Living and Learning: Health and Prevention
Today’s Living and Learning lesson was all about germs! (More specifically, preventing the spread of them!)
Have a go at the quiz we did in class.
What’s the science behind sneezing?
How can we stop germs from spreading?
We carried out an experiment where just four people in the class had green paint on their hand. They high fived other people and those people did the same. It didn’t take long at all before we were all covered in ‘germs’.
It really, really highlighted the need for handwashing. Seeing the green spreading from such a small starting point was shocking!
Help at home by discussing when it’s needed to wash hands and how long for! How else can we prevent germs from spreading?
Spring 2: Week 6
I can’t believe we’re at the end of our second term in Reception! The children have made tremendous progress in all areas of the Early Years curriculum.
Summer 1
Next half-term, we will be learning about bugs and going on lots of bug hunts for bugs. We will learning about the life cycle of a butterfly and hopefully set some butterflies free! We will use hand drills to build a bug hotel for our outdoor area.
Linked to Geography, we will find out where our favourite animals come from. We will locate countries on a map, look at different environments, and compare them to the UK.
As artists, we will mix colours to create camouflage patterns. We will also create landscapes for various animals using our small world resources in the classroom, and create scenarios and storylines for our play.
Poetry picnic
This week’s poem was called The Tiny Seed. Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about what plants need to grow. Can your child remember what plants need?
Reminders and upcoming dates
- Don’t forget to keep reading your Collins eBooks over the holidays.
- Monday 06 May – Bank holiday
- Monday 24 May – Training day: school closed
As always, I hope you all have a happy and healthy half-term break. Don’t forget to email me any pictures of what you get up to in the holidays. moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org
I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday 15 April.
Living and Learning: Solving problems
This term in Living and Learning we have been focussed on mental wellbeing. We have discussed different emotions and how they make us feel and act. We have also talked about friends and family as well as being positive with ourselves and others.
One lesson we particularly enjoyed was all about solving problems. First we watched a video where some animals were not showing good teamwork whilst crossing a bridge. Then, we came up with our own ideas for what you have to do to work well in a team.
After that, we put our learning into practice. We created our own narrow bridge outside and two teams had to cross it at the same time. The children were very inventive with their ideas and learnt that they had to listen and talk in order to solve the problem. Well done Year 1!
Help at home by talking to your child about how they can work as a team to solve problems.
We are authors!
Year 1 have been working really hard on writing a story inspired by the book ‘We’re going to find a monster!’ by Malorie Blackman. They came up with their own places to visits and decided what creatures they would find when they got there. Everyone in Year 1 has been really impressed with the language, effort and concentration the children have shown!
Today we got the chance to publish our work in our very own book! We wrote a title and a blurb as well as drew the pictures. Everybody was really focussed and produced some brilliant work.
Help at home by getting your child to share their book with you! Maybe they could even write a sequel!
We are computer programmers!
In computing, we have been learning about sequencing, repetition and decomposition.
Sequencing is where we have to arrange instructions in a particular order for program to run successfully.
Repetition is where we repeat the execution of certain instructions to make our algorithm simpler.
Decomposition is the process of breaking a task down into manageable chunks in order to be successful.
Today, Year 4 applied all their learning and created their own ‘Crossy Road’ games on Scratch Jr.
Help at home by encouraging your child to go on Scratch Jr and show you what they have learnt this half term!
Computer programmers
This half term, Year 2 have enjoyed being computer programmers.
Throughout the computing topic, we have been using the following vocabulary.
First of all, our learning was based offline. We used lots of directional vocabulary to create algorithms to move a sprite.
Then, we looked at some algorithms that didn’t work. Debugging is the term for finding and fixing bugs in an algorithm.
After that, we moved onto online programming using the Beebot robots. The Beebots need precise commands to work.
Finally, we created our own games using the Beebots and we tested out our programs. The children worked well in their groups especially when some debugging was needed.
Thank you to the parents who came into class recently for our topic review. We hoped you enjoyed seeing this learning in action.
Help at home: we have also thought about lots of different algorithms in real life. Discuss the need for clear instructions when you are doing things at home.
Skipping festival 2024
Year 4 had a great morning out at the skipping festival last week!
The whole class worked so well as a team showing great support for everyone.
We won lots of awards including a few gold medals!
Well done to the whole of Year 4 for representing Moortown so well!
Moortown Netballers
Some of the netballers from our after-school club took part in the Leeds Well School Partnership Bee Netball competition at Allerton High this week.
This was their first team event and we were very proud of their performance and team work. Thank you to parents for supporting and for helping with transport.
The Tuesday after-school netball club will be restarting in the summer term for those children who would like to come and join.
Netball activities are also available over Easter from Leeds Rhinos Netball.
Big Walk and Wheel final position
After the two week Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel walking, scooting and cycling challenge, we now have the final results.
In our category of small primary schools, we finished in 20th place out of 459 schools with an average of 89.81% active journeys to school. We achieved the highest national (20th) and Northern England (3rd) ranking out of those schools in Leeds taking part.
With a total of 1655 active journeys across the two weeks, this is a great achievement and we want to thank families for supporting this challenge.
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.
Living and Learning: seeing change positively
This week, our Living and Learning lesson focused on coping with change.
We talked about different changes someone may face in their life and focused on one story in particular of ‘The New Kid’.
Help at home by analysing feelings on a deeper level. The boy in the video wasn’t just ‘sad’. He felt lonely, isolated, scared and alone. Sometimes it can help to have a more accurate description of how you’re feeling so you can even better work out how to make it better and cope.
We also discussed how feelings change depending on our environment and the things happening to us. Importantly, we also decided what could be done about these feelings.
Remember – change is a positive thing! It means you’re growing and developing as a person. When you’ve the right strategies, change can be a powerful and exciting thing.
Finally, we gave strategies and advice for anyone coping with – or struggling with – change.
