Leeds Beckett tennis
This week, Nic and Sky, tennis coaches from Beckett Sport Juniors, came to deliver a tennis themed assembly.
Here are the details of a special offer they are offering for Moortown pupils.
Living and learning: internet safety
This week, it was Safer Internet Day and we spent the day focusing on these two key areas of online safety.
- I know that some things online may not be true (people and information).
- I know that I shouldn’t share personal information online.
We used some different texts to support this learning and our daily poem too.
We joined together with Year 1 to hot seat the characters. This helped us to think about their feelings and actions.
This video also reinforced key messages about not everything online is true (this could be people or information) and the importance of not sharing any of your personal information.
We used our Living and Learning statement to think about the importance of always being respectful.
People should be respectful online because if you aren’t, others won’t be respectful to you.
It’s like bullying if you keep doing it.
It’s just like saying something mean in real life and we wouldn’t do that.
It can hurt other peoples’ feelings.
Dave from d:side visited last week to reinforce lots of internet safety messages. He was very impressed with the knowledge and understanding from the children.
Throughout this learning, we reinforced the message that if the children were unsure or something didn’t feel right they should always Start Telling Other People and let a trusted adult know.
Help at home: Can your child tell you the key messages from the texts we read?
Finally, our online safety section has further support available for parents.
Topic: What are volcanoes? Are they good or bad?
After spending this half term learning as much as there is to know about volcanoes, it was the children’s time to show off their knowledge.
They created a poster style spread in their books. Here are just some of the amazing ones they produced!
They thoroughly enjoyed this topic and we immersed ourselves by writing reports about volcanoes and learning about rocks in science too.
Help at home: Keep an eye out for recent volcanic activity around the world. This is a great place to start: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c340r9zgpnkt
Geography and Wrtiting!
This week we have been finishing off our Geography topic all about our local community. During our walk around Moortown, we completed a survey about what we liked and disliked about the local area. Afterwards, discussed what we would like to change about our locality. The class decided that it would be great if there were some more trees in The Green. So, we did another survey! This time we asked every class in school whether they would like more trees – the answer was a unanimous yes! Most children wanted some apple trees.
We then set about trying to make it happen! First step, persuade Mrs Weekes by sending her a letter. The children did an amazing job with their letters and they were delivered to Mrs Weekes on Thursday. We are awaiting her reply…
Help at home by discussing with your child ways to improve our locality. You could also discuss how we can persuade Mrs Weekes further to put apple trees in The Green.
Writing & Geography – Letters to Steve Reed
This half term’s geography learning has culminated in a letter to our Environment Minister, Steve Reed.
We want to urge him to take climate change even more seriously after what we’ve found out about how it’s impacting the world around us.
We have been learning about how melting ice caps, due to global warming, and therefore rising sea levels have been catastrophic for places around the world like Kale Island in the Solomon Islands.
We have learnt about how this change in sea level and more extreme weathers are leading to a rise in coastal erosion. Places like Skipsea suffer directly with damage to people’s homes, a decrease in tourism and sadly, in rare cases, loss of life.
We are writing to Steve Reed with several recommendations for how he can make effective changes. In addition, we are including a range of persuasive devices like flattery, emotive language and rhetorical questions.
Help at home by rereading this post to find all the examples of formal language.
“We wrote the letters into our books. Then we edited them and published them onto laptops to save paper,” explained Charlie.
Raheem said, “We’re writing this to make sure that Steve Reed will listen to our concerns.”
“It’s a nice experience because it’s a change from our normal handwritten letters or writing lessons,” beamed Luca.
Spring 1 : Week 6 Internet Safety day
We have had a very exciting week in reception. Every half term we have a zoom meeting with famer Verity. She shows us around her farm so we can see how it changes throughout the year. This week, we got to see lots of lambs. Two had just been born and we got to name them. We chose to name them Moortown and Reception.
Math
During maths this week we have been looking at measure. The children have been exploring different ways to measure the length of things.
Internet safety
During internet safety day, we shared a story about a child called Mog who was watching a video they liked that then changed to a video that they didn’t like. The children were great at suggesting what Mog should do. The suggestions included tell a grown up and go do something that makes her happy. We also shared a story called Chicken Clicking. The chicken was going on someone else’s laptop and ordering lots of things without permission. We discussed the importance of always asking our grown up before going online.
There will be no phonic or poem sheet sent home this week however there will be a Wow moment sheet and two math challenge sponsership sheets.
Have a lovely half term and we look forward to seeing you refreshed after a week off.
Writing: Co-ordinating and sub-ordinating conjunctions.
Year 5 have recapped their knowledge of co-ordinating and subordinating conjunctions.
They ran and jumped across the playground. (2 verbs)
He is a blue and purple monster. (2 adjectives)
She was very scary and incredibly effective. (2 phrases)
We need to take action on climate change but we are still burning too many fossil fuels. (2 main clauses)
We can use the acronym ‘FANBOYS’ to help use remember the most common co-ordinating conjunctions.
Subordinating conjunctions connect a main clause (a complete thought) with a subordinate clause (an idea that needs more information to make sense).
The Earth is getting warmer because of human activities.
We must act now if we want to avoid further damage.
We can use the acronym ‘ISAWAWABUB’ to help use remember the most common co-ordinating conjunctions.
Year 5 had a treasure hunt to help consolidate this knowledge. There was grammar style questions hidden around the room for the children to find and answer.
Help at home: Can your child name all the subordinating conjunctions using ‘ISAWAWABUB’?
Maths: Column multiplication
In Maths, we have recently been looking at column multiplication. Year 5 started off by recapping Year 4 learning with 3-digit numbers times by 1-digit numbers. We know have learnt how to multiply 4-digit numbers by 2-digit numbers!
In this lesson, the children used their knowledge to play a game of connect 4.
Help at home: Practise multiplying 4-digit numbers by 2-digit numbers. Why not create your numbers by rolling a dice or using a random number generator? Ask your child to talk your through each step.
Cross Country Leeds Final
*** UPDATE*** Congratulations to our Year 3 girls team and one of our Year 4 runners who have qualified for the West Yorkshire Cross Country Final.
We were very proud of our eight Key Stage 2 children who took part in the Leeds Cross Country Final at Temple Newsam this week.
In muddy, slippy, wet conditions they all put in 100% effort in their races and were a great support for each other. The children should feel proud of competing against the best runners from across Leeds.
We’ll wait to hear if we have any qualifiers for the next round, the West Yorkshire Final.
Thank you to parents who helped with transport and supported at the event.
PE: Dance
We are dancers!
In PE this half term, we have been doing dance. We’ve been exploring different elements of dance and how we can use them when creating a final group routine.
- Space – pathways
- Tempo – time
- Dynamics
We started the half term by exploring different pathways – curved, angular and freeform. We imagined we were in snow and had to imagine the trail we would be leaving as we moved through the space.
Next we looked at tempo. This is the speed at which a dancer moves: fast, slow, acceleration, deceleration or free flowing. We spoke about the rhythmic use of the body to music, sound, no sound or voice.
Finally, we thought about different dynamics in dance. These are the movements we make and the quality of these movements. The three we looked at were:
- swinging
- suspending
- vibrating
To end this unit, your children got into groups and created a routine to Roar by Katy Perry. They had to think about all the elements we’ve covered this half term in their final piece. I was amazed by all of their dances – they were fantastic! All of your children were confident dancers and demonstrated all three elements brilliantly.
Help at home: put on your favourite song and ask your child to dance to it while thinking about the three elements of dance.