Watch us while we work
Thank you to those parents who were able to join us for our watch us while we work session this week. It was lovely to see so many.
Here’s a summary of what we covered and how we are encouraging the children to become more responsible for their learning at home.
Spellings – use the spelling guide for ideas to help with learning weekly spellings.
Daily reading – we thought about some of the reading skills the children are learning in Year 2 (fluency, prosody (using expression in their voices), retrieval, interpret and learning new vocabulary). Reading needs to happen daily to build up these skills. A brief note in their reading record books is needed after reading at home. We will continue to monitor the use of e-books at home. Please alert us to any access issues.
Maths – our number tennis games included counting in 2s, 5s and 10s and number bonds to 10 and 20. Play these when you’re in the car, walking to school or making breakfast. Hit the Button is a great online game to build up the recall of these facts.
Numbots certificates are awarded every Tuesday and it’s great to see children already achieving their next levels in Year 2.
Finally, here’s the help at home section of the website.
Please get in touch if you need any further support with your child’s learning at home.
Living and Learning: protected characteristics
In living and learning this week, Y6 learnt about discrimination, examples of it and its impact on the people around us.
Discrimination is the unfair treatment of people because of who they are or because they have a certain characteristic or characteristics.
Certain characteristics are protected by law and these are:
- age
- being married or in a civil partnership
- being pregnant or on maternity leave
- disability
- gender reassignment
- race
- religion or beliefs
- sex
- sexual orientation
We had lots of discussion about how those involved would feel and what could be done about it. Help at home by asking your child what they thought to these scenarios.
Challenge your child to name all of the protected characteristics without looking, if they can!
Watch Us While We Work
Thank you to all the adults who came to Watch Us While We Work this morning; it was lovely to see you all in our classroom. If you were unable to make it, continue to read to find out what we got up to.
To start, we looked at different strategies to help us learn our spellings. As you know, we have 40 spellings to learn by the end of the half term and therefore, finding fun ways to learn them is essential.
Here are a few we completed in class today:
We then moved on to practise our times tables, using our counting stick and dry wipe times table worksheets. To end the session, we read this week’s reading fluency text (I wandered lonely as a cloud by William Wordsworth) with a focus on our oracy targets.
We hope to see you next time!
Science: An air-resistance experiment
For the past three science lessons, Year 5 have been planning, undertaking and evaluating a science experiment all about air resistance. Our enquiry type was ‘Comparative and Fair Tests’. The question we were answering was: ‘Will the surface area of a parachute affect the time it takes to fall to the ground?’ The children decided on their variables, made a prediction and then were able to create the parachutes they needed.
Once they were created, the children then went out to test their parachutes and conduct the experiment.
Once we had the results, we were able to look for any anomalous results (a result that does not fit the pattern; in Maths, this is called an outlier). We also looked at the mathematical element of this science lesson as Year 5 could then calculate the average times for the tests.
To present their findings, they created bar charts using the calculated average times. These charts helped to show how the surface area clearly impacted the fall time.
Finally, the children were able to conclude their results. They found out that the bigger parachute had a larger surface area and therefore, there was more air resistance so it was the slowest.
We are biologists!
In science, we are biologists.
We have been learning about living things and their habitats.
On Friday, we ventured into our school grounds to investigate what flowering and non-flowering plants we could find.
Help at home by asking your child what a flowering/non-flowering plant is.
Greater than, less than and equal to!
Year 3 have been comparing numbers! We began by comparing 1 digit and 2 digit numbers using the <, > and = symbols.
Once we felt confident with this, we moved onto comparing 3 digit numbers! It can be slightly trickier when the numbers are larger so here is a few ways to help:
364 ___ 362
- Begin comparing the largest value column. This is the hundreds column!
- If these are the same value, such as 3 hundreds, then move onto the next column.
- Compare the value of your tens column. If these are the same, then… you guessed it! Move onto the ones column.
- The ones value is greater in 364 than 362.
364 > 362
“364 is greater than 362.”
“362 is less than 364.”
Help at home by comparing amounts of objects at home. For example, “6 apples is less than 30 grapes.”
Reading Records
At Moortown, reading records help us to celebrate our love for reading. As a reminder, here is the key information you and your child need to know:
- Each time one of the children signs out a new book to read from the library, they can make note of these in their reading record and rate them out of 5 stars.
- Every Friday, I chose an activity for the whole class to complete in their reading record. More information on these activities is found inside the record.
- The children bring in these reading records every Friday for our Book Club lesson where we’ll discuss their books and develop their love of reading.
- Please accompany your child’s weekly activity with a short comment sharing with us the reading your child has been doing at home.
Take a look at some fabulous activities Year 5 have completed last week:
Autumn 1: Week 4
Literacy
This week, we’ve been reading The Everywhere Bear by Julia Donaldson. We drew our own story maps of the Bear’s journey.
Yesterday, we took some bears on a journey around school. We followed a simple map to find all the classrooms. We even found Mrs Weekes office!
Help at home: Practise writing your name. You could use the name card in your book bag.
Maths
This week, we focussed on the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are. We explored how all sorts of things can be counted, including sounds. We practised our 1:1 correspondence, by moving, tagging and using counting sticks when counting larger objects .
Help at home: Count everything! Practise counting your toys at tidy up time. When going up the stairs, count them. Count the knives and forks when setting the table. On your way to school, count how many buses you see.
Library
On Monday, we visited our school library. We had a fantastic time looking at books with our friends. In a couple of weeks, your child will bring their first library book home. Please make sure your child returns their library book every Monday so they can choose another exciting story.
Poetry picnic
Click here to watch this week’s poem.
Chilli challenges
This week, we’ve introduced the chilli challenges. Each week, there will be six chilli challenges in different areas. The children will be encouraged to complete the challenges and tick them off on their chilli challenge card (see below). When your child completes a challenge, they will explain or show what they’ve done and an adult will tick the challenge off on their card.
Here’s some of the chilli challenges in action…
Drawing pirate maps.
Playing a subitising game.
Counting objects using 1:1 correspondence.
Using tweezers to pick up conkers.
Drawing our own maps.
Reminders
- Phase 2 phonics Stay & Learn and coffee morning – Thursday 12 October
- Please email any ‘WOW’ moments or new interests at home. We love receiving and sharing photos in school.
moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org - Please make sure your child reads their e-book daily alongside love of reading books.
LOST! VANISHED! DISAPPEARED!
This week there was a mystery in Year One. The school bell that Mr McGriffiths uses in the morning had disappeared! The children were very keen to find it and bring it back. After reading the book Hermelin: the dectective mouse (watch the story here), we came up with the idea of creating a LOST poster. You can see our marvellous efforts below. If you do see the bell anywhere, please contact Mr McGriffiths!
Help at home by discussing where your child thinks the bell has gone and what has happened to it!
Times Tables Rockstars
Each week, the TTRS leader board is updated in class. First place receives a prize, second place receives 5 golden tickets, third place 4 golden tickets and so on. Well done to this week’s Times Tables Rockstars!
Just a quick reminder, that each day, your children should be practising their times tables for 10 minutes. The deadline for this homework is Friday. If your child does not have access to TTRS, please bring in paper copies of their times table practice – with their completed reading record – to school on Friday.
Please see the homework guide for more information.
