Ocean Awareness Day
Yesterday was Ocean Awareness Day for Moortown Primary School!
First, we had an assembly to discuss the importance of the ocean which got us thinking about the small things we can do at home to protect it. One huge problem for our environment is our use of plastic. You can find more information from our trusty First News source here.
Talk to your child about the small changes you could make to do your bit. We talked about:
- purchasing a reusable bag for life
- requesting glass milk bottles
- using paper straws
To celebrate Ocean Awareness Day, we designed our own sea creature and wrote a report about it. Here are some of our weird and wonderful results!
The reports were pretty good, too!
Next up, we created some Ocean poetry in the style of shape poems. (Some of us got to read them in the afternoon assembly, too!)
Finally, we gathered in the hall to create some whole class artwork using recycled milk bottle lids. First, we made the shape of some ocean dwellers in small groups…
…before making a gigantic dolphin as a team!
The likeness to a real dolphin wasn’t an accident – we did it on porpoise!
For more ways you can help at home, check out tips to use less plastic.
Ocean Awareness Day in Y5
Written by Isaac Cooper (in collaboration with Mr Catherall)
Year 5 had a whale of a time on Ocean Awareness Day. After looking at some awful pictures about the effect plastic waste can have on our ocean we tried to make a change.
One of our favourite activities was making a huge whale of plastic rubbish donated by some members of staff and some of our class (thank you to anyone who contributed).
We were learning about the negative effect plastic has on our oceans so we decided to recycle the plastic waste as a whale. Here is our finished product…
When you look at this think about these questions:
Why would you pollute our ocean?
Why would you throw rubbish on the floor?
Why would you do this to the animals?
After this, we made posters to raise awareness.
Finally, we used scratch to think about how the ocean can be explored.
What a great day!
Role Play
Over the past few weeks, Year One have been learning lots about traditional tales. To help us remember the main events of Little Red Riding Hood, we acted it out in small groups. Take a look at our amazing acting skills.
PE
Today, in PE, we enjoyed some fun in the sun. With our Sport’s Day fast approaching, the children had a go at some of the events. 
World Cup rocks
Today, having been inspired by a recent Year 2 homework (Moortown rocks), we used our orienteering skills to try to find rocks around school hidden with answers to World Cup questions.
Living and learning and maths
Our weekly Living and learning statement this week is…
As well as specific Living and learning lessons, we make reference to our statement in other lessons to promote use of these skills across the curriculum and also outside of the classroom.
Today in maths, while working in table groups, the children were encouraged to share and include others while completing a units of time sorting activity.
How to be a better reader?
Over the last few months, we’ve had a reading challenge in Year 2. Children who read at home, and have a note from an adult in their reading record book, are rewarded on our challenge chart.
We have some children who have made great efforts to achieve this and improve their reading at home and have therefore received lots of rewards.
Well done to Amrit M, Christina, Edris, Eessa, Harman, Harpreet, Leah, Sam and Saahir.
Just 15 minutes of daily reading can support your child to improve their reading fluency and understanding. Don’t forget to ask some questions about what they have read too.
We hope over the last few weeks in Year 2 that more children can achieve these reading goals by reading at home. Remember any reading counts, not just the home reader sent home from school.
Light and shadows
In a science lesson this week we investigated light and shadows. First, we used DT skills to create a footballer out of foil. This required problem solving and resilience!
We then used torches to explore what happened to the shadows when we moved the light source closer and then further away from the model.
Finally, we went outside to see create footballing shadows using with the sun as the light source.
A Moroccan Feast
Year 6 are back in the kitchen this half term and our first dish was falafel, hummus and flatbread.
We used chopping skills to get the onion and garlic ready.
We create breadcrumbs to coat the outside of the falafels.
A group of us were in charge of preparing the flatbread which are made simply of plain flour, butter, coconut milk and a pinch of salt.
For the falafel, we whizzed our onion, garlic and chickpea together using a hand blender.
Then, we added parsley, coriander, lemon juice, cumin, a pinch of salt, plain fllour and some harissa paste and whizzed it again.
Then, it was time to get our hands in there to make the falafel balls, coats them in breadcrumbs and place them on the baking trays.
We then tried it altogether along with our homemade hummus: classic, sun-dried tomoato flavour and olive flavour. The sun-dried tomato hummus was a favourite with the olive a close second.
If you want to make some flavoured hummus at home, it’s really simple. Place all of the following ingredients into a bowl and blend. (You can use a nutri-bullet too.)
Sun-dried tomato hummus
- tin of chickpeas
- 1 clove of garlic
- 2 tbsp lemon
- a pinch of salt
- 5 sun-dried tomatoes
- 2 tbsps of the oil from the sun-dried tomato
Olive tapenade hummus
- tin of chickpeas
- 1 clove of garlic
- 2 tbsp lemon
- a pinch of salt
- 50g black olives
- 2 tbsps of pil
World Cup fever
This half term, our topic is the World Cup and we’ve included some geography, maths and reading learning so far.
The children have told us what they want to learn about so we will be guiding the topic to their interests.
- What does the World Cup look like?
- How many players are there on a team?
- Can we do some art from the different countries?
- What are the different flags?
- Who has won before?
- What countries are playing?
- How does football work?
- Who is going to win?
- How heavy is the World Cup?
Each child has their own country (selected at random) and we will be watching the results carefully to see who progresses through the competition. Ask your child what country they selected and what continent it is in. They could show you how to search for this information if they need to check.