Geography: Moortown local walk
Today, Year 4 completed some fieldwork in our local area as part of our Geography topic: Where in the World am I?
fieldwork: observing and collecting data in a locality
We were investigating the different types of land-use that we can see in our local area. Your children used the iPads to take photos of all the different types of land-use that they could spot. We were able to find four different types on our walk…
- transport – allows us to travel to other areas of land
- recreational – used for the purpose of activities and fun e.g Moortown Park
- residential – used to provide housing for people
- commercial – used for businesses e.g shops, cafes and restaurants
Your children were safe, responsible walkers and fantastic geographers!
Help at home: go on a walk (local or somewhere new) and ask your children to point out all the different types of land-use that they can see.
Writing: Expanded Noun Phrases (ENPs)
Over the next two weeks, in Writing, we will be exploring, planning and writing a narrative. Yesterday, the children looked at and created Expanded Noun Phrases (ENPs) that they could use in their piece of writing.
An ENP is made up of a ‘determiner adjective, adjective noun’ or ‘determiner adjective noun’. Here are a few we made:
- the smoky orange sky
- the green-eyed figure
- the glistening bronze wheel
- a magnificent, gargantuan hot air balloon
- an ancient, abnormal dragon
- a menacing, mechanical sky-ship
- several delicate, peach clouds
Help at home: Take a look at ENPs on BBC bitesize or create your own ENPs for the picture below.
Living and Learning: protected characteristics
Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been learning all about respect.
We’ve revisited what the protected characteristics are. These are characteristics that are protected by law to stop discrimination.
disability, race, gender reassignment, religion or belief, age, marital status, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation
We’ve been usingthis useful mnemonic to help us remember: DRGRAMPSS.
As well as reminding ourselves what the protected characteristics are, we’ll be exploring themes around them such as…
- Why are they protected?
- What would society be like if they weren’t protected?
- How do they link to the British Values?
We’ve had discussions about different scenarios where the characteristics aren’t being protected and see if we can identify the problem and the characteristic.
Help at home: Have a chat with your child about why we have protected characteristics and the importance of them. What could they do if they saw someone being discriminated against?
Letter writing!
We’ve just finished our class novel, Yours Sincerely, Giraffe — and to our surprise, we received a very special letter in the post! It was from Whale, one of the characters in the story!
The children were so excited to write back to Whale, telling him all about themselves. We’ve been focusing on our presentation skills and making sure to include capital letters, full stops, and finger spaces, as well as using commas in a list.
Take a look at some of our wonderful writing below!
We’ve enjoyed using our Oracy skills to read our letters out loud too!
Well done Year 2!
Living & Learning: protected characteristics
Our L&L statement for the week: I understand some characteristics are protected by law.
In our L&L lesson this week, we learnt about the protected characteristics. We discussed what they are and how they’re protected.
Discrimination is defined as ‘the unfair treatment of people because of who they are or because they have a certain characteristic(s)’. We discussed examples and the impact of discrimination.
We discussed how the protected characteristics are protected by law – The Equality Act 2010 protects people from discrimination based on protected characteristics.
A helpful way to remember the protected characteristics is by using the mnemonic:
DR GRAMPSS
Disability
Race
Gender reassignment
Religion or beliefs
Age
Marriage or civil partnership
Pregnancy and/or maternity leave
Sex
Sexual orientation
Help at home: Can you remember the 9 protected characteristics using DR GRAMPSS? Why do we have protected characteristics?
Stay and learn: Phase 2 phonics
Thank you for coming to today’s phonics stay and learn session. I hope you found the session useful and went home feeling a bit more knowledgeable about Little Wandle and how we teach phonics in school. Your feedback is highly valued. We would appreciate it if you could complete the parent feedback form.
The Little Wandle parent page has some useful videos on how to support your child’s reading at home. If you were unable to make the stay and learn session, click here to view the slides. Like always, if you have any questions, please ask me at the end of the day.
We look forward to seeing you again at the number stay and learn session on Tuesday 18th November.
Topic: Drop Down Morning.
Year 6 had a drop down morning where they recapped learning from previous year groups. The focussed on the Romans (History), Natural Disasters (Geography) and Computing.
In History, Year 6 looked at the positive and negative impacts the Roman invasion had on Britain.
We then had a class debate – for or against the Roman invasion. This allowed the children to practise their oracy skills. They projected their voices, used specific vocabulary to the topic and changed their tone.
In Geography, the children matched the topic’s key vocabulary to its definition.
After, Year 6 became cops and robbers. They needed to write down everything they knew about the vocabulary and then steal as much information off of their peers as they could.
In Computing, we revisited our learning from Year 3/4. The children were able create their own code to program a sprite to follow their commands.
Poetry Picnic
The poem we’ve been learning this week is called Fallen Apples. As well as performing it in class, the children did an amazing job of reciting it in front of the whole school in our assembly celebrating National Poetry Day on Thursday afternoon!
Here’s a video of the children performing it in class.
National Poetry Day
This week it was National Poetry Day and we’ve enjoyed sharing poems that we have read as our weekly poems so far in Year 2. We thought about what we liked about them.
In our whole school assembly, we enjoyed performing Don’t feed the animals by Robert Hull.
There was some great prosody in the children’s voices and some excellent voice projection too. Well done, Year 2! We’ve really enjoyed reading and learning this poem.
Help at home: have a look at this website to listen to and read a variety of poems at home.
Black History Month
This morning, Year 6 joined a zoom about Black History Month. In the UK, Black History Month happens every October. It provides an opportunity for people to understand, share and celebrate the history of Black heritage and culture and its impact today.
This year the theme is ‘Standing Firm in Power and Pride’. This means standing strong, being proud of who you are and celebrating the power of Black people’s stories and achievements.
Help at home: Research Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. Can you find 5 facts about each of these influential people? Is there any one else you can find out about?