Super Vocabulary
In our writing lessons this week, we’ve been using our topic learning as a stimulus for our writing. We continued reading ‘The Land of Neverbelieve‘ but this time we focussed on the language used and the impact this has on the reader. We used our reading skills to work out what some of the trickier words might mean (learning about writer’s use of language) and then thought about how this impacts on the atmosphere/mood created (learning about atmosphere/mood).
Today, we looked at one page in detail…
…and thought about which different moods/atmospheres had been created by sorting each section into groups.
Tomorrow, we’ll create our own labels in the style of the author to add to our own made-up ‘Lands of Neverbelieve’ (learning about organising and combining visual and tactile elements).
More Veggie Burgers
We know that we talked about our cooking last week, but the rest of Year 6 did it today. We used the same skills: bridge and claw cutting methods, grating, frying, blending, moulding and – once again – washing up.
Once again, not everyone expected they’d enjoy it but everyone really liked them. Mushroom-based was the favourite of the group. We did the same recipes as last time: courgette-based, carrot-based and mushroom-based veggie burgers.
We took some more photos.
Pippa made a carrot avalanche or carralanche!
Some of us decided to taste them there and then.
Lots of children wanted to make the burgers at home so here’s the recipe.
- 2 shallots (chopped)
- 2 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
- 2 tbsp of breadcrumbs
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp of cumin
- 1 tsp of paprika
- 150g of cheddar (grated) or 200g of feta (crumbled)
- 1 tin of mixed beans (optional)
- 2 carrots (grated) or 2 courgettes (grated) or a punnet of mushrooms (chopped)
Fry the onions and garlic (and mushrooms if you’re using them) and then place all of them into a large bowl. Use your hands to mix all of the ingredients together thoroughly. Once mixed, get a handful of mixture and use your hands to shape it into a burger. Place the burger shapes onto a baking tray and put in an oven (180 degrees) for 20 minutes.
Enjoy in a bun, with a salad or even with chips!
Written by Neive and Pippa.
Guided reading
In Year 2, as well as group reading, we also teach reading as a whole class using a variety of texts to support this. Today, as part of Anti-bullying week, we used our whole school definition of bullying to discuss word meanings.
When reading with your child at home, ask if there are any words they do not understand. Use a dictionary, the context of the sentence or any illustrations to help to understand what the word means.
In pairs, we then read through some scenarios to decide if they were bullying or not.
African themed dance
To link with our comparative location of Africa, Year 2 have been performing some great African themed dancing.
Here are some of the Year 2 PE objectives that we were working on as part of this learning.
Can your child perform most simple actions with control and coordination?
Can your child make a sequence by linking ideas from a stimulus into movement?
Can your child plan and perform a sequence of movements?
Can your child show contrasts in shape?
Can your child reflect on what other people have done?
There was also some thoughtful and constructive reflections to each other after the performances.
Christmas school dinner themed menu
Catering Agency, our school meal provider, will be running a special themed menu on Thursday 07 December. Please contact the office, before Monday 20 November, if your child would like a school dinner on this day.
From SNAP to Smell Journeys – Year 3’s Weekly Round-Up
Last week’s Living and Learning theme was I know we’re all the same and we’re all different. We used Our Rules that we created last week in our discussion of the pros and cons of being the same and different to everybody else. We decided it would be really boring if we were all the same all the time! In teams, we wrote a recipe for success for teamwork. Some ingredients we thought of were ‘problem solving attitude’ and ‘good listening skills’.
We took on the role of detectives in English this week, spotting features of an instruction text in cookery books. We had competitions to see whose text contained the most features – but we had to give evidence of each feature to win the point!
Maths has revolved around multiplying and dividing by 3! We’ve looked at finding groups of three and finding three equal groups which is tricky because they sound similar but are very different. There are lots of ways to represent one number sentence. For example: 5 x 3 = could be expressed as ‘3 x 5′, ’15’, ‘five threes’ or shown by fifteen counters. We played Snap to test our knowledge of this in a fun way.
Some of us had more luck than others. You had to be quick!
To round off our Explorers topic in a creative way, we went on a Smell Journey around school, after discussing artwork by Kate McLean: NYC’s Threshold of Smells.
This inspired us to write a descriptive recount of a walk to school where we were bombarded with stinky stenches and awesome aromas. We also wrote a class Pongy Poem, which we displayed in the style of a smell.
Next, we experimented with colour and shape using watercolours to represent what the smells might look like if we could see them. (There were some interesting discussions about certain smells!)
This week’s Creative Homework task was to show understanding of addition and subtraction and I was absolutely bowled over by the quality of the submissions! The children had clearly gone to so much effort to show what they had learnt over the past few weeks and they were so proud of what they had done, which sparked some great conversations between pupils. It was fantastic to see. There were lots of board games with their own rules using addition and subtraction at their core, there were online quizzes and mazes and puzzles, there was even a video presentation (see the bottom of the post)! We all thoroughly enjoyed discussing each and every one, so I would like to say a massive well done from me, once more. Check out some of their brilliant learning below:
Well done to certificate winners Hifza, for a fantastic contribution to this week’s Living and Learning theme and her understanding of how we are the same and different, and Henka, for an unbelievably good piece of descriptive writing and your handwriting has come on leaps and bounds, too! Keep it up!
Living and Learning
Our Living and Learning theme this half-term is Identity. The children will learn about their rights and responsibilities, what makes themselves and others special, valuing the similarities and differences between themselves and others and what is meant by community.
Our lesson last week focused on how we are all the same and how we are all different.
We began with a discussion using the sentence stems
- “I am different to… because…”
- “We share some similarities in that…”
This then lead us to our activity. Using a Venn diagram, the children worked with a partner to compare similarities and differences. This sparked off some very interesting discussions.
“My partner and I are the same because we both have a religion. However, we are different because those religions aren’t the same.”
We always start our Living and Learning lessons by reading the rules that the children set out for every session.
Watch out!
We’ve been busy making magic potions in Reception and most children liked the idea of turning people into animals.
You have been warned!
Marvellous maths
Thank you for attending the Early Years Maths workshop last week.
Here are the key points from the workshop:
- It’s important to be positive about maths
- Don’t tell your child you’re not good at maths
- Everyone can be good at maths
- Being numerate is arguably more important than being literate
- Your support and encouragement is vital to your child’s success
- Everyone can learn maths to the highest level
- Mistakes are valuable
- Questions are really useful
- Maths is about creativity and making sense
- Maths is about connections and communicating
- Maths is about learning, not performing
- Depth is more important than speed
There are 4 key aspects to counting:
- Number names: There are many words to learn, they need to be in the right order and you need to be able to say them in sequence forwards and backwards.
- One number for each item: Children need to be able to match one number name to each item in turn, making sure they don’t miss any out or count any twice.
- Cardinality: Children need to know that the last number in the count gives you the answer to the question, ‘How many are there?’
- Conservation: Children need to learn that the number of items in a group remains the same even if we rearrange them or count them in a different order.
Support your child at home:
- Lots of counting as part of everyday life- both rhymes and counting objects
- Sorting objects and making patterns
- Spotting numbers and using the language of number
- Playing with construction toys (girls and boys)
- Playing simple board games
- Baking
- Solve problems; work out how many altogether, how many more…
- Watch Numberblocks on CBeebies
- Have fun!
Who do you think you are? themed week 20 November
Our next whole school themed week, based around identity, diversity and community, will be taking place from Monday 20 November, which also coincides with national Road Safety Week. A variety of events and visitors are planned to help us deliver this key aspect of education.
Events during the week will include looking at our own identity including belonging, self-esteem and mindfulness, diversity of people around us including race, age, religion, disability and gender. Classes will also be getting out into the community working with local organisations such as St Gemma’s, local care homes, Moortown Community Group and taking pride in the local community by litter picking.
Road Safety Week will run alongside our themed week where children are encouraged to take a walk/scoot/bike in the community on their way to and from school, maybe even picking up a piece of litter on the way. If your child walks, scoots or bikes, they should complete the slip at the bottom of the letter sent home (spare tokens are available in class), each day, for a chance to win a £10 shopping voucher for each class. We hope you will support this initiative in helping children make a healthy start to their day and also helping towards reducing congestion at our gates. 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.
During the themed week, children will be researching local, national and international charities and a new school charity will be chosen at the end of the week to replace our current charities, Yorkshire Air Ambulance and Mind Leeds.
Friday 24 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. We invite a donation for the PTA Christmas fair.
Who do you think we are?
Do you think you’d recognise some of our staff in their early years? This photo competition is back and will run throughout the week with details to follow separately. Proceeds will be given to our new school charity.
Community coffee morning Wednesday 22 November 9-10am
As part of the week, we welcome parents and carers to an informal coffee morning to meet other members of our school community including representatives from the PTA, our governing body, Moortown Community Group and Friends of Moortown Park. I will also be available to speak to parents about our new Living and Learning scheme of work. A whole school community Wake up Shake up will follow at 10am in the main playground.
Mindfulness information session for parents
Please see the separate letter to sign up for this parent workshop on Monday 20 November, 2:30pm-3:15pm.
Can you help?
Pupil feedback from our previous Who do you think you are? themed week was to ‘learn more languages that other people speak.’ Do you speak another language and you would be happy to speak to children about this? 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 and Twitter continue to keep you up to date with key community events as well as our community noticeboard with lots of information about the themed week too. It’s going to be a busy week!