Our noses are often in the paper
Year 6 enjoy a range of reading opportunities and one of our favourites is our weekly fix of First News.
We’re always keen to share interesting articles with each other and this brilliant paper never fails to disappoint. This week there was a man who’s best friend was a bear; a heart-warming story about a little girl who’s life had been improved by the efforts of WaterAid; and a funny little snippet on a ‘Petmiere’ – cinema for dogs!
We always read FirstNews on a Monday so ask your child at home what interesting articles (s)he’s read each week.
What are the 8Rs?
Year 6 have had a good start to this half term. We’re working on the 8Rs (resilience, safe risk-taking, responsibility, resourcefulness, responding, remembering, reflecting, readiness) to improve our learning behaviour, and therefore our learning, in class. These Rs are easy to apply at home, too:
- Resilience – try a new skill and keep at it if it’s hard
- safe Risk-taking – cook with an adult, using knives and other equipment
- Responsibility – be in charge of getting your own things ready for school or getting yourself up in the morning
- Responding – if an adult praises you for an action, make sure you do it again (or don’t do something again if you’ve been told about it before)
- Readiness – be ready to go if you’re heading out for the day with everything you might need
It’d be great to hear of any particularly good examples of children practising the 8Rs at home.
Moortown’s artists
We’d love to see you next Tuesday to share our learning from our Katie and…topic. Art gallery open 2:45-3:30pm.
Woodwork
Work has begun on making our frames that will showcase the Quentin Blake artwork completed before half term. Accurate measuring, complete concentration and staying safe were some of the skills need for this activity.
Well done to Aina, Pia and Danny who were experts at sawing and helping others. Great for building muscles!
Gymnastics
Today, Reception class had their first gymnastics lesson. The children demonstrated some great moves, balances and some super teamwork.
Have a look at what we’ve been up to.
Christmas dinner themed menu
Catering Leeds, our school meal provider, will be running a special Christmas themed menu on Thursday 15 December.
Please contact the office, by 30 November, if your child would like a school dinner on this day.
8 Rs for learning – our new SEAL theme
This half-term, we’re thinking about the ‘8 Rs for learning’. This theme is about promoting good learning behaviour for your child.
Each week, we’ll focus on different ‘Rs’. We use an animal to symbolise each ‘R’, which might help your child remember all eight – can your child remember which animal matches the correct ‘R’?
You can support your child at home – we’ve listed a few ideas to help you below. Ask us if you’ve any questions or comments.
Download top tips for promoting the 8Rs for good learning behaviour.
I take a safe risk.
Talk about the difference between a safe and unsafe risk. At school, we want your child to take a safe risk by having a go at answering, even if unsure; trying something new and attempting harder learning.
I take responsibility for my own learning.
Provide time and space at home so your child is able to organise themselves: their PE kit, reading book, homework, spellings and tables… Don’t organise everything for them!
Make a link between rights and responsibilities: your child has the right to a great education, but needs to be responsible for their own learning.
I respond to feedback.
Ask your child if they remember their ‘stars’ and ‘steps’ in English and Maths.
I can show I am ready to learn.
Make sure your child is at school for a prompt start of 08:50.
Make sure your child has had plenty of sleep so they are alert and ready to learn at all times.
Encourage your child to ask lots of questions – that shows they want to learn!
I am resourceful.
Encourage your child to be organised so they can play with a range of different toys.
Encourage your child to try new ways to solve a tricky problem.
I am resilient.
Encourage your child to keep going! Set a tricky challenge or puzzle for your child to do.
Encourage your child to think of different ways of doing things.
Don’t let your child win when they play a game – they need to experience losing, too!
Celebrate mistakes as opportunities to learn – be happy that your child found some learning hard and encourage them to ‘bounce back’ and learn from the experience.
I remember.
Make sure they have time to learn spellings, number bonds and times tables – a little practice daily is best.
Play memory games:
Kim’s game: show them objects for 30 seconds… can they remember all the objects?
Can they build up the sequence, ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple’… ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple and a bike.’… ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple, a bike and a cucumber.’ etc … Take turns!
I reflect about my learning.
Talk with your child about what they’ve learnt, asking questions about:
how they learnt
why they learnt it
when they’ll use their learning
how they would teach this to someone else
what learning might link with what they’ve learnt today etc
York Art Gallery
After reading all about Katie’s adventures in art galleries and museums, in our class novel topic, we enjoyed a class trip to the York Art Gallery. We were very impressed by the children’s behaviour, interest and knowledge throughout the visit. Here is a snapshot of the day.
Welcome back
Welcome back.
This half term is going to be just as busy as the last one. The whole class have shown maturity, enthusiasm and a super learning attitude – keep it up!
We have had great fun with our topic so far. This half term, we’ll be designing and making our own picture frames. When complete, these will showcase the children’s wonderful Roald Dahl-inspired art work done in the style of Quentin Blake. Look out for our own Year 4 art gallery.
We also look forward to cooking this half term – you’ll have to wait and see what delights will make your taste buds tingle!
Please note a change of PE day from Thursday to Friday. The class are going to be taught by some students from Leeds Metropolitan University. An outdoor kit is essential as we hope to be outside whenever possible.
Asking questions about WW2
Before half-term, we were fortunate enough to be able to email Mrs Weekes’ dad, who was evacuated from Newcastle during WW2, and ask him lots of questions about his experience.
Today, we received a response and were fascinated to hear all about it! However, there was a problem. Somehow, all the answers and questions had been jumbled up so we had to use our comprehension skills to match the questions to the answers. Once we’d managed to do this we studied the responses – it was very interesting. In particular, we were amazed at how little children were allowed to take with them: only some clothes!
Then, we thought about the characters in our class novel. Max and Anna are German refugees so we discussed the difference between refugees and evacuees (help at home by asking your child about this and discussing this topic in more detail). Finally, we pretended to be Max and asked some of our own questions.
Here are some pics:
On behalf of all of Year 5, I must say a huge thank you to Mrs Weekes and her dad for answering our questions.