Allerton Grange
Yesterday, we walked down to Allerton Grange High School. Led by the Year 12 students, the children enjoyed learning a new game: rounders with a rugby twist!
Hanging on
This week, we have used a website called Pobble365 to look closely at one of the images as a stimulus for writing and also to develop the reading skill of inference. We started with the image called Hanging on.
What emotions do you think the boy is experiencing?
Who is the man on the platform?
Is he a normal boy or does he have certain powers?
Where do you think the train is going?
Each picture (there is one for each day of the year) has some prompts and questions so this resource could be used to generate discussion and as a resource to practise writing at home.
Living and Learning: Be kind
Today, in Living and Learning, we had a powerful circle time with an important message.
In order to illustrate the effects of saying unkind words, we used two apples (one of which had been bruised).
We gave the first apple a variety of compliments and positive, kind comments as we passed it around the circle.
With the bruised apple, we passed it round and said unkind words and negative comments.
We looked again at both apples, and there was no change; both apples still looked the same. We then cut the apples open. The apple we’d said unkind words to was bruised and all mushy inside.
We talked about what we saw inside the apples. The bruised and mushy apple showed what would be happening inside every one of us if someone uses unkind words.
Living and Learning: manners
Our manners focus this week, in Living and Learning, is all about covering our mouth to prevent the spread of germs.
You’re just about to sneeze or cough but, oh dear, you don’t have a tissue. What should you do? Cover your mouth and nose with your hands? Surely that’s what polite people do.
But hold it! If you sneeze or cough into your hands (and then fail to wash your hands straight away), you’ll only be spreading colds and flu germs on everything you touch.
And that’s because germs (as long as they stay moist) can live for HOURS on hard surfaces such as tables, phones and door handles. And not just on objects – everybody you touch will be contaminated, too.
And of course, vice versa – if somebody else has sneezed or coughed on their hands, they’re leaving a germ-trail for you to pick up.
So what’s it best to do?
Here it is in action.
Living and Learning: Manners
In this weeks’ Living and Learning session we looked at manners.
In particular, we learnt about manners with a link to hygiene.
We looked at an experiment where children in a class touched different pieces of bread after having washed their hands with soap, after having washed their hands with sanitiser and after having not washed their hands at all.
Also, we explored the vampire method when coughing or sneezing.
Ask your child to explain the outcome of the experiment and what the vampire method is!
Here are some of the spider diagrams the children created that illustrate different manners:
Martial arts
Today, we enjoyed a session led by Steve from BMMA. Steve leads kick boxing classes every Monday after-school.
As well as learning some kick boxing skills, we learnt about team work, sportsmanship and resilience too.
Please refer to the flyer brought home tonight, if your child is interested in attending the club.
World Book Day themed menu
Catering Agency, our school meal provider, will be running a special themed menu on Thursday 5th March. Please contact the office, in the next few days, if your child would like a school dinner on this day (no action needed if your child normally has a school meal on this day).
Times tables
All children have recently received their login details for Times Tables Rock Stars.
In Year 2, we learn the two, five and ten times tables and these are the tables that have been assigned to the children on Times Tables Rock Stars, starting with the ten times table.
Occasionally there will be some division questions and as this is something we are beginning to learn, please support your child with these questions until they feel more confident to have a go.
Children will be bringing home some optional Times Tables Rock Stars sheets that can be completed over half term to improve these skills. They can return these to school if they complete them.
Other resources to support time tables and other number facts is Hit the Button. This is a great, fast-paced game and children can choose which times tables or number facts to work on during each game. This game is free to play online.
If you have any further questions regarding the resources mentioned, do not hesitate to contact us.
Thank you for your continued support.
Choosing our own books
It was great to see some of the Year 2 children using our new reading house today. This has been created in the classroom and allows children to browse the books before choosing their next read.
We are very lucky to have lots of new chapter books and these seem very popular.
Reviewing computing
The end of the half term brings us to an end of our computing topic which lots of us are particularly sad about. The children have really enjoy this learning and many have continued it at by creating their own Scratch accounts.
We’ve learnt lots of new vocabulary through this topic and many of us now feel confident with words which we’d never heard of at the beginning of the half term. Today, we shared our knowledge as a group by creating a concept map of what we understand about our computing vocabulary.
