Mars from the planets
Music forms part of the Wednesday afternoon timetable for Year 2 and this piece of music, Mars from The Planets by Gustav Holst, is a focus for this half term.
We’ve also been listening to it in class and trying to recognise some of the instruments from the orchestra.
Have a listen at home and ask your child what they think of this piece of music?
Adel Tennis Club coaching
This half term, Year 1, 2 and 6 are developing and improving their tennis skills in sessions led by John Moore from Adel Tennis Academy.
Adel Tennis Academy are running half term tennis camps. Click here for more information.
Ready to learn
The children have really impressed us with how quickly they have settled and their eagerness to learn. They are loving their phonics sessions!
Last week we went on a walk around school and drew maps. The children talked about their journey to school and where they lived. We looked at maps of Moortown and tried to spot school and Moortown Park.
Reading
All the children have been given a reading book. Please keep this book in their bookbag for reading at school. We will change their book once a week.
Mental Health
Today, Year 4 began their second week learning about the importance of mental health in Living and Learning. I’ve been so impressed with how mature and understanding the whole class have been when listening and sharing personal experiences with their friends!
Last week, the children learnt about sensible ways to express their feelings and emotions and why this is so important. They explored a range of different emotions such as feeling happy, sad, scared, angry, worried or pleased. Discussing how these might feel inside and what colour or shape these emotions would look like. This helped the children understand their own emotions and they then drew these themselves!
This week, we’re looking at how we can manage our feelings and emotions in different situations. We spent time talking about how emotions can influence our behaviours. For example, excitement can lead to jumping and smiling or sadness can lead to crying or hiding. To help the children work through the same emotions, they spent the afternoon being empathetic to others and considering how others can help themselves.
We are constantly referring back to the importance of talking to someone you trust and how this can really help children manage their emotions. Whether they talk to a grown up at school, at home or online – a problem shared is a problem halved!
The Childline website has lots of interactive games to help children explore their emotions even further – https://www.childline.org.uk/ – have a look at home!
Reading activity
Our reading record activity this week is step in their shoes.
Please ensure that your child has completed this activity by Friday the 15th of October. It must also be accompanied by an adults signature confirming that your child has been reading at home.
As always, please ask if you have any questions!
Performing poetry
“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the spider to the fly…
Year 5 have been reading The Spider and the Fly by Mary Howitt and we performed it today! The poem comes with a warning of being careful of what the motives of strangers are.
Can your child remember what our R2s are when performing this poem?
Learning in Latin
In Latin, Year 5 have been learning about how it is not word order but word endings that are important when constructing sentences.
To help explain this, we looked at how changing the word order of sentences in English can completely change the meaning of our sentences!
Take a look at some of our favourite examples of this…
Performance Poetry
“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the spider to the fly…
Y6 have been reading The Spider and the Fly by Mary Howitt and we performed it today! The poem comes with a warning of being careful of what the motives of strangers are.
We decided on the following R2s:
- projection
- expression
- actions
- eye contact
- memorise it
Challenge your child to recall as much of the poem as possible!
Beforehand, for inspiration, we also listened to some other performances.
Da’wud said, “The choir performance reminds me of the song we’re listening to in music – Little Babe.”
Tanvi said: “I disagreed with Billy when he said the second performer had good expression. I think he actually had just one tone to his voice!”
Y6 Class Assembly
Y6 are back with the first class assembly in what feels like forever!
Listen out for all the amazing tips they have for looking after your mental wellbeing… and watch to the end for some exclusive bloopers!
Well done to the whole class. We had a lot of fun making it.
Enjoy!
Wonderful writing!
This week we have been reading a story called ‘We’re going to find the monster’ by Malorie Blackman and Dapo Adeola. 
The children have loved imagining what kind of monster the children are seeking as well as mapping out the journey the brave explorers take. We then thought of our own ideas for where they could search for the monster and wrote up our ideas wonderfully! We thought really carefully about what we were going to write making sure we included all our Year 1 must dos. We even practised clapping at the end of each sentence to remind us to use a full stop!
Well done everyone!
Have a lovely weekend,
Mr McGriffiths