learning about WWII.
This week we have looked into the ‘Blitz’ – from the German term Blitzkrieg (‘lightning war’) . It was the sustained campaign of aerial bombing attacks on British towns and cities carried out by the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) from September 1940 until May 1941.
We have been exploring how Leeds was impacted by The Blitz on the 14th-15th March 1941. We used secondary research from Leeds Becket University.
We found out that most of the bombs landed in the city centre and the closest event occurring nearest to Moortown was a fire in Meanwood.
Here are some of the events, the children found interesting:
Help at home: Explore the interactive map and find out more information about how Leeds was impacted by The Blitz.