Watch us while we work
Thank you to those parents who were able to join us for our watch us while we work session earlier this week. We hope you found it useful.
Here’s a summary of how we are encouraging the children to become more responsible for their learning at home.
Spellings – use the spelling guide for ideas to help with learning weekly spellings.
Sentence practice – use spellings to make silly sentences. Use a picture as a stimulus for writing sentences including asking questions about what they can see.
Daily reading – we thought about some of the reading skills the children are learning in Year 2 (fluency, prosody (using expression in their voices), retrieval, interpret and learning new vocabulary). Reading needs to happen daily to build up these skills. A brief note in their reading record books is needed after reading at home. We will continue to monitor the use of e-books at home. Please alert us to any access issues.
Maths – number facts such as counting in 2s, 5s and 10s and number bonds to 10 and 20 are really important to secure this year. Hit the Button is a great online game to build up the recall of these facts.
Numbots certificates are awarded every Thursday and it’s great to see children already achieving their next levels in Year 2.
Finally, here’s the help at home section of the website.
Please get in touch if you need any further support with your child’s learning at home.
Geography fieldwork
What a fantastic time we had on our Geography fieldwork this week! The children showed excellent awareness of how to stay safe while carrying out their investigations.
Before setting off, we reminded ourselves of our important safety rules:
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We wear our hi-vis jackets so we can be easily seen.
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We stay with our group and our adult at all times.
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We listen carefully to our adult’s instructions.
Our fieldwork question was: “What trees are there in Moortown Park?”
To find the answer, we took photographs and collected leaves from different trees.
Back in class, we examined our leaves carefully and used an identification guide to find out which trees they came from. We discovered a wonderful variety of trees in the park, including oak, birch, sycamore, beech, and holly.
Help at home:
Why not explore the trees in your local area? Use a leaf identification guide to see what types of trees you can find near you!
Geography – I can investigate land-use in my locality.
This week, during Geography, we’ve planned a walk in our locality so that we can investigate what the land is used for.
There are five main types of land-use:
- agriculture – land used for farming
- residential – land used for housing
- commercial – land used for businesses e.g. shops and restaurants
- recreational – land used for recreational activities e.g. swimming pools and golf courses
- transport – land used for roads, railways and airports
We used a map of Moortown to decide what route we’ll take. We thought about trying to create a loop and to try and pass as many different areas as possible. Have a look at what we decided on:
We’ll hopefully pass areas of residential, recreational and commercial land-use while walking along land used for transport! We’ll take pictures of each and label these in our books.
We look forward to showing you the pictures!
Maths: calculating with 1,000
In Year 4, we’ve been looking at the structure of 1,000 in maths.
There are 10 hundreds in 1 thousand.
There are 100 tens in 1 thousand.
There are 1,000 ones in 1 thousand.
Understanding the structure of 1,000 then helps us with our calculations.
When subtracting ones from 1,000, we can partition into 990 and 10 to help us.
Once we were confident, we had a go at writing some of our own worded problems for subtracting from 1,000.
Help at home: have a go at these questions (remember to partition if you need some help):
1,000 – 5 =
1,000 – 8 =
1,000 – 3 =
1,000 – 6 =
Junior Leadership Team
Tomorrow, Year 3 will spend time discussing and planning their JLT speeches. Then on Thursday, if they would like the opportunity to become a leader, they will deliver their speeches to the class.
What makes a great leader?
What can you do to help your class?
What strengths do you have?
Make your ideas realisitic!
Help at home by practising how your child can deliver their speech.
Top tips:
- face the audience
- project your voice
- talk with prosody
2-page spreads!
Year 6 have been writing about a fictional city. They were able to create a city of their choice using a city in real life as inspiration. They needed to include different sentence starters, geographical vocabulary and relative clauses.
They published their brilliant work in their topic books to show off their knowledge about urban green spaces.
Reading: Book Club
In Book Club, Year 6 explored the website ‘Authorfy’. We focused on a comic book masterclass where authors Jamie Smart and Laura Ellen explained how they created their own comic books. Jamie Smart’s ‘Bunny vs. Monkey’ books are very popular in our class.
We watched a tutorial and then had a go at drawing our very own Bunny. For the rest of the lesson, the children created their own comic books.
Help at home: Which is your favourite Bunny vs. Monkey book and why? What other author’s comic books have you read?
Poetry Picnic
The poem we’ve been learning this week is called Leaves Are Falling. They’ve really enjoyed this one and performed it with breezy gusto! The children loved joining in with the actions and exploring all the swirling, twirling movements of the autumn leaves.
Autumn 1: week 6
Look at us – we’re artists!
We’ve been learning all about what an artist is. After reading Henri’s Scissors, we talked about the key events in Henri Matisse’s life. He loved to paint, but later in life he started making beautiful pictures using only scissors and paper!
We looked at Matisse’s bright and colourful artwork and shared what we liked (and didn’t like!) about it. Using our cutting skills, we made our own collages by cutting out different shapes and arranging them into creative designs. We had so much fun exploring colour, shape, and imagination—just like Matisse did!
Help at home: Practise your cutting skills.
Phonics Superstars!
The children are becoming real phonics superstars! Every morning, they eagerly help each other get their phonics packs out and ready to learn. We’re proud to share that we have now learned all of the Phase 2 phonemes for this half-term.
Over the next two weeks, we’ll be focusing on practising our blending skills and recapping all of the phonemes to strengthen our reading confidence. Well done, everyone!
Help at home: Use your phonics home learning book on a daily basis. Practise saying the pure sounds and writing the graphemes.
Look how we’re growing!
This week, we measured how tall we are. Throughout the year in Reception, we’ll keep checking to see how much we’ve grown.
Home learning challenge
Reminders
- Water bottles: Please ensure your child brings a filled water bottle to school each day.
- Lost uniform: We’re seeing a lot of jumpers and cardigans go missing. Please label all clothing clearly with your child’s name to help us return lost items.
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Parent-Teacher Zoom Meetings: These are coming up soon. Don’t forget to sign up if you haven’t already!
Reading: It’s so important!
We hope that you’re enjoying reading your child’s library book with them. We call this a ‘love of reading’ book – to do just that, encourage a love of reading for your child! Reading to and with your child can have a huge positive impact on your child’s education.
This research is a powerful message of the impact you can have when reading to/with your child:
At school, your child reads a physical book four times a week – with a focus on teaching phonics skills. This is then sent home as an eBook. The purpose of the eBook at home is to celebrate your child’s success (in phonics skills). Your child should be able to read most of this book confidently and really feel like a reader.
We’ve chosen to use eBooks at home for many benefits. Allocating eBooks frees up about two hours of teacher or TA time changing books – now spent teaching reading!
Here’s some information on how to access eBooks but if you’re having any problems please speak to your child’s class teacher.
Happy reading!