Forest School!
Year 5 have thoroughly enjoyed their second stint in Forest School this half term – particularly as the weather has got (a bit) warmer! They have been exploring the whole of the Green and having lots of fun. They have been making dens, lighting fires, cooking food and sawing wood!
The children are learning key skills around cooperation, assessing risks, resilience and healthy living. They are always so full of enthusiasm when they come back after a morning in the Forest School.
Just a reminder that the children still have one more Forest School session left on the first Friday back after half term (5th June) due to the INSET day next Friday.
Help at home by discussing the children’s favourite part of Forest School.
Summer 1: Week 4
Thank you!
As we come to nearly the end of another busy and successful half-term, I would like to say how incredibly proud I am of all the Reception children. They have shown such enthusiasm, resilience and curiosity in everything they do, and the progress they have made across all areas of the Early Years curriculum has been wonderful to see. The children should be very proud of all they have achieved this half-term.
A huge thank you to all parents and carers for your continued support at home. Your encouragement and involvement make such a positive difference to your child’s learning and development, and it is greatly appreciated.
Literacy
This week in Literacy, we have loved exploring Walking Through the Jungle by Julie Lacome. The catchy, repetitive language has really helped us to build confidence with retelling the story.
We loved joining in with the repeated phrases and actions as we travelled through the jungle to find different animals! The predictable pattern of the story supported us in remembering the sequence of events and retelling the story independently.
Help at home: Use the story map in your child’s bag to practise retelling the story together at home.
In our construction area, we have also enjoyed designing and building jungle habitats for the animals from the story. The children worked creatively to add trees, rivers and hiding places, using their imaginations to bring the jungle to life.
Living and Learning
In Living and Learning, we explored the importance of healthy eating. We looked closely at the different sections of the Eatwell Guide plate and discussed how it helps us make healthy choices.
After a thoughtful class discussion, the children drew pictures of healthy meals, carefully including a range of foods from each food group.
Maths
In maths, the children developed their understanding of numbers to 10 through practical activities and games. Using the rhyme 10 Fat Sausages, they explored different ways to make 10 and learned that numbers can be made up of smaller parts.
The children used their fingers, 10-frames and number patterns to investigate ‘5 and a bit’ numbers to 10, helping them understand that numbers such as 7 can be made from 5 and 2 more.
Living and Learning: staying safe in the community
We had a visit from Sian and Matt, our PCSOs, to talk about their roles, their uniform, how to contact the police and how the police can help us.
We’re looking forward to more visitors next week to help us learn about staying safe in lots of different ways.
Help at home: does your child know their address if they were lost or they needed to share it in an emergency?
Living & Learning: physical health and fitness
Our latest Living and Learning sessions have been all about the importance of physical activity and how we need to keep active to keep our bodies and our minds healthy.
The NHS guidance states that children and young people should ‘aim for an average of at least 60 minutes (30 minutes in school and 30 minutes out of school) of moderate or vigorous intensity physical activity a day across the week’.
We know that the exercise we need to do to achieve this, should increase our heart rate, make us breathe harder and make us feel warmer.
We thought about how we manage to achieve our active 30 minutes during the school day.
Wake Up Shake Up
PE lessons
running, skipping and playing tig at playtimes
playing in the MUGA at lunchtime play
active counting in class
jogging around the playground for brain breaks
Then, we shared ideas as to how we achieve the 30 active minutes outside of school.
travelling to and from school in an active way
after-school physical activity clubs
practising gymnastics
dancing
playing football
going for a jog
going on a bike ride
swimming
martial arts
boxing
Help at home – try a new physical activity out of school. Use our physical activity guide for some ideas. Encourage your child to practise some skipping ready for our skipping festival (skipping ropes are available to buy from class for £3).
Health and safety – Visitors at Moortown
This week our wonderful Year 1s have had an action packed and exciting time in their lessons. They have had some visitors from the Police come in to teach them about health and safety around the community and at home. It was very fun, but more importantly very educational. They learnt lots of things such as what number to call when there is an emergency (999) and what number to call when there isn’t a serious emergency but you still need help (101). They even let the children try on the uniform! Of course this went down a treat with them and we got some great photos!
SATs – a huge well done!
This week, I couldn’t have been prouder of the class for their attitude, resilience and focus when completing their SATs.
No matter their results, released in July, they can all hold their heads very high because they’ve all tried their very best.
Well done, everybody!
Topic: Why do tourists visit Venice?
Today, we were critical and safe users of the internet during our geography lesson. We wanted to conduct some research on the iPads to answer the question…
Why do tourists visit Venice?
We must be careful when conducting research as geographers as not all online sites are helpful, safe or appropriate for our research question. As a class, we discussed four different web pages about Venice and which would be best to answer our question.
This website will provide information about what to do in Venice. However, it’s audience is not children and therefore is not the safest website to use.
This website’s audience is children and it’s full of brilliant facts all about Venice. This is a safe and helpful website to use.
Although BBC Bitesize is a great website that we use a lot in school, this page was not about the city of Venice but rather the Shakespeare play. We must always check that it answers our question.
A blog will contain someone’s opinion and we know this may not always be trustworthy. It may not contain as many facts.
Help at home: research things to do in York as a tourist. As you’re going through the websites, discuss with your child which you should use and why.
Geography: What is a rainforest?
This half term, we are geographers. Geographers study the land (the physical features) and the people who live within it (the human features).
This week, the children have been busy exploring the different layers of a rainforest. We’ve discovered that there are 4 different layers: emergent, canopy, understory and the forest floor.
They explored what plants and animals live in each part and then took to drawing. Take a look at their work:
Year 6 then learnt about why the Amazon Rainforest is important.
“We need the Amazon Rainforest because it produces oxygen for everyone to breath.”
“The Amazon Rainforest is important because it helps to reduce climate change as it takes in the carbon dioxide in the world.”
“Lots of different animals and plants live there – we don’t want to destroy their home!”
Help at home: Can your child use their new topic vocabulary in a sentence?
Maths: Division
This week in Maths, we’ve been working hard on developing our understanding of division. We’ve been using our knowledge of multiplication facts to help us solve division problems, making links between the two concepts.
Help at home:
To further support your child at home, please continue practising the 2, 5 and 10 times tables, as this will really help build their confidence and fluency. You can also support your child by creating simple, real-life division problems for them to solve in everyday situations.
Here are some suggestions to try:
- Sharing snacks:
“We have 10 biscuits and 2 people. How many biscuits will each person get?” - At dinner time:
“There are 15 chips and 3 people. Can you share them equally?” - Tidying toys:
“You have 20 LEGO pieces. Can you put them into groups of 5? How many groups will you make?” - Setting the table:
“We have 10 forks and 5 people. How many forks does each person get?” - Shopping or unpacking food:
“We bought 6 yoghurts for 3 days. How many can we have each day?” - Grouping objects:
Use small items like coins or buttons:
“Can you make groups of 2 from 12 coins? How many groups are there?”
Multiplication Tables Check
Coming up the first week after half-term, Year 4 will be completing their Multiplication Tables Check (MTC).
They will have to answer 25 times table facts and will have 6 seconds for each question. It will be completed on the iPads.
I’m so proud of all the progress Year 4 have made with their times tables this year. They’ve put in so much time and effort and this is reflected in their fluency.
In preparation for the MTC, ensure your children are practising their times tables up to 12s at home. Here are some ideas:
- Visit https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/477/Multiplication-Tables-Check to complete a practice MTC.
- Go on TTRS and do Garage and Soundcheck.
- Ask your child a different times table fact at each meal time.
- Play a game to see who can answer 10 times table facts the quickest.
- Stick some post-it notes around the house with different multiplication facts on.