City of Leeds Basketball
Happy New Year!
Welcome back! We hope you had a great holiday.
This term in Reception, our themes will be ‘Fire and Ice’, ‘Superheroes’ and ‘Chinese New Year’.
Frozen planet
Our return to school often coincides with frosty weather. We use this as a stimulus for learning. As a scientist, your child will investigate ice: making it and melting it. They will use their senses to describe how the weather has changed and the effects on their environment. Linking to Geography, your child will find out which are the coldest regions on Earth, using globes or maps of the world. They’ll learn about animals which live in these places and what it’s like to live there.
Superheroes
This theme is all about different superheroes! At first, your child will use their imagination to create their own fictional superhero stories using small world resources to develop their ideas. Your child will then learn that superheroes are in their lives every day. Developing their drama skills, they’ll take on the role of doctors, paramedics and police during role-play times. Your child will also consider what makes them special, learning how important and individual we all are.
Chinese New Year
This theme takes place during the week that Chinese New Year occurs each year. As a geographer, your child will find China on a globe or world map. They will find out about the story relating to Chinese New Year, learning about customs and traditions. They will watch dragon dances and create their own versions of these with their friends.
Phonics
We will continue to learn digraphs(two letters that make one sound) in phonics. This week the new phonemes are sh and ch. The children will be learning how to blend plurals eg cats, naps, hits.
Literacy
The children will be encouraged to continue to use their phonic knowledge to write labels and captions for their drawings. They will begin to write sentences.
These are the main books we will be reading and retelling this half term.
Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers
The Magic Paintbrush by Julia Donaldson
Supertato by Paul Linnet and Sue Hendra
Maths
The children will be encouraged to continue representing quantities in different ways, including by showing amounts on 1 hand ‘all at once’. There will also be a new focus on the symbolic representation of number and the children will work on their recognition of numerals to 5, matching numerals to correct quantities in various games.
They will play games which involve counting on and use number tracks (with numbers placed in equal spaces in ascending order) to play dice-based games. Playing games with dice will consolidate the children’s understanding of the stable order of numbers.
Why not play some board games at home?
Stay safe and well
All the Year 2 adults would like to wish all the children and their families a happy and healthy Christmas. We hope their glitter bottles come in useful if things get a bit exciting over the next few days!
Thank you for all your support this term. The children have been fantastic and they continue to make us proud. Here’s a few pictures from their Christmas party and lunch this week.
Stay safe and well and see you in the new year!
We are scientists
This half term, Year 2 have enjoyed lots of practical science in our working scientifically learning.
We’ve done lots of investigating, sorting, identifying, comparing and predicting and the children are becoming more familiar with all of this scientific vocabulary.
We’ve also been revising some of our previous learning.
Ask your child about these pictures.
Christmas
Yesterday was a busy day in Year 2 with our production filming in the morning and then enjoying a movie afternoon. Thank you to the PTA for our movie snacks.
The children have all done incredibly well learning their lines, songs and actions for this year’s Whoops a Daisy Angel production. They also coped with the last minute change of performing on their own without Year 1 and Reception. We are very proud of them all and we hope you enjoy watching the video with them at home.
Whoops a Daisy Angel cast
Merry Christmas!
Hello all!
I just wanted to say a massive thank you to all the Year 4 children and their families for an amazing autumn term. Myself, Mrs Maqbool, the children and now Mrs Stewart have become a great team and I can’t believe it’s already Christmas!
Here is just a few memories from this term that are worth celebrating:
- A big congratulations again to the children who participated in the cross country races. You did Moortown Primary School proud and you really tried your best!
- In science, we were learning about light and to finish off the unit, the class spent some time creating their own shadow puppets. They had the freedom to create whatever they liked and they all turned out fab! Have a look to see them in action…
- After learning about Kandinsky and Napaltjarri since the beginning of November, Year 4 became artists themselves! They got stuck in with experimenting with collage. The outcomes are great and the best thing about them is that they are all different.
- A big well done to all the Year 4s in swimming. They have all really improved since the start of the year and I can see their confidence growing with each lesson – keep it up!
I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Miss Birch
Living and Learning: Physical health and fitness
Our latest Living and Learning lessons have been all about physical health and fitness. Here are the main age related expectations for this learning.
Firstly, we remembered how much exercise children should do each day (60 minutes – 30 minutes in school and 30 minutes out of school).
How can we achieve that target? We thought about all the ways to keep active including:
- active travel to and from school
- skipping at playtimes
- brain breaks in lessons
- active games at lunchtime
- after-school clubs
- Junior parkrun
- going on a bike ride
- playing outside
Then, it was time to get active and have a brain break.
We know how much exercise is needed to keep our bodies healthy but what are the benefits of physical activity? Ask your child if the following statements are true or false.
Finally, we thought about what to do if we were worried about our health.
Tell a trusted adult.
Tell my parents.
Tell my teachers.
Ask my friends.
Write it down in the Living and Learning box.
Winter poems!
Today in Year 1 we got more into the Christmas spirit by writing some beautiful winter poems! We thought of lots of nouns, adjectives and verbs to describe a wintry scene. Then we arranged them into a diamond to make a poem. We started with a noun and then two adjectives. The middle line was three verbs and then we finished with two more adjectives and a final noun. We did amazingly well and enjoyed reading them out to the class as well.
Living and Learning: I make healthy choices
Last week in Living and learning we talked about making healthy choices to keep ourselves physically and mentally healthy. We talked about how physical activity can keep our minds and bodies healthy. We talked about our heart being a muscle and discovered how it beats much faster after some of exercise!
Then we thought about when we could be physically active throughout the day. We learnt we had to be active for 60 minutes a day!!
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Living and Learning: I make healthy choices
This week in Living and Learning, Year 5 have been talking about how to make healthy choices.
We discussed how it is important to be healthy both physically and mentally.
Year 5 were able to come up with lots of examples about how they make healthy choices.
I enjoy baking but we usually bake healthy alternatives instead of lots of cakes and biscuits – Lily
I like going to dancing at the weekend which helps me stay physically healthy – Isla
I stay healthy by keeping active and eating lots of fruit – Harry
At the end of our Living and Learning session, we had a debate about whether fast food should be allowed in our school.
After a heated discussion with good points both in favour and against, in the end, Year 5 voted that they would like Moortown Primary School to remain a happy and healthy place to learn.