Forest School
Today, Year 6 LOVED Forest School.
Reminder: Your child NEEDS to bring a change of clothes and shoes (including socks). They were incredibly muddy and wet afterwards and needed warm school clothing to get changed into.
Reading – Viking Boy
This week in Reading, we have been focussing on our new class novel for this term: Viking Boy by Tony Bradman.
On Thursday, we created Top Trumps cards about the characters that we have met so far. We used our retrieval and inference skills. Retrieval to create a fact file about the person and inference to rate them in each category (strength, bravery, Viking skill, loyalty and importance to the story).
We then played a game of Top Trumps. The children really enjoyed it!
Help at home: Can your child summarise what has happened in the book so far? Who are the main characters?
PE – dance
We’re focusing on dance in our first few weeks of Spring term. Dance is just moving to music. We have thought about low, medium and high movements and responded to different music this week. This week Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill really made us move in different ways.
Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog (it’s along the play bar) and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.
Poetry basket: Let’s put on our mittens
This week’s poem is called Let’s put on our mittens.
It’s perfectly timed with the freezing temperatures this week!
We’ve been focussing on a couple of words in particular: snug/snuggly and mittens.
PE: Yoga
This morning in PE, we had our second Yoga session. Before we began, we spoke about the importance of Yoga for our strength, flexibility, coordination and mental health.
We started with some calm breathing exercises which made us feel relaxed. We noticed how this breathing slowed down our heart rates and made us feel much more peaceful.
We then learnt some of the Yoga poses: Warrior I, Warrior II, Triangle, Dancer and Twisting Dragon. It was difficult at times to hold our balance but we discussed how we could help with this…
- engage your core
- slow, deep breaths
- fix your gaze at a point
After getting the hang of each pose, we put them together to make it flow. We moved from Warrior I into Warrior II and then down to Triangle. It took lots of control and patience to move fluidly from one pose to the another.
We ended the session with a guided meditation about our happy places. I was very impressed with the children’s focus and engagement.
Help at home: ask your child to show you the poses they learnt this week in Yoga.
Spring 1: Week 1
Happy New Year to all of our wonderful Reception families! We hope you had a lovely break and are feeling refreshed, recharged, and ready for an exciting half-term ahead!
Living & Learning
On Monday, we talked about how we can respect ourselves. Mrs Boulton shared lots of different examples of how we can look after our bodies, make good choices, and feel proud of who we are. Some of the children were eager to share how they respect themselves.
Ar – I respect myself when I don’t want to play someone’s game and I choose a different game to play with different people or I sit by myself.
Fin – I wear my helmet when I ride my bike.
Oy – I hold the railings when I walk to school to keep myself safe.
Meh – I respect myself when I cross the road and wait for the green light.
Maths
This week, we’ve been using our “fast eyes” to practise subitising (recognising quantities without counting) using more complex dot arrangements. The children looked carefully at the dots, took a “picture” with their eyes, closed their eyes, and then explained what they saw. We used spatial language to describe the arrangements, for example:
“There are 3 dots on the top and 2 dots on the bottom.”
Help at home:
Draw some linear and paired dot arrangements similar to the ones below for numbers 3 to 6.
Ask your child to:
- Take a picture with their eyes
- Close their eyes
- Explain the arrangement
They could even try drawing it in the air.
Literacy
Our focus story for the first two weeks is Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers. On Wednesday, we talked about what we would do if we found a penguin. Some of the children’s ideas were:
If I found a penguin, I would…
Give it a hug
Ask Mummy to draw a map to help the penguin find its home
Make a cold area in the house
Help the penguin find its mummy
Be a good friend to the penguin
We’ve also been learning about Antarctica. We located England and Antarctica on a map, watched a clip from Frozen Planet, and discussed the differences between the climate in England and Antarctica.
Our word of the week was iceberg. We looked at pictures of icebergs and talked about what an iceberg is.
Help at home:
Ask your child if they can remember what an iceberg is.
Next week, we’re looking forward to learning more about winter and colder regions.
Take a look at some of this week’s winter learning in the areas of provision.
Reminder
- Library session has moved to Fridays
Please make sure your child’s library book is returned every Friday. - Every Thursday, we write in your child’s reading record. Please make sure you write a comment in your child’s reading record for us to celebrate in school.
- Phonics Phase 3 Stay & Learn – Wednesday 4th February
9:00–9:20am – Phase 3 phonics presentation
9:25–10:00am – Watch a Phase 3 phonics lesson
Due to limited space, one adult per child may attend.
New class novel
The children have voted for their new class novel…
Anglo-Saxon Boy by Tony Bradman
It links directly to our new history topic: Romans and Anglo-Saxons.
Help at home: Read this blurb and information about the book.
An action-packed Anglo-Saxon tale of one boy’s journey to the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
The story of one Anglo-Saxon boy’s journey to the Battle of Hastings in 1066: Key Stage 2 History brought to life as battle-packed adventure.
1065: Magnus is the son of Harold Godwinson, lord of the Southern Saxons and ruthlessly ambitious claimant to the throne of England. Overnight, Magnus finds himself cast centre-stage in the blood-soaked family feud that led to one of history’s most famous battles.
This is the family tragedy behind 1066: live it with Magnus, as the wolves of history close in on his Anglo-Saxon boyhood.
Reading: Viking Boy
This week in Reading, we have been focussing on our new class novel for this term: Viking Boy by Tony Bradman.
Today, we created Top Trumps cards about the characters that we have met so far. We used our retrieval and inference skills. Retrieval to create a fact file about the person and inference to rate them in each category (strength, bravery, Viking skill, loyalty and importance to the story).
We then played a game of Top Trumps. The children really enjoyed it!
Help at home: Can your child summarise what has happened in the book so far? Who are the main characters?
Welcome back!
Welcome back to the spring term and happy new year.
We hope you’ve all had a happy and healthy Christmas break and we are looking forward to another great term of learning.
Thank you from Mrs Taylor, Mrs Palmer, Mrs Simpson and Mrs Rothery for all the kind gifts and cards we received.
Living & Learning: democracy
This week in L&L, we’ve been focusing on one of our British Values – democracy. Democracy means that power is in the hands of the people.
The word democracy comes from Greek:
- dêmos – people
- krátos – power/rule
We’ve learnt about democracy in our country and how this works. The children were really interested in learning about the central and local government and the roles of political parties. We also discussed how we’re involved in democratic decisions at school:
We get to vote for how we use our reward time.
We get to vote for our JLT in school.
At the start of the year we got to vote for the name of our class reward points.
Democracy is important. We spoke about some reasons why…
- Law and order – we have laws that are created by and voted on by MPs we elect. We all have to follow them as they help keep us all safe.
- Freedom of speech – we have the right to say what we think about something as long as we do not say anything hurtful to others.
- Equality – living in a democracy helps us to treat each other fairly and equally.
Help at home: watch this video (https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z76gr2p#zbxddp3) and discuss democracy in the UK.