Class News

Summer 1: Week 2

Caterpillars
This week, we’ve been observing our caterpillars daily to see how much the they’ve grown.
We’ve also been talking about the life cycle of a butterfly.
Help at home: Can your child remember the four stages? Draw a picture of the life cycle.

We are super writers!
This week, we’ve been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. On Monday, we made our own story maps.

After reading and retelling the story, we used our imagination to write our own versions of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We changed the main character and the food.

The Very Hungry Cat
The Very Hungry Spider
The Very Hungry Tiger
The Very Hungry Ladybird

PE
On Tuesday, they enjoyed their first session of PE with Mr McGriffiths. This half-term, they’ll play a game called Hulk Smash to develop their balls skills.

Maths
This week, we continued to develop our subitising skills. We used our understanding of doubles to support our subitising skills when looking at different arrangements. We created arrangements of 6 using different objects. We thought carefully about how we can arrangement the objects so it’s easier to subitise– e.g. 2 groups of 3. We then played a game called Odd One Out. We had to spot an arrangement that was not 6.

Poetry Picnic
This week’s poem was called Under a Stone.

Thank you and goodbye Reception!
Reception, I’ve loved teaching you this year. From starting school to going on your first school trip, we’ve shared many amazing memories together. You’ve made tremendous progress and I’ve no doubt you’ll continue to shine and make your new teacher proud.

Finally, keep reading and enjoy the rest of your time in Reception! I look forward popping back into school to see you all with Baby Wood.

Living and learning: dental health

This week in Living and Learning we learnt all about our teeth and how to keep them healthy. First of all we discussed what are some of the things we need to do to keep our teeth healthy, including visiting the dentist and brushing them twice a day.

Then we talked about what types of food are best for our teeth and which foods damage our teeth. We were really good at telling the difference between the two.

Finally, we talked about how to brush our teeth properly. We discussed the different stages and then had a practise on some big teeth! I love this song to help children remember how to brush their teeth!

Help at home by talking to your child about their dental health and how to brush their teeth properly.

Living and Learning – health and prevention

Year 3 have been learning about how we can keep our bodies healthy. For example, we have learnt about what germs are and how to prevent spreading them.

We started off the lesson by talking about the different types of germs there are; bacteria, viruses and fungi. These can be all around us and some are helpful and some are harmful.

The children then discussed how quickly and easily germs can spread. Wetalked about the need to wash our hands to help prevent this spread. We could use soap or hand sanitiser and to make sure we’ve washed them thoroughly enough, you could sing happy birthday twice while you do it!

Help at home: Discuss other ways we can stop germs from spreading.

Science: plants

This half term in science we are being biologists. We are looking at plants and their different parts. Today, we learnt about the difference between wild flowers and garden flowers. We came up with an amazing list of all the flowers that we knew! Some flowers were difficult to say whether they were wild or garden flowers because lots of people plant flowers they see in the wild in their garden!

After that, we went outside to see what flowers we could see in The Green. We had use great observations skills when identifying the different plants.

Help at home by looking out for different flowers in the park or your own garden. Can you identify them? Are they wild or garden plants?

We are geographers!

This half term, we are geographers.

In our previous Geography unit this year, we were learning about the U.K. This half term, we are expanding our horizons in our explorers unit.

We have been learning about different climate zones and the capital cities of some European countries (which I must admit after all our practise playing Globle, we are very good at!)

Our geography topic will continue to look at flooding, flood defences and learning about the two cities of York and Venice.

Here is the vocabulary for this half term:

Help at home by asking your child what climate zones are!

Term 3.1 spellings

This half-term, our spellings are linked to the rules and strategies we’ll be learning in class:

• alternative graphemes: sh (ch, ss, ti, s)
• alternative graphemes: k (ch)
• adding prefixes: mis, re
• adding prefixes: sub, tele, auto
• spelling patterns: gn, kn
• homophones: piece / peace, main / mane, fair / fare

Each Friday, you’ll be tested on 8 of the words from the list below.

Living & Learning: Health and Prevention

Year 5 have been learning about germs and how to prevent spreading them.

We started off the lesson by taking part in a quiz. Did you know that the kitchen is normally the most germiest room in the house? And, there are 100,000 microbes in a sneeze?

The children then discussed cross contamination and how quickly germs can spread. We talked about the need to wash our hands to help prevent this spread. We could use soap or hand sanitiser.

Help at home: Discuss other ways we can stop germs from spreading.

Summer term after-school clubs

Super swimmers

UPDATE 26.04.24

Our team have qualified for the Nationals. What a great achievement – well done to all the children.

Our Year 5/6 swimming team competed in the English Schools’ Swimming Association North East Primary Schools’ Team Championship at the Grammar School at Leeds. A special thank you goes to one team member who joined the team late on.

All the children performed brilliantly throughout the afternoon competing against schools from Yorkshire. We are proud to announce the team came away with two silver medals in the freestyle (missing out on 1st place by just 1.2 second) and mixed stroke races.

Here are part of the team celebrating their success.

Following the team races, there was chance for the children to compete in individual races. In their breaststroke, backstroke and freestyle heats, the children came away with four 1sts, two 2nds, one 3rd and one 4th place.

The children were a credit to the school – supporting each other and giving 100% in every single race to get some great results.

A huge well done to the whole team.

Science – How does the distance between the object and light source affect the shadow created?

Enquiry question: How does the distance between the object and light source affect the shadow created?

Scientific enquiry type (how we are being scientists): I can set up a fair test.

Predictions: What do you think? Have a go at home!

I predict the shadow will become ______ when we move the light source closer.

I predict the shadow will become ______ when we move the light source further away.

What will we need to answer our question?

• torches
• opaque object
• pencil
• ruler

What will we measure?

We will measure the width of the shadow.

What will we change?

The distance between the object and the light source.

What will we keep the same?

The distance between the object and wall.

Here’s our fair test. We drew around each shadow with a pencil and then measured the width with a ruler.

Our findings:

Conclusion: The larger the distance from the light source to the object, the smaller the shadow became