Phonics mornings
Our final phonics mornings of the year will be held on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
It is really important that you attend to find out how your child has progressed and to learn more about how to support your child in the next phase of their learning.
Phase 4
Children will continue to practise previously learned graphemes and phonemes and learn how to read and write:
CVCC words: tent, damp, toast, chimp
For example, in the word ‘toast’, t = consonant, oa = vowel, s = consonant, t = consonant.
and CCVC words: swim, plum, sport, cream, spoon
For example, in the word ‘cream’, c = consonant, r = consonant, ea = vowel, m = consonant.
They will be learning more tricky words and continuing to read and write sentences together.
Tricky words
said, so, do, have, like, some, come, were, there, little, one, when, out, what
New topic: ‘Food’
This week, we have started a new topic: ‘Food‘. Before the Easter holidays, every child in Year 6 suggested a topic they would like to explore. After creating a shortlist, the children voted and decided on ‘Food‘.
So far, we’ve focused on the geography of the food we eat: where some foods originate from; how they travel to our plates; and why some foods are imported while some are produced here in the UK.
We’re excited to explore this topic further and will keep you updated about all our food-related learning.
You can help at home by (amongst other things!):
- discussing the origin of the foods you eat at home
- looking at the food packaging together and making sense of some of the information you are given
- discussing why some foods might be grown in specific countries
- discussing how foods are advertised and how this might affect us as consumers
- encouraging your child to think about the choices they make when choosing food to eat (are they healthy choices?)
Moortown PE kit
Has your child recently taken part in a sporting event wearing one of our Moortown polo tops?
If so, please could you ensure it is returned to the office asap to ensure we have all tops available for our next sporting events.
We had a whale of a time!
Rocket seeds
You may have seen on Newsround recently that many schools have received some seeds from outer space; we are one of those schools! Today, Year 5 were set the very important challenge of planting our schools ‘red’ and ‘blue’ seeds.
Each school has received two sets of seeds (red and blue); one lot is from space and the other are plain old Earth seeds. We don’t know which one is which but we’ve planted both and so begins our experiment to find out: will seeds grow if they’ve been cultivated in space?
This is a six week experiment through which we’re required to observe, record, measure and question – all essential scientific skills. Although Year 5 have planted them, children from across the school will be involved in looking after and monitoring them throughout the project. We’ll keep you updated as the seeds grow and let you know which ones we think are from space.
Which do you think?
Lights… camera…action…
Before the holidays, Year 5 were asked what they’d like their next topic to be about. Obviously we had lots of ideas which covered all of our different interests:
- food
- film
- sport
- mythology
- technology
After Miss Rushbrooke narrowed down the selection to just four, we voted on which topic we’d most like to learn about and the one with most votes became our first topic for the Summer term. Film snatched it and so we have begun our ‘Lights…Camera…Action…’ topic.
The children ‘oood’ and ahhhhd’ when they walked in on Tuesday afternoon to find many interesting and unknown objects to explore and question.
We identified what we could see, thought about what they might do and wondered who made them; when they were made; and whether they still worked now.
We then went on to look at how films began by making some optical toys which were the foundations of the technology to transform still pictures into moving ones.
It’s been a fantastic start to the topic with many more exciting things to come!
Scratch!
Today, we have been creating algorithms using scratch. We wrote a code to manipulate a sprite. Why not ask your child what a sprite is?
What do children learn through cooking?
Year 3 have continued to develop their food technology skills in our session today.
Cooking is always a popular lesson and here is a recent article about its benefits.
Free tennis
Tennis For Kids is a free 6-week coaching course packed full of action packed games and activities designed as the perfect introduction to tennis for kids aged 5-8.
Courses are available locally at Roundhay Park tennis courts and Alwoodley tennis club.
In addition, free family open days will be running locally, at David Lloyd and Roundhay Park, over the next few months.