Lotherton Hall Trip!
Today, Year 3 went on their school trip to Lotherton Hall. Lotherton Hall is full of animals and history which is perfect for our Science and History learning at the moment!
The focus today was Science – animals including humans. We discussed five ways we can group animals based on their characteristics:
- mammals
- reptiles
- birds
- fish
- amphibians
We looked at x-rays and replica skulls and classified them based on what we could see. For example, some animals had a backbone and others didn’t or some had wings and others didn’t.
We explored the Wildlife World and the playgrounds (of course!) The weather was great too so we were outside for most of the time. Take a look at us exploring…
Help at home by grouping animals based on their characteristics. What do penguins and flamingos have in common?
Why not take a trip to Lotherton Hall yourselves? There are some Halloween activities on this month until early November. https://museumsandgalleries.leeds.gov.uk/lotherton/
Maths: column addition
This week, we’ve loved doing column addition!
We began the week with column addition without exchanging and once your children were confident with this, we moved onto column addition with exchanging.
You can exchange 10 ones for 1 ten.
You can exchange 10 tens for 1 hundred.
You can exchange 10 hundreds for 1 thousand.
I’ve been wowed by your children’s column addition this week! They’ve demonstrated some fantastic knowledge of how and why we use column addition.
Help at home by asking your children to complete the following calculations using column addition:
2910 + 5839 =
1092 + 7233 =
2649 + 7221 =
8323 + 1284 =
Me and My Community week
Our next whole school themed week, based around identity, diversity and community, will be taking place from Monday 4th November. This is the first of two themed weeks in the year. In our ‘Me and My Community’ week, children will learn about what it means to belong to a community, from family to national or even international communities. Importantly, our children will also learn to respect and celebrate different communities. A variety of events and visitors are planned to help us deliver this key aspect of our Living and Learning education.
Events and learning during the week will include looking at our own identity including belonging and self-esteem, diversity of people around us including race, age, religion and disability and children will also be getting out into the community working with local organisations and taking pride in the local area for example by litter picking.
Active travel in the community
We encourage children to get out in the community in an active way on their way to and from school, with prizes available as part of the themed week. By walking/scooting/biking to school, families will by keeping our community safer and healthier by reducing congestion at the school gate. Maybe even pick up a piece of litter on the way. Even by parking further away from school your child could then to do the final part of their journey by foot, bike or scooter. Bike and scooter storage facilities are available beside the Year 3 and 4 classrooms.
Email us (moortownoffice@spherefederation.org) a picture of your active travel, maybe by a landmark in our community on your route to school, for the chance to win one of five vouchers. Entries to be submitted by noon on Friday 8th November.
New school charity
At the end of the themed week, classes will have the chance to discuss our charity shortlist and the Junior Leadership Team will have the final vote for which charity they would like our school to support, replacing our current charity, The Children’s Heart Surgery Fund.
Identity day
Friday 8th November will be a non-uniform Identity Day. Children are invited to dress in clothing that represents part of their identity, for example uniform from a club they attend, a team they are part of or support or traditional dress to represent their heritage. There is no donation or contribution required for this day.
SAVE THE DATE PTA coffee morning Friday 8 November 9-10am
As part of the week, we welcome all parents and carers to an informal coffee morning to meet other members of our school community including representatives from the PTA. A whole school community Wake up Shake up will follow at 9:50am in the main playground.
Can you help?
Maybe you speak another language and you would be happy to speak to children about this or you would like to share about your own family culture and heritage. If so, please contact the office to pass on your details. Also, do you have any local community links that may support our week?
Our website continues to keep you up to date with key community events as well as our community noticeboard.
Writing – Write a recount!
In our writing lessons, we have completed our first writing unit! We’ve written a recount as a warrior arriving back home to Athens.
What is a recount?
A recount re-tells events and describes what has happened.
What makes a good recount?
- past tense
- description
- feelings
- adverbs
We did an amazing job of including all of our features. We have read back through our writing to check it makes sense and to see if we could improve it! So if you see purple pen, that’s our editing and improving.
Here’s a couple of our recounts:
Our next piece is writing is a discussion piece. Help at home by discussing two sides of an argument like: Are dogs better than cats?
Dogs are better than cats because…
Cats are better than dogs because…
Reminder: stay and learn session
Phonics Phase 2 and coffee morning –10.10.24 9-10am
Drop Down Morning
Year 5 had a drop down morning, which means a morning where they recap and revisit their knowledge from previous years. Our morning consisted of a Computing, Geography and History lesson.
In Computing, Year 5 looked at their key vocabulary from Year 3/4. Algorithm: a set of instructions or a set of rules to get something done
Decomposition: the process of breaking down a task into smaller, more manageable parts. They then had to create a code to first direct me around the classroom and then help a squirrel into a tree. (This was a worksheet task- not an actual squirrel!) To finish off this session, the children had time to go onto Scratch Jr and create their own games using repetition.
In Geography, the children had to use atlases to find the capital cities for the countries in Europe. Some children even challenged themselves do complete as many as they could without an atlas! We then focused in on looking at York and Venice and comparing the two cities. Lastly, the children had a small debate is tourism was a positive or negative thing. They came up with lots of reasons for both sides: a positive was that tourism could benefit the country’s economy but a negative was that overtourism could happen, which meant that litter or noise pollution could be an issue for the locals.
In History, we recapped our knowledge about Ancient Greece. The children firstly had an activity to match their key vocabulary with the definitions. They then went on to create a mind map about everything they could remember about the specific time period.
Year 5 showed great remembering skills (one of the 8Rs for learning).
Help at home: How many different codes can you create to help the squirrel get back to its tree?
Drop-down morning: history, geography and computing
Today we had drop-down morning! This is an entire morning dedicated to recapping our topic learning from previous years. In Year 4, we recapped:
- history – heroes
- geography – explorers
- computing – algorithms
We began the day with history. We discussed two influential figures in history: Nelson Mandela and Leonora Cohen. I was so impressed with your children’s knowledge about these two individuals and they demonstrated this in ‘Walkabout Bingo’. Our bingo cards had 15 questions about either Nelson Mandela or Leonora Cohen and, to fill these, the children needed to ask each other for the answers. It was a really fun way for your children to test each other’s knowledge!
For our geography topic, we compared York and Venice. We recapped what we knew about the human and physical geography of both cities before revisiting the idea of overtourism. The children’s job was to read a selection of issues that’ve arisen due to overtourism in York and Venice and, in groups, come up with some solutions. It was great to hear your children’s discussions and they came up with some excellent solutions!
Finally, we recapped our Year 3 computing on algorithms.
An algorithm is a set of instructions or rules to complete a task.
Our focus was on creating effective algorithms in the simplest form (to make it easier for our computers to follow). We practised creating and writing a variety of different algorithms and even debugging some!
Help at home:
- Ask your child to tell you about Nelson Mandela and Leonora Cohen and why they’re such influential figures in history.
- Create a list of physical and human geographical features with your child.
- Download ScratchJr and ask your child to show you how to create algorithms.
- Alternatively, ask your child to write an algorithm for this grid:
Autumn 1: Week5
We have been having lots of fun developing our finger strength this week. We have been cutting up things that we have found on the green and making teddy bears like the one in our story for this week-The Everywhere Bear.
The children have enjoyed acting out this story and using our word of the week (journey) when talking about it.
On Thursday, we were very excited to find out that our class bear (Fredrego) had been on an adventure around our school. The children were able to identify where he had been and go find the landmarks. When we got there, we were listening out for the different sounds that we could hear around school. We heard a range of sounds from different adult voices to lawn mowers.
Maths
During maths this week, we have been working on counting accurately. Throughout the week, the children have been counting objects in the classroom and counting each other’s claps.
Help at home: by asking your child to count different objects around the home within 10.
The children have enjoyed performing our poem of the week- Breezy Weather. Please encourage them to share this with you at home.
Please remember: if you have any problems with logging on to your child’s reading book online let me know and I will help you. It is crucial that they are reading frequently both at school and at home.
Please remember: to send in photos of the fun activities that you get up to at home. This could be conker collecting, baking, reading-the list is endless.
Here is our phonics home learning sheet and poem for this week.
History – Great Fire of London
We are really enjoying our history topic all about the Great Fire of London. We have learnt all about how it started, how it spread and how they tried to stop it. This week, we focussed on what people would have done and how they would have felt at the time. We were given different scenarios and then the children had to act out what they would have done. Would they stay? Would they leave? Take their things or leave them behind? Would they stay and help others or flee?
The children did a great job and thought very deeply about how people would be feeling and what they would do. Well done everyone!
Help at home by talking about the Great Fire of London. I’m sure the children will be very keen to show off their knowledge.
Living and Learning: protected characteristics
In Living and Learning, we looked at how we respect others. We discussed discrimination, protected characteristics and the Equality Act 2010.
Discrimination is defined as “the unfair treatment of people because of who they are or because they have a certain characteristic.”
We remember the protected characteristics by using:
DR S GRAMPS
Disability
Race
Sex
Gender reassignment
Religion or beliefs
Age
Marriage or civil partnership
Pregnancy and/or maternity leave
Sexual orientation
We looked at different scenarios (both made up and real-life cases), where people were treated unfairly and tried to find a solution to the problem. Everyone is the class believes everyone should be treated fairly.
We now have a greater understanding that individual characteristics make everyone in the world unique and we can respect people in several different ways.
Help at home: Name the protected characteristics without looking.