We dig fossils!
As part of our What’s the matter? mini topic, we’ve been studying fossilisation! (LO: How are fossils formed?)
We worked in groups to jot down key words and phrases from an informational video.
Next, we were given pictures of the different stages and had to put them in the correct order and write a sentence about each.
There was no need for a fossil fuel boost today- nobody was being a lazy bones! Fossils rock!
Creative Homework
This week’s homework was I know what community is.
As usual we were blown away by the quality and effort put into every piece!
From showing where we belong to where we live…
… to communities we are a part of…
… and information about where we’ve come from …
… to showing who makes up our community… 
… we thoroughly enjoyed discussing them all!
Well done everyone!
Packed lunches
On Monday, Caitlin Kitson, Nutritionist and Healthy Eating Adviser, delivered a whole school healthy eating assembly. The main focus was the importance of healthy packed lunches.
We talked about the different food groups on the Eatwell Guide, why different proportions of each food group are important for our bodies and how to achieve this in a packed lunch.
It was great to hear the children’s excellent knowledge of the Eatwell Guide when answering Caitlin’s questions.
At Moortown Primary, our packed lunch guidance includes:
- information about the different food groups
- how to put together a healthy, balanced packed lunch
- links to recipes and ideas for healthy packed lunches
Following the assembly, all children were given a copy of our packed lunch guidance and the Eatwell guide.
As an alternative to packed lunches, school meals, including a vegetarian option, are prepared daily in our kitchen and children are offered a choice of main courses and desserts. Children select their main meal choice at the start of the day. Catering Leeds provides food which meets national Food Standards criteria. School meals can be combined with packed lunches.
Free school meals are available to all children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. They are also available to some older children according to family income. It’s important to register for entitlement to free school meals, even if your child has a packed lunch or is in a younger class – this is so we can receive additional funding (called the pupil premium) which we can use to help your child.
What is our new school charity?
Part of our Who do you think you are? themed week was to learn about charities and how we can support them.
Our previous school charities, Leeds Mind and Yorkshire Air Ambulance Money, will benefit from £309.97 and £508.88 respectively as a result of fundraising and donations. Thank you.
It is now time to change our school charity. Each class discussed a range of charities, researched by the children for their homework, and voted on one charity they wanted to put forward for the school councillors to decide on.
Here were the class choices:
- Year 1 Plastic Oceans Foundation
- Year 2 Barnado’s
- Year 3 RSPCA
- Year 4 St Gemma’s Hospice
- Year 5 Make a wish
- Year 6 Diabetes UK
The final decision was a vote by the school council and the winning charity for 2017-2018 was Make A Wish. We will support this charity for one year.
We look forward to welcoming representatives from the charity in January for an assembly where we will hear more about their valuable work.
Fire Safety
This afternoon, we were visited by some firefighters from Moortown Fire Station. They came in to give us some information about how important fire safety is.
They started by explaining what a fire is. We found out about ‘The Triangle of Fire’. For a fire to start, you need three things: heat, power and ______ (ask your child what the third component is).
Then, just as our actual smoke alarm sounded (don’t panic, the incident was dealt with quickly) we were told about the importance of having smoke alarms fitted in our house. We watched a video simulation of a fire and saw that in just three minutes the room was filled with smoke. The smoke alarm sounded after 15 seconds meaning that anyone in the house had a better chance of making it to safety.
We also learnt that having a ‘Fire Action Plan‘ in place for your house can significantly improve a family’s chances of survival in the case of an emergency. A good action plan would incorporate the following points:
- think (Are exit routes and hallways clear? Have you considered alternative exit routes)
- plan (Where are keys kept? Are they easily accessible? Where are house phones and mobile phones kept?)
- tell (How will you tell each other about the fire? How will you tell the fire service?)
- be safe (Remember not to try and fight the fire yourself. If in doubt, stay in a room, close the door, cover the cracks in the door with towels and open the window. Then, wait for the fire brigade to arrive.)
Ask your child if they can help you create a suitable fire action plan for your own home.
Writing
In Year One,we have focused our English lessons around a story – The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch.
Every day, Mr Grinling the lighthouse keeper cleans and polishes his light to make sure it shines brightly at night. At lunchtime he tucks into a delicious and well-deserved lunch, prepared by his wife. But Mr Grinling isn’t the only one who enjoys the tasty food. Will Mrs Grinling think of a way to stop the greedy seagulls from stealing the lighthouse keeper’s lunch?
We’ve looked closely at three different ways of telling this story. These variations of the same tale sparked some great discussion.
The children then worked on the items they would put into Mr Grinling’s basket. Before doing any writing, we orally rehearsed what we were going to write. This is an age related expectation for the end of Year One: I can say what I’m going to write and then compose a sentence orally before writing it.
The children were encouraged to say a sentence, count the words, say it again and finally write it.
We had some great sentences during our lesson with the correct use of capital letters and full stops. Some children experimented by using the word ‘and‘ to join their ideas and make their sentence longer.
- “I will put in some apples.”
- “I will put in some chocolate cake.”
- “I will put in some salad and some grapes.”
Another age related expectation for Year One is to: use a capital letter for ‘I’.
Ask your child about this story and see if they can retell it. Following that, encourage your child to orally rehearse a sentence about the characters in the book and then have a go at writing it.
Living and Learning
In our Living and Learning session this week, we learnt all about how we respect ourselves and other people. We started by studying this quote:
‘No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite’ – Nelson Mandela.
We discussed what it meant and the children were brilliant at understanding the message Nelson Mandela was trying to get across – we also had an interesting discussion about apartheid. Ask your child what they understand by this quote.
Next, we thought about all the different types of discrimination that might be prevalent in society: racism, homophobia, sexism and ageism to name a few. After reflecting on how lucky we were to be part of a school were these things are not an issue, we discussed what society can do to overcome these terrible prejudices.
We learnt about the Stonewall campaign to kick homophobia out of sport – Rainbow Laces. We discussed that charities and other organisations can rasie awareness of discrimination or raise money to help victims. However, as individuals in Year 5, what can we do? We made this (brief) list of things we can do to overcome discrimination:
After, we each took a moment to reflect and decided on one thing we could do to be respectful of everyone in our community and help to overcome discrimination.
- ‘I will see if I can put some rainbow laces in my boots for my next football match.‘ Josh
- ‘I will make sure I don’t look at someone’s appearance but focus on their personality instead.’ Noorpreet
- ‘I will bake some cupcakes and decorate them with rainbow coloured icing. Then, I’ll sell them and donate my money to the Stonewall charity.’ Grace
More Curry Cooking!
Once again, the other half of Year 6 came back to the kitchen to cook the curry. We used the same skills as last time as you would expect: chopping, mixing, frying, blending, washing up and – most importantly – eating!
Written by Pippa.
Super Science Learning
This week, we’ve started our new mini-topic… Power – forces. In Year 5 and 6, we’ll be focussing on electricity to make sure that we’re covering all of the National Curriculum. We started our unit by thinking about what electricity is (learning about: which materials conduct electricity?). Each group were given a basket full of electrical equipment and given one challenge: make the bulb give off light. All of the groups managed to do this (despite some equipment failures) pretty quickly – I was impressed.
Then, we discussed different materials and predicted* if they would conduct electricity or not. To find out how accurate our predictions were, we placed each material in the circuit and observed* if the bulb still worked or not. Ask your child which materials were conductors, and which ones weren’t.
*Two key skills covered in the working scientifically part of the National Curriculum.
What materials conduct electricity?
As part of our mini topic, Forces: Electricity, we investigated which materials conduct electricity and which don’t today.
We recapped what a circuit was first by creating a human-sized version:
Then, we worked in groups to test different materials by inserting objects made out of them into the circuit. If the bulb lit, the material was conductive.
