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?
Guided Reading Week 2
Here are the target pages for this week’s guided reading. These need to be read by Friday 21st November.
Divine Freaks: up to page 95
Spirit Walker: up to page 102
How to Train your Dragon: up to page 103
The Considine Curse: up to page 78
The Switch: up to page 99
Guided Reading Week 2
Here are the target pages for this week’s guided reading. These need to be read by Friday 21st November.
The Girl of Ink and Stars – up to page 83 (Chapter 10)
Kensuke’s Kingdom – up to page 85 (Chapter 6)
Extra time – up to page 80 (Chapter 18)
Flood and Fang – up to page 99 (Chapter 7)
Rooftoppers – up to page 118 (Chapter 14)
RE drop down morning
This morning Year 5 looked back over our RE learning that we have done in KS2 so far. We first discussed what are the main world religions and when they originated. We discussed which religions were monotheistic and which are polytheistic.
Then we focussed on Christianity for the rest of the morning. We made fact files about Christianity on cubes. We found the making of the cubes a little tricky but we showed great perseverance.
Afterwards, we discussed different denominations of Christianity focussing particularly on Catholics and Protestants. We completed a RIC and was able to confidently discuss the differences.
Finally, we looked at Christian festivals, focussing on Holy Week. This is the most important week for Christians. We completed a table describing each day and which significant events happened on each day.
I was very impressed with how much information the children had retained.
Help at home by discussing different religions and what they have learnt. The BBC bitesize website has some excellent videos.
Anti-bullying day – Monday 10 November
Today was anti-bullying day. This year’s theme is ‘power for good’. Year 5 thinks that we can use our power for good by:
- not being a bystander
- standing up for ourselves
- being brave and standing up for others
- telling a trusted adult
- blocking and reporting online
We watched a BBC live lesson which had a range of challenges to help us think about how to stop bullying.
We looked at the definition of bullying which our JLT members created:
“Bullying is when you hurt someone physically or emotionally (including online), Several Times On Purpose”
Whilst we hope this would never be the case in our school, we also discussed what you can do if you were to experience bullying at Moortown Primary School:
“Start Telling Other People. You could use the Living and Learning box, the worry box, tell a trusted adult, email [email protected] or even call Childline (0800 1111).”
The school came in odd socks today to show that we are all unique but should still all respect each other.
In class we discussed how to be respectful and safe online. The children suggested making sure to send kind messages to each other and only playing with people they know. We also discussed what to do if someone is mean online; Year 5 said you could step away and ignore, you could report or block and you can tell an adult or even the police if it is a serious incident.
Help at home: Discuss with your child what to do if they witnessed bullying either in person or online.