We are game designers!
We have had a tremendous week in Year 1! On Tuesday we became game designers! We used post-it notes to create obstacles and a finishing point before we placed them on our game grid. After we had explained the game to the rest of our team they had to play it using the Beebot. One person was the writer (they had to write down the algorithm) and the other was the programmer (they had to input the algorithm into the Beebot). We all had a turn at the different roles. It was brilliant fun.
Help at home by talking to your child about their game and how they used the Beebot to play it.
Thanks as well for all the kind words and support over the past week. It has meant a lot to all the staff in school.
Spring 2: Week 5
This week, we’ve seen lots of super independent learning!
We used watercolours to do observational paintings of daffodils.
We explored printing natural objects into clay.
We looked carefully at seeds and sorted them into groups. Our word of the week was miniscule. We used this word to describe the seeds.
We’ve been observing our beans to see if they’ve changed. This morning, we noticed a shoot!
This week, we used our perceptual subitising skills (seeing the quantity without counting) to build on our understanding of equal amounts. We used dice patterns and fingers to explore doubling quantities to 10. We used this generalised statement when talking about doubles.
… is made of … and …, double … is ….
We noticed that not all numbers are made of doubles. Can your child remember why? 
Help at home: Explore making double patterns with different objects at home.
Reminder!
Don’t forget to attend one of the learning journey drop ins next week. You’ll also get to meet Miss Lowry. We look forward to talking about your child’s amazing learning.
Book Fair
Today, Y6 had the pleasure of visiting the Book Fair!
We loved browsing the shelves and reading the exciting blurbs. It was great to have more time to celebrate books.
Help at home by joining your local library! Ask your child why this is important after our discussion in class prompted by yesterday’s Newsround.
“I recommend Biggles by Captain W. E. Johns as a class novel when you’re learning about history because it’s set in the First World War. The author flew with the Royal Flying Corps!” – Theo
“I recommend Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Mehregan because she loves the author.” – Olivia
“I recommend this Find Bluey book to Sunny because I know how much he enjoys Where’s Wally!”- Saif
“I recommend Dogman: The Scarlet Shedder by Dav Pilkey to Javi because I know he loves that series!” – Evan
PE – dance!
Year 3 are exploring dance in their PE lessons and the first session was all about ‘space’. How can we use the space? How can we move across the space? How does the music change our dancing?
We danced to ‘I Got You (I Feel Good)!’ by James Brown which is an older song from 1964 so some of the children hadn’t heard it before! The tempo is quite fast and it’s very upbeat with different instruments and singing. This guided the children to move with the beat or to the trumpets.
They thought about if their movements were curved, angular or free form.
Here’s some pictures of the children creating their routines.
Help at home by dancing to the song around the house. Can you do partner work or create a routine?
Writing: A Promotional Piece
After completing some fantastic narratives that created tension and suspense, we have now started to look at creating a promotional piece of writing. The children will be trying to persuade people to buy their ‘Chatbot Game’ that they have been making in our computing topic.
The purpose of a promotional text is ‘to persuade/sell/promote a product’.
We started by looking at different promotional texts; the children highlighted and annotated them to find the R2s.
Help at home: Find the R2s in the text.
– present tense
– name of product
– slogan
– subheadings
– persuasive language
– figurative language (e.g. alliteration, hyperbole)
– rhetorical questions
– customer review (e.g. direct quotes)
– special offer
– repetition (e.g. rule of three)
Reading Records
This term, some fantastic pieces of homework have been brought in. Have a look at these amazing examples of reading records.
How creative can your next reading record be?
Help at home: Read daily with your child and sign their reading record each week.
Debate team winners!
Last week, three Year 6 students went to Wigton Moor to represent Moortown at a debating competition. The group argued for the abolition of zoos. Each member had 2 minutes to talk and present their reasons. They did amazingly well and won their debate. Congratulations!
Big walk and wheel update
We’ve had a great start to the Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel walking, scooting and cycling challenge this week.
After the first five days, we are currently in 19th place (out of 549 schools) in the small primary category with an average of 84.76% of our journeys to school being active. This is a great achievement and we want to thank families for supporting this challenge.
To keep up with the leader board for the rest of the challenge, it can be viewed here.
The Big Walk and Wheel challenge continues until Friday 22nd March so we look forward to seeing our progress over the upcoming week.
Help at home: By walking, cycling and scooting to school, you are helping us make a positive change to the school run. With less cars close to the school gates, this is a safer and healthier way to start the day.
Spring 2: Week 4
Literacy
This week, we’ve been reading the traditional tale Jack and the Beanstalk. We planted our own beans and talked about what a bean needs in order to grow. After planting our beans, we wrote a set of instructions about how to plant a bean.
Yesterday, we introduced the children to life cycles and talked about what a life cycle is.
What is a life cycle?
EB – small to big
BT – Something is a baby then turns into an adult.
RN – Baby chicks grow into a mummy and daddy.
SW – When babies are small they keep growing.
AG – Bugs start off as an egg and they get bigger and bigger.
RZ – They grow and grow and grow!
We watched a video about the life cycle of a bean and talked about the 4 stages.
Help at home: Can your child remember the life cycle of a bean?
Maths
This week, we consolidated our understanding of the composition of numbers by investigating the numbers within 7. We investigated the whole number using the part–part–whole model, e.g. 5 is a part. 2 is a part. 7 is the whole. We used cubes to show that 7 can be made by combining parts in different ways. We also played a game called Missing parts. Mrs Wood hid some cubes (a part) behind her back and we had to think about the missing part. This is something called partitioning (splitting the whole it into parts).
Help at home: Practise partitioning numbers up to 7 into two parts. You could use your toys, fruit or pencils.
Phonics
This week, we continued to read and write longer words including words ending in -ing.
Help at home: Practise writing these words: looking, marching, farming, waiting, morning, winking, singing. Don’t forget to use your phoneme fingers to segment!
What else have we been up to?
This week, our chilli challenges were linked to our focus story.
Poetry Picnic
Click here to watch this week’s poem.
Finally…
Thank you to all the parents/carers who came to watch our class assembly on Wednesday. We were blown away by how many of you turned up! We hope you enjoyed it.
REMINDER!
- Learning journey drop ins – Tuesday 26th & Thursday 28th March
9-9.30 & 3.15-3.45
Please return your sign up slip by Friday 22nd March.
Guided Reading Week 4
Here are the target pages for this week’s guided reading. These need to be read by Friday 22nd March:
Divine Freaks: up to chapter 17/page 162.
Street Child: end of book.
How To Train Your Dragon: end of book.
The Considine Curse: up to chapter 19/page 167.
Extra Time: up to chapter 34/page 159.
The London Mystery Eye: up to chapter 34/page 259.