Year 5/6 netball event
As part of our involvement with the Leeds Well Schools Partnership, we took a team of 8 Year 5/6 children to a Bee Netball Development Event at Allerton High.
The event was aimed at developing netball skills and the children put them into practise in some games at the end. Well done to all the children for representing our school so well.
To take part in netball outside of school, here are details of a local club.
Living and Learning: allergies
Last week, Year 3 learnt all about allergies.
What is an allergy? An allergic reaction happens when a person comes in contact with something that their body thinks will be harmful to them (called an allergen).
We discussed how all our bodies are different and something that may not harm us could make somebody else very poorly.
There are 14 main food allergens:
Even though we might not see an allergen in our food, doesn’t mean it isn’t in there. To make sure we’re being careful and only eating foods which are safe for us, we must always look at the packaging. The main allergens are always in bold!
We discussed some signs of an allergic reaction and what we could do if we or someone else was experiencing these…
Mild/moderate signs:
- itchy skin rash
- tummy ache or being sick
- puffy eyes or lips
- itchy/tingling mouth
Serious signs:
- difficulty breathing or noisy breathing
- difficulty swallowing
- feeling dizzy, floppy or sleepy
Help at home: From the fridge or food cupboards at home, choose an item and see what allergens you can find on the back of a pack.
Maths: perimeter
The perimeter is the distance around the outside of a 2D shape.
We’ve spent the last week calculating the perimeter of 2D shapes.
There are a few different ways to do this…
- If we know the shape has equal length sides, we can multiply one length by how many sides the shape has.
- If the shapes are drawn on grids, we can use the squares to count the perimeter. Be careful not to include the corner squares!
- If asked to, we can use our rulers to measure the length of each side and add them together.
We tried to choose the most efficient methods to find the perimeter. For example, when each side is equal length, using multiplication to help us!
Help at home by answering this question:
A reply from Miss Needham!
Miss Needham LOVED hearing all about what Year 5 had been getting up to recently and was very emotional about it. (We made her cry – in a good way!)
Take a look at her response to our postcards:
We are chemists!
This week, we have started our next unit in science: reversible and irreversible changes. For this topic we are going to be chemists. Chemistry is the study of the properties of substances and the changes they go through.
In today’s lesson, we tested which substances could be dissolved in water. If our substance did dissolve this meant that it was soluble and created a solution. If it did not dissolve, then the substance was insoluble.
Our scientific enquiry type was ‘comparative and fair testing’.
Help at home: Discuss our new science vocabulary.
PE – ball skills
This week in PE we have started to work on our ball skills. We will be using our hand eye coordination to throw, catch and aim our balls. We started with a challenge to ourselves – could we catch the ball and clap our hands? If they finished that level then they had to catch the ball after touching their head and shoulders! The children were really determined and did a brilliant job.
We finished the lesson by playing ‘clash ball’. The children had to sit opposite each other and roll their balls so they clashed in the middle. It was lots of fun!
We will continue to practise our ball skills for the rest of the half term.
Help at home by practising throwing and catching different sized balls.
Writing: Chocolate Cake by Michael Rosen
Year 3 are going to write a narrative based on 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 it really makes us laugh! Give it a watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWrOeNKvtHI&t=46s
Our narrative will be inspired by this but we’re going to tweak it so that we are sneaking up to the teachers’ staffroom to steal their food.
In our narrative we’re going to include; description, action and dialogue (direct speech).
We’ve began practising our use of inverted commas for direct speech…
Help at home by practising writing direct speech. Have a conversation with someone at home and write it down using inverted commas. Use the list of R2s above to help you!
Summer 1: Week 1
Welcome back!
We hope you had a happy and healthy break. Thank you to the parents who sent in some photos. We really enjoyed sharing these on Tuesday.
This half-term our topic is called Life on Earth. We’ve kicked off our topic by reading The Bug Collector by Alex G. Griffiths in literacy and going on bug hunts. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be learning more about life cycles. We’ll closely observe caterpillars to help us understand the different stages of a life cycle.
Phonics
This week, we’ve started Phase 4. In this phase children will use the phonemes learnt in Phase 2 and Phase 3 to read and spell words with four or more phonemes and words ending in suffixes:
–ing, –ed /t/, –ed /id/ /ed/, –est
Here are some examples:
CVCC words: tent, damp, toast
For example, in the word ‘damp’, d = consonant, a = vowel, m = consonant, p = consonant
CCVC words: swim, plum, spoon
For example, in the word ‘plum’, p = consonant, l = consonant, u = vowel, m = consonant
CCVCC words: stamp, crept, twist
For example, in the word ‘stamp’, s = consonant, t = consonant, a = vowel, m = consonant, p = consonant
CCCVC words: strap scrub strong
For example, in the word, ‘strap’, s = consonant, t = consonant, r = consonant, a = vowel, p = consonant
CCCVCC words: strand strict sprint
For example, in the word, ‘sprint’, s = consonant, p = consonant, r = consonant, i = vowel, n = consonant, t = consonant
They’ll also learn to read and write 18 new tricky words.
Help at home: Practise reading and writing this week’s tricky words.
said so have like
Maths
This week, we continued to engage in activities that draw attention to the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are. We revisited the concept of cardinality – the idea that the last number in the count tells us how many things there are altogether.
A key area we have continued to develop is counting strategies for counting larger numbers of objects, including those that cannot be moved. We had lots of fun helping Gary the giraffe count the packets of raisins for our snack. We n develop their counting skills – will help to embed these key areas of understanding.
Living and Learning
On Tuesday, we talked about personal hygiene, including handwashing. We discussed how we keep ourselves clean.
Gur – We clean our face, body and brush our teeth.
Po – We have a bath and a shower.
El – If there’s still dirty stuff in your teeth, you can floss.
Sh – Wash our hands.
Th – I brush my teeth in the morning and just before bed.
We then had a go at a little experiment to see why it is important we wash our hands well with soap.
Poetry Picnic
This week’s poem was called Pitter Patter. Click here to watch us.
Some more fantastic learning…
What is WWII?
We’ve started our new topic for this half term – history! We’ve been very excited about it and the children know lots already.
Before we got started, we looked at our new history vocabulary and rated our confidence as a class: red is never heard it before, orange is heard it but not confident and green is I am fully confident.
Today, we learnt about what WWII was and how it began.
We made a lot of great notes before we recorded a report to announce the outbreak of war.
Help at home by discussing how this lesson links with the following historical concepts:
- invasion
- power
The other concepts we learn about are trade, inequality and innovation.
PE: netball
This half-term in PE, we’re doing netball!
Netball is a fantastic sport for your children to practise a variety of different skills (e.g., passing, catching, shooting, defending etc.).
This week, we began exploring some different ways we can pass the ball in netball – chest pass and bounce pass. We recapped our ‘pass and point‘ technique which we used in rugby. When you release a ball during a pass, your fingers should end pointing towards where you are aiming. This is a great technique to ensure an accurate pass.
Help at home: if you have a ball at home (any ball will do) practise some chest and bounce passes with your child. Remember, you must not move with the ball!