Summer 2: Week 1
This week, we’ve started exploring The Night Pirates by Peter Harris. Using our story map, we’ve enjoyed retelling the story with actions and expression. We’ve heard some fantastic pirate impressions!
The story has inspired lots of learning across our provision. We’ve been building pirate ships in the construction area, creating pirate adventures, collecting treasure at the finger gym table and reading lost tricky word keys.
On Tuesday, we thought about what type of pirate we would be and what we might look like. Check out our amazing pirate pictures.
We’re looking forward to continuing our pirate adventure next week.
Maths
This week, we introduced the children to Rekenreks. We continued to develop our subitising skills by using our “fast eyes” to quickly identify the number of beads shown. Rekenreks help children explore the structure of small numbers and build confidence in recognising quantities without counting.
We learnt that all of the beads should start on the right-hand side. This is known as the ‘ready position’. The children practised using the ‘pause (think), place (one finger), push (the beads)’ method. We always make sure we’re only using one finger when carefully pushing the beads.
Phonics
Now that we’ve reached the final half-term, we’ll be revisiting and consolidating all of our phonics learning in preparation for Year 1. Please keep your red phonics books at home and continue to use them regularly.
Important dates
- Learning Journey drop-ins – Monday 15th & Tuesday 16th June at 3.15pm
- Our class assembly – Wednesday 17th June at 2.40pm
- Class photo day – Thursday 18th June
- School trip – Friday 19th June
- Zoom: Reception to Year 1 information meeting – Monday 22nd June at 6pm
- Sports Day – Tuesday 30th June at 1.30pm
What have we learnt in Geography?
This week, we finished our Geography topic – explorers. As a chance for your children to show off all they’ve learnt throughout this topic, they created a poster filled with their knowledge. I was so impressed with these – it’s clear they’ve loved this topic!
Help at home: ask your child their top three facts they’ve learnt in this topic.
Residential Day 2
Day 2 at Robinwood has been even bigger and better. The children have displayed brilliant teamwork, resilience and determination. The have pushed themselves out of their comfort zones and achieved things they didn’t think they could do.
It has been another unforgettable day full of adventure, laughter and memories. The children have been amazing from start to finish and are now thoroughly tired after all the excitement. We have a feeling tonight’s sleep will be very well deserved! It will be very sad to leave tomorrow but they are all very excited to see their adults and having a full night’s sleep in their own bed!
Geography Explorers – What have we learnt?
Here are a handful of amazing outcomes from what we’ve learnt across our Geography topic! Help at home by playing the ‘Urm’ challenge where you have to talk about Venice and/or York for as long as possible without saying ‘urm’.
Our next topic will be Design and Technology.
Maths – Counting in 2s, 5s and 10s
Today in Maths, our wonderful Year 1s have been learning how to count in 2s, 5s and 10s. They worked really hard on this and even managed to count to 100 in all 3! They then took part in an activity where they had to write down the missing number between two others while counting in either 2s, 5s or 10s.
Well done Year 1 on another brilliant week (with Friday to come). Next week is the phonics screening check, carry on practising your brilliant reading at home.
Residential Day 1
Year 6 have had an absolutely brilliant first day. We have completed many different challenges and taken some safe risks!
Stay tuned for more photos tomorrow!
Year 2 skipping festival Thursday 11 June
Next week, we will be taking part in our skipping festival against other Year 2 classes.
All the children know their individual or group skill and we will be practising in our PE lessons before next week.
As we will be leaving straight after registration, the classroom will be open from 8:30am. Your child needs to come in their PE kit and have a packed lunch and water bottle.
If your child would like to buy a skipping rope to practise these skills at home, they are available in class for a subsidised cost of £3 per rope. We are subsidising the cost with the PE and Sport Premium as a way to encourage physical activity out of school.
Design and Technology – Textiles
This half term, our topic is DT – Textiles. We’ve revisited the design process and remembered that it’s a continuous cycle that designers use to improve their work until they are happy with the final product.
We have also been exploring our new vocabulary for this topic.
The children were very excited to discover that they will be sewing their own hand puppets! In our first practical lesson, we practised using a needle and thread to create an over stitch. We also talked about how to use a needle safely, as they can be sharp and how to handle equipment carefully.
Help at home: Practise sewing using an over stitch, you could also practise threading a needle and tying a knot.
Writing: revolting instructions
We’re starting our final half-term in Year 4 by writing instructions. We’ll be writing our own set of instructions on how to make a revolting salad and dressing.
purpose: to tell the reader how to do something
audience: an 8 year old cooking for their family at home
A set of instructions should be clear, easy to follow but with enough detail that you know exactly what you’re doing. Therefore, we began the week by reading an example of a good set of instructions and discussed its features. We’ll be using these when writing our own instructions in a couple of weeks.
- present tense
- imperative ‘bossy’ verbs (e.g. cut, slice, boil, mix, combine)
- adverbs (e.g. carefully, softly, gently)
- step-by-step order
- time connectives (e.g. first, after, then, meanwhile)
- list of equipment
Help at home: ask your child to write you a simple set of instructions for how to make a jam sandwich. Remember to use the R2s!
Writing – instruction
Instructions tell the reader how to do something.
Year 3 will be writing a set of instructions for a revolting salad recipe. We’ll be inspired by our food technology session where we’ll make a tasty salad. Then we can add in our own ideas like snozzcumbers and eyeballs!
Our R2s for our instructions are:
We’ve then explored different recipes to help us spot those R2s.
Help at home by finding and reading another set of instructions. It could be for a toy set, recipe or how to cross the road (Green Cross Code).