Pencil grip matters
Does it really matter how your child holds their pencil?
Yes, it does! It can make a huge difference to the ease and efficiency with which s/he writes.
A dynamic tripod grip-the preferred grip-allows your child to write quickly and fluently and requires only tiny movements of the muscles in the hand.
Habits such as how we hold a pencil are formed early on. In Reception we teach pencil grip and plan activities that help develop strong hand and finger muscles.
Please encourage your child to use the tripod grip at home.
Using secondary sources
Year 6 are investigating what affects the length of gestation periods in mammals. Some of us are comparing gestation period to average adult weight; some are comparing it to average lifespan; and some are comparing it to average newborn weight.
We’ve used secondary sources to find out the information we need, being careful to ensure that we’re using reliable sources.
When we’ve gathered all of the information we need, we’ll create a line graph of the information and see if we can use this to predict other mammal’s gestation period according to their weight – some great Maths in our Topic lessons.
Homework – What I like about reading!
Once again, some super, creative homework this week. The children were asked to think about what they like about reading.
In September, we noticed that some children were reluctant to read. To encourage more love of reading, we regularly update our reading area, ensuring that we have a variety of texts and an inviting area in which to relax and read. Aside from the sheer joy of exercising the imagination, research shows reading for pleasure improves literacy, social skills, health and learning outcomes.
The children are encouraged each week to bring something to read from home. This doesn’t have to just be a book. It could be reading material such as:
- newspapers
- leaflets
- maps
- instructions
- top trumps cards
- comics
- wordsearches
- recipies
- stories written by themselves
- letters
- biographies
- poems
- and, of course, non-fiction and fiction books
Over the year, so far, we’ve noticed a much improved enthusiasm for reading.
Keep it up, Year 4!
Living and Learning – compliments
This morning, we thought about how and why we give compliments.
We discussed how important it is to be a part of the ‘classroom community’. We need to care about and take care of each other. Giving compliments is an example of caring and taking care.
The class observed each other giving one another a compliment and noted the appropriate way to receive a compliment. We then discussed how the giving and receiving of compliments improves the mood of the classroom, school and individuals.
To finish our lesson, using a ball of string, we created our own ‘compliments web’. Each person complimented a classmate and passed the string across to them. As they received the compliment, each person needed to respond appropriately.
- “I really like your hairstyle today Manpreet,” commented Zara.
- “Thank you,” replied Manpreet.
Supermovers times tables
We love the Supermovers maths videos to get us active while we’re learning our 2, 5 and 10 times tables.
Why not watch the videos to support maths learning at home, too.
Living and Learning – body image
The focus for our first body image Living and Learning lesson was to learn about our own identity and what makes us unique.
We started by thinking about different facial features and how you might describe a face.
Using a mirror, the children were asked to look at their own face and notice their own features. Can you recognise some of these class members?
We then worked in pairs to think of things about our appearance that are the same and different.
‘We’ve both got black hair and red tops and we’ve both got different length of hair.’
‘We are both boys and have got white tops but we don’t both have glasses.’
Finally, we discussed what it would be like if everyone looked exactly the same. We’re lucky to have a wide variety of different children in our class and school.
Living and Learning – a body image guide for parents and carers
This term, our Living and Learning theme is Being me. Part of this learning is all about body image. This parent and carer guide has been designed to give practical ideas to support your child in building their emotional resilience in this area.
Show and tell
Wow! What an amazing ‘show and tell’! Talk to your child about what’s happening here.
Dodgeball winners
Congratulations to the Year 5 dodgeball team who won the PE Partner North Leeds cup heat and have successfully gone through to the Leeds dodgeball final.
Making 10
Today we investigated the number 10.
“It’s 4 and 2 and 4.”
