Class News

Living and Learning: Perseverance

In this week’s L&L session, we learned what perseverance means.

‘persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success’

We watched a clip that showed a Llama who had to persevere in tricky situations and it didn’t give up! We discussed the sort of things we could try when persevering:

– trying a different approach
– taking a break
– celebrating the small successes
– think about why you started in the first place

We then created a poster to illustrate our knowledge of perseverance and what it means.

We can see people trying to climb mountains and learn how to ride a bike – two things which definitely require perseverance!

Living and Learning: I make healthy choices

In Living and Learning over the last few weeks, we’ve spent time talking about what being healthy means, the effects of exercise on our bodies both physically and mentally and what  choices we can make to be healthy.

”Exercising regularly can improve your concentration and help you learn better,” said Soham.

”It can also help you sleep at night,” added Hidayah.

”Doing exercise releases a chemical called endorphins in your brain which makes you feel really good,” commented Safi.

We also learned that doing at least sixty minutes of exercise every day is a healthy approach.

Remember that your child is allowed to bring a healthy snack on a Wednesday to enjoy after swimming!

We are artists!

This half term in Topic, we are artists.

So far in art, we have been learning about the history of art and describing art work as classical, modern, abstract and figurative.

Ask your child if they can remember what these four words mean!

Next week, we will be making our own sculptures inspired by the Leeds sculptor Barbara Hepworth.

In preparation for this, Year 5 started to design their sculptures today. They will be working as a table to construct their final pieces.

If you can, please can your child bring in a cardboard box (no bigger than a shoebox) by Thursday the 9th of January for this art project.

Thank you!

This week in Reception

The last two weeks of the term are always really busy. As we head towards Christmas we will begin our mini-topic of Christmas by decorating our home corner.

Phonics

This week we will learn the phonemes z, qu and ch.  The children will be taught the term ‘digraph’- two letters making one sound.

We are really impressed with how well the children are doing with their phonics learning. Please keep practising the phonemes and listening to your child read at home.

Literacy

The class have been enjoying listening to Julia Donaldson stories and talking about their favourites.

Christmas events

Guess how many ‘reindeer poos’ are in the jar.

The children have seen the jar and have made some guesses about how many ‘reindeer poos’ they think there are. You can enter the competition on the app.

Living and Learning – I make healthy choices.

What does it mean to be healthy? Y6 know!

We had soooooo many ideas for how to make healthy choices and pretty much everyone in the class noted how health relates to your mind and your body, mental and physical.

Here are some of our numerous ways to stay healthy.

Then, it was time for the big debate. We practised our note making before putting our oracy skills to the test.

Should fast foot be available in school?

Have a look at some of our discussion points.

When all was said and done and everyone had contributed to the class debate, we had a democratic vote.

Should fast food be available in school?

For: 8

“Not all the time, though.”

“People should be able to sample foods from different countries.”

“We should have the choice for ourselves.”

Against: 20

“Fast food is fatty and can make you overweight.”

“You could have it at home if you liked but it shouldn’t be in schools.”

“We don’t want to ban it all together but our lunches should be healthy so you don’t suffer a sugar crash.”

Descriptive writing

Over the past few weeks, Year 2 have been working really hard on their descriptive writing.  The stimulus for our writing was a famous piece of art by Leonardo da Vinci called ‘The Last Supper’.

Children were tasked with writing sentences using adjectives and expanded noun phrases to describe The Last Supper.

Here are a few examples of the descriptive sentences we wrote in our writing:

The men are eating boring, tasteless food.

In the dark room, the bearded men all look serious.

They are wearing old-fashioned clothes.

Jesus is wearing a blue and orange gown.

On the long table, there is a white tablecloth.

Skipping ropes for sale

This year we are continuing to work with Skipping School to develop the children’s skipping skills. Skipping School ropes (KS1 ropes and longer KS2 ropes) are now available to buy from the office.

I make healthy choices.

Our living and learning statement this week is ‘I make healthy choices.’

As a school, we promote a happy and healthy lifestyle. In class, we have been discussing how, as individuals, we can maintain this lifestyle ourselves.

This includes eating and drinking healthily and keeping an active body and mind. We realised that if we didn’t do these things, we might start to feel a bit low in our body and especially, in our mind.

Eating and drinking healthily doesn’t necessarily mean we can ONLY eating broccoli and peas but it means having a balanced diet. This means we can choose to eat lots of healthy things and then sometimes, we can have a treat! We also discussed that we should be drinking 2 litres of water a day to stay hydrated.

Keeping an active body means getting an hour of exercise every day. Whether this is walking to or from school, during Wake-Up Shake-Up or during a PE lesson – this is really important.

Doing both of these things keeps our mind healthy and happy. The more healthy choices we make, the more our bodies will thank us for it later!

Ask your child how many portions of fruit and vegetables they should be eating a day!

Anti-bullying Week

In last week’s living and learning session, we spoke about what bullying is and what we can do to prevent or stop it happening. Lots of children were already showing their support of anti-bullying week by wearing odd socks!

“Bullying is when you hurt someone physically or emotionally several times on purpose.”

Year 4 were already really knowledgable about bullying and how, as a class, we can continue to prevent this from happening. One of the most important things is: if bullying is happening to us, someone we know, or if we have seen or heard it happening to anyone, we must tell a teacher or a trusted adult.

We are all the same and we are all different.  We discussed this statement and decided that as humans, we all have similarities, we all have differences but the differences are something to be celebrated! As a class, we continue to celebrate each other as we believe this helps to acceptance and eliminate bullying.

Ask your child at home to tell what you what they should do if they are aware of any bullying!

Potions!

The children enjoyed making potions in our ‘Potions Lab.’

We made a bubbling potion and children watched what happened when we mixed some magic ingredients (bicarbonate of soda and vinegar) together.

Phonics

This week we will be learning the phonemes j, v, w, x. Please continue to read with your child at home. They have read their reading book three times before bringing it home. Extra reading will increase their confidence.

This week’s story is ‘Room on the broom’ by Julia Donaldson. The children will invent a new character for the story.

Maths

We are continuing to investigate the composition of numbers to 5 as well as learning to count to higher numbers.

We will be comparing size, mass and capacity and using the language heavier, lighter, taller, shorter.