Autumn 2: Week 3
In Literacy, we read Night Monkey, Day Monkey by Julia Donaldson. For our writing activity, the children drew and labelled pictures showing things they see and do during the day and at night time.
In provision, we investigated shadows through hands-on exploration. The children used torches to discover how shadows changed size when they moved the light source closer to and further away from objects. The chilli challenge to create shadow puppets captured the children’s imagination in the creative area, leading to lots of talk about shadows.
In maths, we introduced the children to composition by focusing on the preliminary skills: the concept of ‘wholes’ and ‘parts’. We investigated composition using own bodies and familiar toys. We used this stem sentence My […] is a part of me and the whole of me is [name] to explain our parts. We hope you enjoyed watching our maths session on Tuesday!
Help at home: Look at the pictures. Can you see the parts?
Thank you for attending Tuesday’s maths stay and learn session. I hope you enjoyed watching our maths sessions all about composition. Your feedback is important to us, so please complete the parent feedback form when you can. If you couldn’t attend, you can view the slides here. As always, if you have any questions, please speak to me at the end of the day.
On Wednesday, we thoroughly enjoyed watching a live production performance called Hare and Tortoise.
Am – I liked it when they were singing.
Ayy – I liked it when we had to clap.
Im – That show was awesome! I enjoyed the clapping.
Sat – I liked it when the Hare went to sleep.
Fin – I enjoyed the running race.
Learning Journey Drop In’s
Monday 1st or Thursday 4th December 3.00 – 3.30pm
A sign-up letter is in your child’s bookbag. Please return the slip by Thursday 27th November. We look forward to sharing your child’s books with you.
PE: infant agility event
Today, all of the class have enjoyed taking part in the infant agility event as part of our involvement in the Leeds Well Schools Partnership.
The event was designed around a set of twelve activities and the children rotated around these activities, that support the core physical skills of coordination and agility, core stability, spatial awareness and more.
It was fun and not about winning.
I liked it as we did lots of activities.
We got to do lots of exercise and my heart was racing.
It was fair because everybody got to do everything.
It was healthy for us.
Writing: Formal vs Informal
Next week, Year 6 will be writing a review about their trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Their audience will be people who might be interested in visiting and therefore it will need to be a formal piece of writing.
The children looked at the difference between formal and informal writing.
Formal language is used for more official and serious purposes. The correct grammar and standard English should always be used. Whereas, informal language is used for more casual and less serious purposes. Slang words and chatty language can be used.
Help at home: What situations might you use formal or informal language in?
Can you swap these sentences into informal language?
- I guarantee your flight experience will be a positive one.
- The two boys were rather curious.
Can you swap these sentences into formal language?
- You’re going to have a dead good time!
- What time is that TV programme on?
Science: we’re chemists!
In Science this half-term, Year 4 are chemists! Our new topic is all about states of matter.
We began by exploring the properties of solids, liquids and gases.
Solids have a fixed volume and a fixed shape. You can cut them into pieces and they’ll still take up the same amount of volume.
volume: the amount of space a solid, liquid or gas takes up.
A liquid has a non-fixed shape but a fixed volume. They can flow or be poured but are hard to contain. They change shape depending on the container but always keep the same volume.
Gases have a non-fixed shape and a non-fixed volume. They’re very hard to contain. They don’t keep their shape or volume and often we can’t even see them. They fill whatever space they are in.
Help at home: watch this video (https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zsgwwxs). Can you name 5 solids, 5 liquids and 5 gases?
PE – gymnastics
This half term, we’re using gymnastics to practise some of our core movement skills.
We’ve focused on travelling from one end of the mats to the other. We added in challenges like only having our hands and feet on the mats or using a balance.
We’ve now added in the benches! Here the children are having to balance and use the bench to explore different movements such as, jumping off the end of the bench.
Help at home: Can your child remember the routine they created and performed in our PE session? Can they perform it for you at home?
Here they are in action…
Science: We are Physicists.
In this next block of science, we are physicists. Physicists study forces (pushes and pulls) and energy. Year 6 will be learning about electricity.
Before we started, we had a discussion about how to stay safe in this unit.
In our first lesson, we learnt how to use symbols in a scientific diagram to represent components in a circuit.
The children made some brilliant observations:
- the bulb will only light up in a closed circuit
- the more bulbs in the circuit, the dimmer the bulbs will be
- the more cells in the circuit, the higher the voltage therefore the brighter the bulb
Help at home: Discuss the key vocabulary for this unit. Can you use the words in a sentence?
Sporting events
Recently, we’ve had a few sporting events that children have taken part in.
Year 2/3 Cheerdance
Firstly, as part of our association with Leeds Well School Partnership, some of our Year 2 and 3 children took part in a cheer dance session led by Nicola from Leeds Rhinos. The children learnt some cheer arm actions, some jumps and using pom poms, they learnt and performed a great routine.
Basketball festival
Some of our Year 5 and 6 children took part in a basketball festival with other schools practising some basketball skills and drills.
Leeds School Sports Association Saturday morning cross country
The first of the Leeds School Sports Association Saturday morning cross country races took place at Cardinal Heenan. This is one of four events across the year. Well done to the Key Stage 2 children who took part and represented our school.
Key Stage 2 School Games cross country
Finally, this week was the Key Stage 2 School Games cross country event in Otley. We are hopeful a number of our children will qualify for the Leeds final from this event after some great performances. The children were a great team and supported and encouraged each other in very muddy conditions.
Thank you to adults in school and parents who have supported with these events and to the children for being happy and healthy and representing Moortown Primary so well.
Michael Rosen day
This week, the children took part in an event to celebrate Michael Rosen Day. We joined a live online event with the author and poet himself where Michael performed some of his favourite food-inspired poems, including Hot Food and Chocolate Cake.
Michael Rosen is funny.
He likes to make people laugh when they read his poems.
His poems are silly!
We’ve also been reading and enjoying his new book, Oh Dear, Look What I got!
Here are some key messages from Michael about reading…
- Read as many different types of books as you can – books give you language, thoughts, ideas and feelings.
- Books show you places and cultures very near and dear to you – and others you may not have come across before. Books can take you anywhere.
- Books help you to walk in other people’s shoes, and to see things from someone else’s point of view.
- Read books, share books, talk about books and, most importantly, CHOOSE what YOU want to read. It’s your imagination, so choose what you want to feed it.
- Books are for EVERYONE!
Help at home: READ, READ, READ – enjoy sharing a book or poem with your child.
Poetry Picnic: A basket of apples
We’ve been learning and reciting another autumnal poem.
As well as enjoying listening to and saying the poems each week, we also use it as an opportunity to learn new vocabulary. One of this week’s words was sour. Look out for our sour (and sweet) faces as we read!
RE: Drop Down Morning
In this RE Drop Down Morning, we were learning about Christianity. We had three sessions: when and where did Christianity begin and where do Christians live today; what do Christians believe; and what festivals do Christians celebrate.
In our first session, the children created a fact file about Christianity. This fact file was different though as we linked our learning to maths because we used a net of a cube.
Did you know an Abrahamic religion is a religion whose followers believe in the prophet Abraham? They believe Abraham and his sons/grandsons hold an important role in human spiritual development. The best known Abrahamic religions are Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
In our second session, we learnt about the different denominations of Christianity. Denominations are different groups within Christianity. The different denominations have different ideas about how to worship God.
The children linked this learning to their reading skills and answered a RIC.
In our third and final session, we focused on Holy Week and Easter.
Help at home: Which day do you think is the most important in Holy Week and why?