Autumn 1: Week 8
In Literacy, we’ve been reading Potion Commotion by Peter Bentley. The book is about a little witch called Betty. She ends up making a big mess when putting just about everything into her cauldron to make a potion. Betty’s potion grows and grows and spreads all over the town!
Help at home: Talk to your child about the story and see if they can remember what happened at the end.
After reading the story, we thought about what we would put in a magic potion. We drew pictures and labelled our list of ingredients.
Yesterday, we decided to be scientists and make our very own hubble and bubble potion.
Before doing the experiment, we made sensible predictions.
I think it will bubble.
I think it will fizz.
I think it will hit the ceiling!
I think it will overflow.
Click here to watch our bubbling potion.
Maths
This week, we introduced simple addition and subtraction number stories.
For example,
First there were three spiders on the web.
Then, one more spider joined them.
Now, there are four spiders altogether.
Help at home: Collect up to five of your favourite toys. Use these toys to create addition and subtraction stories. Don’t forget to use the words ‘first’, ‘then’ and ‘now’ and your fingers!
What else have we been up to?
The potion chilli challenge was very popular this week!
It’s important children spend lots of time doing fine motor activities to develop their finger muscles ready for writing.
Help at home: Practise your cutting skills.
We’ve been recognising numerals and practising our counting skills at the maths bench.
One-to-one correspondence focuses on the actual counting of objects, and assigning numbers to objects in the correct order, as they are counted. This also helps children to understand that the numbers they are saying hold value.
Creating more potions in the water tray!
Reminders
- Marvellous Maths stay and learn session – Wednesday 15 November
- Please email any ‘WOW’ moments or new interests at home. We love receiving and sharing photos in school.
moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org - Please continue to read your child’s e-book daily alongside love of reading books.
Have a wonderful half-term break! I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday 06 November.
We are readers!
This half term, teachers have been keeping an eye out for children impressing them with their reading.
In KS2, teachers were looking out for Reading Records where the weekly activity had been completed with time and care, book reviews had been done or challenges ticked off!
In KS1, teachers were looking for children who were putting the most effort into learning to read fluently.
Well done to our winners for this half term and welcome to the Library Team! They’ll meet with Miss Wilson occasionally to share their ideas and help make decisions about our library.
Take a look at some of their fantastic efforts:
Did you know?
Those who read for pleasure…
- Know more words
- Are better writers
- Have more empathy
- Have better general knowledge
- Have a better understanding of other cultures
- Are better at making decisions
- Do better in school generally!
Keep up the fantastic reading, everyone. There were so many people to choose from and you never know – it could be you next time!
Observation over time
Last week, Year 4 ventured into our school grounds to gather our first round of data for our observation over time.
We are observing how the living things in our school grounds change over the course of the school year.
We are going to collect further data in the spring and summer term and then draw conclusions from our results.
Watch this space!
Help at home by asking your child what they observed in our school grounds.
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.
