13 December 2013
This week’s homework is creative.
I can respond, creatively, to a piece of art.
Each child has one of three pieces of art in their homework book that have been the focus of three art afternoons this week. We would like them to respond to this art in any way they choose but make it creative.
Here are some ideas to start you off:
- Create your own version of the artwork eg create your own triptych, landscape scene or portrait.
- Write a description.
- Write a story thinking about what might happen in your piece of art, or who it is of.
- Tell us what you think about it.
- Think about whether you can do any maths, writing or reading connected to it.
Art in maths – Symmetry
It’s time to get arty in maths this week as we look at symmetry. Today we donned our aprons and used paint to create symmetrical pieces of art. First we tried creating a symmetrical image ourselves, then we painted one side of the paper and folded it in half to make sure it was symmetrical.
Here’s our gallery of symmetry.
Writing!
Reception children are writing everywhere!
Money well spent!
Year 1 decided to spend their profit (£24) from their stall at the Enterprise fair on some new books to be enjoyed by the class. We chose a mixture of fiction, by the author Julia Donaldson, and non fiction. There was even a snake book for Filip. It was great to see the enjoyment these books brought to the children – definitely money well spent.
What can you do in a minute?
Year 1 timed themselves doing lots of different things in one minute. Have a go at home.
How many star jumps can you do in a minute? Alex can do 99!
How many times can you write your name in a minute? Ben can write his name 16 times.
How many times can you hop on one leg in a minute? Humairah can do it 104 times.
Getting ready to write!
The children are progressing quickly with their phonics learning and reading. Alongside blending to read, the children also need to segment words to spell. Children often find this harder and lack confidence in their ability to write.
In Reception, the children take part in shared writing activities where they can ‘have a go’ on whiteboards with the support of adults. We then encourage independent writing in all the areas of provision. This includes writing a label for their model, writing a shopping list in the role-play shop or writing a letter to a friend. We value all the children’s attempts at writing and model writing (and making mistakes) to them.
You can help at home by:
- Providing plenty of different types of pens and pencils and encouraging your child to use a correct grip
- Encouraging them to use the school’s handwriting style and to use lower case letters; we teach that a capital letter is required for the first letter in a name and at the beginning of a sentence
- Spelling is harder than reading words – praise, don’t criticise. Little whiteboards and pens are a good way for children to try out spellings and practise their handwriting
- Remember that at this stage children’s phonetic attempts are valued. They will learn the correct spellings of words later. We want the children to become confident writers by ‘having a go’ and using their phonetic knowledge independently.
- To be able to write, children need to be well co-ordinated through their whole body, not just their hands and fingers. Games that help co-ordination include throwing balls at a target, under-arm and over-arm, and bouncing balls – also skipping on the spot, throwing a Frisbee, picking up pebbles from the beach and throwing them into the sea.
Have fun!
The world of work
This week it is Money and Enterprise week and two visitors came to talk to us about setting up and running a business.
Meg from Radish bookshop in Chapel Allerton talked to us about how businesses can help others. In her shop are a range of Fairtrade items alongside the books that she sells. Well done, Isaac, for remembering the term Fairtrade and winning the book prize from Meg.
Harriet from a shop called Chirpy, also in Chapel Allerton, talked to us about how she set up her business and the importance of choosing a good name and advertising her shop to encourage customers to visit. She had lots of interesting products to show us. On the height chart she brought, Lewis was as tall as a wheelie bin!
Call and say hello to Meg and Harriet if you are visiting Chapel Allerton.
Fun fit
The Shuffles Fun Fit after-school club has been running this half-term including a different energetic activity every week.
There has been a mix of street dance, breakdance, multi-sports, short tennis, football coaching, relays & fun games with the main aim to keep the children active and to have fun.
We will continue to offer the club in the Spring and Summer terms and we intend to use some of our PE and school sports government funding to fully subsidise this and other physical activity after-school clubs. Look out for more details when the Spring after-school clubs information is sent out.
‘I like going to Shuffles fun fit club because we do a different fun thing every week.’
Several times on purpose
During anti-bullying day, Year 1 had some great discussions about bullying.
We looked at our school definition, focussing on the fact that bullying takes place more than once rather than a one-off incident.
Bullying is where you hurt someone, physically or emotionally, more than once and on purpose.
Using material from the go givers website, we talked about how words can hurt others as much as being hurt physically. The class were able to identify lots of people they could tell about any bullying incidents.
Then we were involved in an anti-bullying dance workshop with Flex Dance Inc. Well done, Lewis, for knowing that David Cameron is our prime minister. Here we are in rehearsals.
STOP!
Today is anti-bullying day, part of national anti-bullying week. Several of our classes have taken part in anti-bullying dance workshops led by Melissa from Flex Dance Inc. All the artists of the songs used in the whole school performances have been victims of bullying in their lives. Well done to all the children involved who learned their routines in such a short time and produced very confident performances.
Last week at our latest School Council meeting, all school councillors agreed to keep our current definition of bullying:
Bullying is when you hurt someone, physically or emotionally, more than once and on purpose.
Alongside this definition we have used the following prompts for the children to remember:
- Several
- Times
- On
- Purpose
- Start
- Telling
- Other
- People
Advice about bullying is available on a number of websites. These include Kidscape, Childline, anti-bullying alliance, BBC and ThinkUKnow. Talk Time homework this week will give you chance to discuss this important topic with your child/children.
Our children tell us they would speak to an adult in school, family or friends if they were to experience bullying or if they saw bullying.
‘I feel safe because school would deal with bullying.’
‘I feel safe at school as there are always teachers there if you ever have any problems.’
‘I feel safe at school because everyone around me looks after me.’
Pupil health questionnaire 2013
If you do have any concerns about bullying, please speak to a member of staff.