Class News

Drop Down Morning

Posted on Tuesday 28 November 2023 by Miss Goswami

This morning was a little different to our usual mornings: we had drop down morning. This is where we recap our topic units from last year.

To kick-off the morning, Year 5 revisited their computing journey so far. We also discussed the key vocabulary and played Pictionary.

Then, we moved on to look at the Ancient Greeks; we focused on the innovations that form the legacy of the Ancient Greeks. We first looked at which other civilizations were happening at the same time and then discussed innovations. We found out that Ancient Greece created a LOT! Here are some: democracy, philosophy, the water mill, the crane, medicine and the Olympics. The children then took part in a Kahoot (an online timed quiz) to show off their learning.

Finally, we moved on to Geography where we talked about all things volcano. We looked at where volcanoes can be found; key vocabulary; the difference between magma and lava; and if we thought volcanoes were good or bad.

Help at home: Research recent volcanic events and discuss their impacts.

PE: Gymnastics

Posted on Tuesday 28 November 2023 by Miss Goswami

This half-term, we are becoming gymnasts. For the past couple of weeks, we have been focusing on travelling, whether that be low, high, quick or slow. We were able to travel into spaces and sequence a range of different movements. We have then had a lesson to explore the apparatus with controlled and balanced movements.

We will be moving on to sequence different jumps and perform routines.

Art – The Hepworth Gallery

Posted on Tuesday 28 November 2023 by Mr McGriffiths

Last Thursday, we had an amazing time at the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield. The children loved the gallery and were in awe of the size of not only the sculptures but the gallery itself. In the morning the children took part in a workshop where they explored parts of the gallery and drew some of the sculptures they liked. Then, they took their ideas back to the workshop room and did some printing. The children were so engaged and listened excellently to the workshop leader.

In the afternoon, we explored the gallery ourselves in small groups. The children were so excited and enthusiastic to examine the art and complete some careful drawings. Again they were extremely well behaved and a member of the public commented how well they had done!

Help at home by talking about the trip and exploring their artwork that they have brought home on Friday.

Writing: Narratives

Posted on Monday 27 November 2023 by Miss Goswami

Today, Year 5 became the artwork at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Over the next 3 weeks, the children will be writing a narrative about the sculptures coming to life. Year 5 put themselves in the shoes of the statues and pretended to awaken after years of being frozen. Take a look at some snapshots of their movements:

We discussed different sculpture’s back stories, if they were good or bad, where they would go and what they would be thinking at that time.

Help at home: Discuss how these sculptures would move if they came to life.

Maths – we’re resilient!

Posted on Monday 27 November 2023 by Miss Wilson

Today, Y6 looked at some multi-step addition and subtraction questions involving fractions.

We worked in teams and had some amazing discussions about our thought processes and workings out.

Lots of 8 Rs had to feature in today’s lesson:

  • remembering – we’ve learnt lots of skills over the last couple of weeks and we had to put in to practice today
  • resourceful – we had to use our knowledge and skills plus the knowledge and skills of others in order to succeed
  • resilience – lots of questions required a lot of brain power and the ability to keep going!

Edith said, “I liked how we’ve been using what we’ve learnt recently and completing questions that we’ve struggled with in the past! If you get past the tricky words, the maths is much simpler so that was good.”

“One question took me about twenty minutes and one I could do in my head so you had to be ready to be resilient!” explained Penelope.

Cross country stars

Posted on Sunday 26 November 2023 by Mrs Taylor

*UPDATE* Four of our Year 3 runners have qualified for the Leeds School Games cross country final!

On Friday, twenty two Key Stage 2 children took part in the Leeds North East School Games Cross Country festival at Roundhay High School attended by 900 pupils.

We had a great start from our Year 3 runners with 4 children coming in the top 10! After that, we saw some excellent efforts from the rest of the children throughout the afternoon with great support and encouragement from the other pupils.

Well done to all the children who took part and represented the school. We are sure there will be some qualifiers for the next race, the Leeds final. Watch this space!

Thank you to the parents who came along to help and support at this event.

It was a brilliant event. The Team Moortown spirit was very strong.

If you’re child would like to take part in cross country, have a look at our physical activity guide for details of local running clubs and junior Park Runs.

Guided Reading Week 3

Posted on Sunday 26 November 2023 by Miss Goswami

Here are the target pages for this week’s guided reading. These need to be read by Friday 1st December.

The Boy and the Tiger: up to chapter 13/page 107.

Extra Time: up to chapter 26/page 117.

Flood and Fang: up to chapter 7/page 99.

Dirty Bertie: up to page 87.

Kensuke’s Kingdom: up to chapter 7/page 99.

Topic – Art

Posted on Friday 24 November 2023 by Miss Birch

Year 3 have begun their latest Topic – art! We have two featured artists that we are focusing our learning around.

Wassily Kandinsky

Martha McDonald Napaltjarri

We have used our Geography skills to locate on a map where these artists were born; Kandinsky in Moscow, Russia and Napaltjarri in Haasts Bluff, near Alice Springs, Australia.

We have since then, explored the use of complementary colours and warm and cool colours. We were inspired by Kandinsky’s Squares With Concentric Circles art piece and created these:

We put our concentric circles together to create one large piece of art.
The children explored using oil pastels and chalks.

Help at home by asking your child what complementary, warm and cool colours are!

Autumn 2: Week 3

Posted on Friday 24 November 2023 by Mrs Wood

This week, we explored making shadows. We used torches to explore what happened to the shadows when we moved the light source closer and then further away from the model. We had lots of fun creating our own shadow puppets in the creative area. Some children explored making shadows of their models in the construction area.
In Literacy, our focus story was Night Monkey, Day Monkey by Julia Donaldson. For our writing activity, we drew and labelled pictures of things we see and do during the day and at night time .
Our word of the week was nocturnal.

A hedgehog used to live in my garden.
I saw a fox when walking home.
I have seen bats before!

Help at home: Draw a picture of a nocturnal animals and label it.

In maths, we introduced the children to  composition by focusing on the preliminary skills: the concept of ‘wholes’ and ‘parts’. We investigated composition using own bodies and familiar toys. For example, we looked at  Mr. Potato Head and talked about the smaller part that make Mr. Potato Head a whole. We also sand ‘Heads, shoulders, knees and toes’ and thought about our body parts. We used this stem sentence My […] is a part of me and the whole of me is [name] to explain our parts.

Help at home: Look at the pictures. Can you see the parts?

We also had a go at composing and de-composing Numberblocks up to 5 using cubes.

Reminders

  • Library books must be returned every Monday. If you have one of our library books at home, please return it.
  • Please make sure your child’s reading record is in their book bag every day in case we need to write in them on a different day.
  • Learning Journey Drop In’s
    Tuesday 12  & Thursday 14 December 8.45 – 9.15am or 3.15 – 3.45pm
    A sign-up letter will be sent out shortly.

Trip to the Hepworth Art Gallery

Posted on Thursday 23 November 2023 by Mrs Lake

Today, we had an absolutely fantastic school trip to the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield .

We started the day looking around the garden, the different galleries in the art museum and sketching some of the sculptures. We saw lots of different pieces of art and sculptures by some very famous artists.

   

After lunch, we took part in a print-making workshop which included looking at some Barbara Hepworth sculptures and finding inspiration from their shapes. We learned that Barbara Hepworth was inspired by nature to produce her own art. We also looked for repeated patterns in nature and produced our own drawings using tracing paper and a black frame.

           

Using our inspiration from the shapes and repeating patterns, we were ready to make out own piece of printed art.