Digestion
Today, we welcomed three university students who are currently studying medicine.
They gave a very informative talk to the class all about the digestive system. The children asked some great questions about the varying functions of different organs during the digestive process.
It was interesting to find out about each organ and the crucial role it plays breaking down the food, keeping the food we need for our bodies and getting rid of the waste!
Features of living things
Have you ever met MRS GREN? She’s the friendly old acronym that helps us understand the features of living things.
- Movement
- Respiration
- Sensitivity
- Growth
- Reproduction
- Excretion
- Nutrition
Can you guess which feature we’re acting out in the clips below?
“Movement is when a human’s body moves or a plant moves towards the sun.” – Yusayrah
“Respiration is when you breathe and get oxygen from the air.” – Leo
“Sensitivity is when something happens in the environment and it causes you to act upon it.” – Henka
“Growth is when you get bigger from eating. A plant needs water and sun to grow from a seed.” – Rayn
“Reproduction is when something has babies.” – Ethan C
“Excretion is getting rid of waste.” – Hifza
“Nutrition is the food we eat like fruit.” – Priya
Susie the snake
Today, Y3 tackled some tricky problem solving in maths.
“Susie the snake has up to 20 eggs. When she counts them in 4s, she has 3 left over. When she counts them in 5s, she has 4 left over. How many eggs might Susie have?”
Think you could work out all the possibilities? We used counters and cubes to help us.
We recorded number sentences to match the story problem.
“19 because 5 + 5 + 5 + 4 = 19.”
“15 because 3 x 4 + 3 = 15.”
We discovered seven possibilities! Do you think you could find them all?
Ice painting
Lots of ice outside today. Time to get creative!
Living and Learning – Safer Internet Day
Year 2 started the day considering, what is the internet? We used this video to help to understand what the internet is, where it can be used and what it is used for.
We talked about the benefits of the internet and how it can help us. This could be with our learning (Lexia, Mathletics and researching information for homework or in lessons), for entertainment, shopping and communicating with friends and family across the world. We remembered a recent Skype conversation with children at Sandford International School in Addis Ababa.
We then considered how the children currently use the internet at home and at school.
The text Chicken Clicking helped us to discuss how chatting to people online, that we don’t know, could put us in danger. Using drama, we thought about the chick’s actions in the story and gave some great advice for what she should have done. Remember that not everyone online is who they say they are. Ask your child what happened in the story.
In groups, using six key safety messages we tried to sort them from most important to least important. This generated lots of discussion and the children had good reasons to justify their positioning of the messages.
We decided that all these messages are important to remember, for different reasons, when you are using the internet.
We also spent time considering emotions that people might feel as a result of using the internet. Using different scenarios, the children had to decide how they might feel if this happened to them and why.
For example, someone in an online game says something mean about one of your friends. How would you feel?
Finally, we enjoyed the Key Stage 2 performance of Team Robot v Meanies led by Splats Entertainment. This reinforced a lot of the messages we had been thinking about during the day, in a fun way.
To follow this up at home, the children took home two NSPCC/O2 parent online safety booklets and we hope you enjoy reading Digiduck’s Big Decision with your child at home to reinforce this learning.
The key message from the day is if you see anything on the internet that makes you feel uncomfortable or you are not sure about, tell an adult that you trust.
Living and Learning – Safer Internet Day
Year 6 spent the day learning about how to be safe while online, whether that be using computers, laptops or iPads; using our phones; or using different apps.
We started by discussing how great the internet and having a phone can be and sharing what we use them for and when we use them.
We discussed a video from Newsround which showed us some scenarios of things that have happened to people when they’ve not used the internet safely enough – why not watch it again at home and chat about it together?
When we talked about using phones, Year 6 were very able to discuss how phones could put us in danger and the decisions we could make that will keep us safe. We spent a lot of time discussing not only what sort of information we do and don’t share but also, the impacts of sharing things that we’d then regret. Again, we watched a video from the NSPCC which allowed us to discuss what bad decisions were made and how we can make sure we’re not put in that situation. Watch it at home and discuss it together. This video runs alongside one of the leaflets your child has brought home too so there might be some guidance in there on what to talk about.
We ended the day working with Splats, performing a play which passed on the message of e-safety.
Lots of fun but lots of important messages given through our acting.
Circulatory system
Our Topic lessons are all about the human body this week.
We carried out an investigation to see how exercise and resting affects our heart rates; this information was then plotted onto a graph so that we were better able to spot patterns and reflect on whether we’d carried the investigation out correctly.
Then, we learnt all about the circulatory system using a huge diagram of a person.
It was clear that our blood had lots more jobs than we first realised! Take a look at The Blood Mobile – a video which shows you all of the amazing things our blood does.
Reading Journals
Earlier this half-term, all children in Year 5 and 6 were given a ‘reading journal‘. The idea behind these books was to promote a love of reading and provide children with a way to record their reading journeys (both in school and at home). As we’ve been using them for a few weeks now, we had a look at some of ours in class. Here a few examples of responses by children that may, hopefully, provide some inspiration:
Courgette Muffin Making!
Last week, the children used their DT skills to prepare and bake healthy courgette muffins. They had to chop, weigh and mix the ingredients before baking. A copy of the recipe also went home with the children so you can make them again at home!
Skipping
Funded through our PE and Sport Premium, Year 2 and Year 4 have recently taken part in a skipping workshop led by ‘Skipping School’; both classes will then be part of a Leeds wide skipping competition.
- ‘I learnt a lot! It was fun and I learnt new skills.’
- ‘I think it is a good idea to skip because we are a happy and healthy school.’
- ‘I liked the skipping because I got to learn new things.’
- ‘I loved the skipping and the new skills because skipping makes you fit.’
- ‘First, I was really bad at skipping but when Jodi came I got better. Now I like skipping.’
We are offering all children the opportunity to learn these new skills, from their peers, by introducing skipping as a physical activity at lunchtimes. This is one way we are promoting physical activity during the school day for children to get their active 30 minutes.
The Government’s Childhood Obesity: A Plan for Action, shares the expectation for all primary schools to provide a minimum of 30 active minutes every day for all pupils. The Chief Medical Officers recommend a minimum of 60 minutes a day of moderate to vigorous activity for children aged 5-18. Schools are expected to provide 30 of these minutes and families to achieve the other 30.
‘Skipping School’ also sell their ropes and we would like to offer all children the chance to buy a rope at a heavily subsided price (funded by our PE Premium) to continue learning these fundamental movement skills at home.
Ropes will be on sale at a price of £2 (normal price £5) before and after school during the week of 05 February. Starting with a stall at the PTA cake sale, Year 6 children will be selling the ropes in the playground subject to the weather. Please bring exact change wherever possible.
