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.
Money, money, money
Year 2 are currently learning all about money and are working on the following Maths objectives (to be achieved by the end of the year).
26. recognise and use symbols for pounds (£) and pence (p); combine amounts to make a particular value
27. find different combinations of coins that equal the same amounts of money
28. solve simple problems in a practical context involving addition and subtraction of money of the same unit, including giving change
To support your child at home, give them the opportunity to count money by combining different coins/notes. If you receive a supermarket or shop flyer in the post, let your child have a look at the cost of the items and attempt to add some of the amounts together.
Community Heroes
Today, we performed our acrostic poems about our chosen community hero.
“Rhythm makes the poem easy to remember.”
– Phoebe
“Harris’ poem rhymed in lots of places!”
– Talha
“Imagery helps put a picture in your head.”
– Hifza
“Jess really thought about her poem and she really took her time and the rhythm was really good.”
– Musa
Mindfulness
On Friday, we enjoyed a mindfulness workshop – ask your child if they can explain what mindfulness is.
We started off by thinking about a situation (being kicked in the leg in the playground) and thought about how we might react. Our response could be negative: we could react in a retaliatory way. However, being mindful would allow us to respond more positively: taking a moment away from the situation to calm down and find a suitable solution.
Then, we watched a clip from ‘Kung-Fu Panda’. In the clip, we saw two characters. One had a special power: mindfulness. Being mindful allowed the character to respond to a tricky situation by staying calm, thinking through his options and finding a solution that was best for all involved.
As our themed week is all about who we are, we discussed that learning to accept our emotions is a huge part of our identity. We talked about how we were feeling and reflected on times when we haven’t felt so upbeat and positive. We agreed that feeling anxious, sad or stressed is OK because we know that no matter how we are feeling it will always get better. To help, we learnt a few relaxation techniques:
- self hug
- breathing tree
- OK breathing
- nasal breathing (risky in the winter if you have a cold!)
Another technique we learnt to help us be mindful when we’re feeling anxious or worried is an emotions bottle. To create an emotions bottle at home, simply add different coloured glitter to a bottle of still water. Once made, decide what emotion each colour represents, shake the bottle, watch all the emotions mix then breath calmly as the bottle (and your emotions) reset. We have our own emotions bottle (or ‘Worry Waver’ as we’ve decided to call ours) in class that children can use at any time they wish – maybe, you could have one at home, too?
Another simple method to help us relax was to sit still and silent and focus on our senses. You could listen out for 10 sounds, find 10 shapes you haven’t noticed before or use your sense of touch to find contrasting textures around the room.
We’ll keep talking about mindfulness in class and we’ll be trying out some of the techniques.
Year 1 homework
Year 1 had a great discussion about different charities following their talk time homework. It was great to hear about such a variety of good causes covering many areas from homelessness to giving shoes to children in Africa. Some children also selected charities we had worked with in our themed week, for example RNIB.
Once we had come up with our full list, we held a vote for the charity we wanted to be the Year 1 choice. Harry’s choice of Plastic Oceans Foundation was chosen by the children. He was very passionate about this!
