Be proud of our bodies
This week Year 1 had a Doctor! Doctor! themed yoga session with Angela from Yogabugs. We did a variety of yoga poses for most parts of our amazing bodies! Then we enjoyed some well-earned relaxation.
Lots of gym stars
Over the last few weeks, Year 1 have been developing some fantastic gymnastic skills, including jumps, travelling and shapes with coaches Jane and Charlotte Townend. The class have shown great progression over the sessions. Ask them to show you their bunny jumps, travelling like a spider, star jumps and seated tuck shape to name a few.
Jane and Charlotte run after school classes in Barwick-in-Elmet and at Temple Moor High School if your child is interested in developing their gymnastics further.
Yogabugs
We had a visit from Yogabugs today and did some yoga linked to our big topic on houses.
A visitor for Key Stage 1
On Thursday, Year 1 and Year 2 had a surprise visitor in class. Florence Nightingale popped in to see Year 1 and hear all about what they had learned that afternoon about her life and she spent most of the afternoon teaching Year 2. The children were very interested to hear all about hospital conditions when Florence worked during the Crimean War and couldn’t believe it when she didn’t even know what lights or pens were!
It’s half-term…
…so no specific homework, spellings or tables this week. It’s a good time to relax and enjoy some time with your children – have you visited the free exhibition of Anthony Browne pictures at Leeds City Museum, for example?
Building a Saxon Roundhouse
On Monday morning, Year 3 and 4 took part in a great workshop where they used their maths and DT skills to build a Saxon Roundhouse. Although tricky at times, the children worked together collaboratively to solve problems and build their own section of the house.
“We’re eating a balanced meal.”
Last week, Year 2 were introduced to some new friends who helped us know how to eating healthily. We met Donny Dairy, Colin Carbohydrate, Victor Vitamin, Peter Protein and Freddy Fats. First, we sorted different foods into the five food groups.
Then, we planned our own balanced meal by choosing
- three items of food from Victor Vitamin and Colin Carbohydrate (the food groups we should eat most of)
- two items of food from Donny dairy and Peter Protein
- one or no types of food from Freddy fat.
On Friday, we made our meal and all ate a healthy, balanced meal together.
When asked who had enjoyed their meal, here was the response!
More phonics
We have begun phase 2 of our phonics programme, ‘Letters and Sounds’.
In this phase children will continue practising what they have learned from phase 1, including ‘sound-talk’. They will also be taught the phonemes (sounds) for a number of letters (graphemes), which phoneme is represented by which grapheme and that a phoneme can be represented by more than one letter, for example, ll as in b-e-ll. We use Jolly Phonics actions to help children remember these phonemes. Each week the children will bring a set of letters home to learn. Please practise these every day and keep them in their book bag for us to add to.
Your child will be taught how to pronounce the phonemes correctly to make blending easier.
Sounds should be sustained where possible (e.g. sss, fff, mmm) and, where this is not possible, ‘uh’ sounds after consonants should be reduced as far as possible (e.g. try to avoid saying ‘buh’, ‘cuh’).
VC and CVC words
C and V are abbreviations for ‘consonant’ and ‘vowel’. VC words are words consisting of a vowel then a consonant (e.g. am, at, it) and CVC words are words consisting of a consonant then a vowel then a consonant (e.g. cat, rug, sun). Words such as tick and bell also count as CVC words – although they have four letters, they have only three sounds. For example, in the word bell, b = consonant, e = vowel, ll = consonant.
Now the children will be seeing letters and words, as well as hearing them. They will be shown how to make whole words by pushing magnetic or wooden letters together to form little words, reading words and breaking up words into individual sounds, which will help their spelling. These will be simple words made up of two phonemes, for example, am, at, it, or three phonemes, for example, cat, rug, sun, tick, bell.
How you can help at home:
Magnetic letters
Buy magnetic letters for your fridge.
Making little words together
Make little words together, for example, it, up, am, and, top, dig, run, met, pick. As you select the letters, say them aloud: ‘a-m – am’, ‘m-e-t – met’.
Breaking words up
Now do it the other way around: read the word, break the word up and move the letters away, saying: ‘met – m-e-t’.
Both these activities help children to see that reading and spelling are reversible processes.
Remember to make it fun!
Thanks d:Side – we learnt lots!
Today, Catherine, from d:Side, came to visit to give us lots of information about our body and keeping it healthy. Judging by the responses, the class have learnt lots so far in our Doctor Doctor topic. We also managed to learn about what makes a healthy lunchbox and the safe use of medicines.
- “I learnt all about bodies, bones and muscles.”
- “I learnt that we grow when we are asleep.”
- “There are veins to take our blood around.”
Gymnastics
We’re continuing to learn new gymnastic skills on Thursday afternoons. This week, we’ve been practising different jumps and travelling along the benches in different ways.
