Living and Learning
This week, our Living and Learning statement is: “I use what I’ve learnt in living and learning.”
We’ve covered such a wide range of topics so far and they are all used heavily in our daily lives like respect, understanding differences and equality, or using the eight Rs for learning.
Y6 had a go at showing their learning in the form of a poster. Take a look at their fantastic examples below.
Help at home by discussing what situations in real life require the skills we learn in Living and Learning.
We are geographers!
This week in geography, we conducted some fieldwork!
We measured trees in Moortown Park in order to find out how much carbon is stored in them.
Help at home by discussing why it’s so important for the environment that trees are planted.
Next, we will plot this data into a graph and use one of our geography words – interpolation! Challenge your child to explain this word.
Writing: Eye of the storm
Year 5 have been planning a narrative about the Eye of the Storm. They have been identifying and creating expanded noun phrases and figurative language.
Here are some of our figurative language creations:
- The ancient house screamed at the incoming airship.
- Towering trees shivered in the breeze.
- The colossal aircraft creaked unsteadily.
- The airship was as golden as the roaring amber flames.
- Tall, towering trees watched over the world.
- The blimp crashed through the building like a meteorite eating everything in its path.
To help understand the video more, we then went on to sequence the video.
This week Year 5 will be writing their narratives.
Help at home: Watch the video and discuss how you would describe the main character, the dragon and the airship.
Reading: Phonics
Today your child will have brought home a pack of sounds as well as tricky words. There is a letter explaining how to use these to help your child with their phonics learning.
After half-term, the children will start learning more and more alternative ways to write the sounds they know (for example, ie making the /igh/ sound). Each week we will send home the new graphemes for you to practise as well as any new tricky words we have learnt.
Have a look at the games you can play with the flashcards we have sent home here. For more information about Little Wandle phonics and videos of how to say some the sounds, look here.
A quick reminder as well that reading records should be brought in on a Thursday and library books should be brought in on a Friday.
Thanks a lot for your support. I look forward to seeing you at parent’s evening and the class assembly next week.
Mr McGriffiths
Geography: fieldwork
This week in Geography we have been conducting fieldwork in our school grounds. We were investigating what type of trees we had on the Green. We found lots of fallen leaves and collected them up. When we were back in the classroom we tried to identify which trees the leaves had come from.
Help at home by talking to your child about different trees, the seasonal changes in Autumn and maybe go out on a tree hunt yourself.
Autumn 1: Week 7
This week, we’ve been reading Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert. We looked closely at the illustrations and talked about autumn changes.
What happens in autumn?
It gets cold.
Leaves fall off the trees and they turn different colours.
Halloween happens in autumn.
Leaves are orange, red, yellow and brown.
The wind starts to blow.
Throughout the week, we’ve been drawing story maps, making leaf people and creating some leaf rubbings using autumn colours. Yesterday, we talked about hibernation and why some animals start to hibernate in October and November.
Help at home: Ask your child if they can remember some of the facts we’ve learnt this week.
Hedgehogs
This week, we had lots of fun making hedgehogs and taking photos of them on the iPad.
Maths
This week, we used the language of ‘more than’ and ‘fewer than’ to describe how many objects there are on each set. ‘Fewer than’ is used rather than ‘less than’ because the focus is on countable things.
Help at home: Gary and Barney are still arguing! Can you help them decide who has more and who has fewer?
Use the stem sentence: … has more/fewer _____ than …
What do you notice in this photo?
Phonics
This week and next week we’re recapping all of the phonemes we’ve learnt so far. They’ll be no phonics home learning sheets. Please continue to use all the sheets at home.
Poetry Picnic
Click here to watch this week’s poem.
Here are some more highlights from this week…
Snacks and water
Please make sure your child’s water bottle only contains plain water.
Every day, school will provide a healthy fruit or vegetable. If your child would prefer to bring their own snack, please ensure this contains only fruit and/or vegetables. Snacks from home will stay in the children’s bookbags.
If your child is having grapes for their snack, please ensure that the grapes are cut lengthways.
Reminders
Parent-teacher meetings (Zoom) – Tuesday 24 & Thursday 26 October
Training day – Friday 27 October
Back to school – Monday 06 November
Democracy
Today, Year 2 did a fantastic job delivering their speeches to be elected for the Junior Leadership Team (JLT). The children prepared some wonderful speeches with brilliant ideas. Every child had their democratic vote by deciding who they’d like to see represent our class in the JLT.
Well done to Isla and Henna for being voted as our new members of the JLT.
Science: Space
Year 5 have now started their second science topic: Space! This week, we have learnt about our Solar System.
Here are some key facts we learnt:
- The Solar System is made up of the Sun, celestial bodies, eight planets and their moons.
- The Sun, Earth, Moon and other planets are approximately spherical bodies.
- The Sun is a star which releases heat and light and is at the centre of the Solar System.
- All of the planets in our Solar System orbit the Sun.
- The first four planets have solid surfaces whilst the last four planets have gas surfaces.
• Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars all have solid surfaces.
• Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune have gas surfaces. - Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet.
Then, we carried out research using secondary sources (a form of scientific enquiry). We used this information to create posters about the order of the planets and wrote down more key facts about each one.
Finally, we made mnemonics to remember the order in which the planets orbit the sun.
Help at home: Come up with a new mnemonic to remember the order of our solar system. Here is an example:
Mercury My
Venus Very
Earth Epic
Mars Marvellous
Jupiter Jumper
Saturn Suits
Uranus Unique
Neptune Neil
Or why not watch the ‘we are planets’ song.
Geography – I can investigate land-use in my locality. Part 2!
Last week, during Geography, we planned a walk in our locality so that we could investigate what the land is used for. This week, we walked the walked!
Here are the types of land-use we saw:
- residential – flats and houses
- commercial – shops and restaurants
- recreational – Moortown Park
- transport – roads
We really enjoyed getting our steps in while being geographers! We stayed safe by wearing high-visibility jackets, walking in pairs and taking care when crossing the roads.
Yorkshire Dance School Trip!
Yesterday, Year 3 went on their trip to Carriageworks Theatre to join Yorkshire Dance School in a day full of great activities!
Our first task of the day was to rehearse our performance on stage with lighting and music. The children were a bit nervous after seeing how many seats there were in the audience but they did a fantastic job!
Then, we had a talk from Northern School of Contemporary Dance and Phoenix Dance about a career in dance. They spoke about dancing at all different stages of life and how inclusive dance is! They also discussed how dance can be just a hobbie as well. Both these schools run clubs during the holidays, after school and in schools!
Before lunch, the children experienced an amazing workshop where they learnt and performed Afro dance which originates from Africa and countries like Nigeria! The children got stuck in and created a choreographed dance from their six moves.
Finally, the day ended with our final performance! We performed a dance to the song, Believer by the Imagine Dragons. We chose this as we thought it linked well to the theme of ‘dreaming’ – that we can dream to achieve great things and if we believe in ourselves then we will achieve them. Year 3 were the youngest there and they had the whole audience cheering and clapping along so a big well done to all of them! Our hard work paid off!
