Spring 2: Week 1
Welcome back! I hope you all had a wonderful half-term break. Thank you to those who have emailed some pictures. If you’ve not sent any, please do send them to moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org. Sharing photos from home helps to develop your child’s communication and language skills.
This week, we’ve been reading The Train Ride by June Crebbin. We pretended we were looking out the window on a train. We used our imaginations to think about what we might see.
Yesterday, we learnt about the first locomotive. We used this website to find out lots of information about Robert Stephenson’s Rocket. We looked at different train pictures from the past and present. After talking about what’s the same and what’s different, we had a go at putting them in order from the oldest to the newest.
Help at home: Look at the website again with your child at home. Talk to your child about Stephenson’s Rocket.
Tricky word password
This week, we’ve introduced our new tricky word password. When the children come in and out of the classroom, they have to read the tricky word on the door. We will change the tricky word daily to help children remember the tricky words.
Help at home: Continue to practise reading and writing the phase 2 and 3 tricky words.
Maths
This week, we further developed our comparison skills by looking at different sets. We encouraged the children to focus exclusively on the numerosity of sets, without being diverted by colour, shape or size. We reinforced the language of ‘more than’, ‘fewer than’ and ‘an equal number’ when describing how many objects were in each set. ‘Fewer than’ was used rather than ‘less than’, as the focus was on countable things.
Help at home: Which hand has more pom-poms? Which hand has fewer pom-poms? How do you know?
Poetry Picnic
Click here to watch this week’s poem. We had lots of fun mixing, pouring, frying and tossing pancakes.
We’ve got some exciting events coming up in March!
Monday 04 March – Whole school theatre performance
You should have received a message about this.
Tuesday 05 March – Our first school trip to the National Railway Museum
We are very excited about this!
Thursday 07 March – World Book Day stay and learn session – 9-10am
Come and read a story or two with your child.
Wednesday 13 March – Our class assembly – 2.40pm
Skipping school
This week, Year 2 had a great skipping afternoon with Katie from Skipping School and the children showed great perseverance and resilience during the session.
We learnt all the Year 2 skipping individual and group skills that we’ll be performing at the Year 2 skipping festival in June. More details to follow.
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.
Cross country star
Congratulations to our Year 3 runner who represented Leeds today in the West Yorkshire cross country final. Competing against pupils from Calderdale, Bradford, Wakefield, Kirklees and Leeds, he ran a fantastic race at Temple Newsam and should feel very proud of achieving a top 15 finish.
Group reading!
Hello!
This week, Year 3 are beginning their second round of group reading!
The class have been divided into groups and each group has been given a book to read at home. This will last for this half term.
During our Book Club sessions each Friday, each group will discuss what they have read so far and share their reading record activities related to their book. This will be a fantastic opportunity for the children to explore characters and storylines more than they might do normally!
Every Friday during Book Club, each group will be given a new page to read to for the next Friday.
What to remember:
- Your child has a book that they need to read every week (up to a chosen point marked with a post-it notes).
- The reading record activity needs to be completed using their new book.
- A comment from a grown up needs to be written in their reading record.
- Group reading books and reading records need to be brought in every Friday.
Help at home by listening to your child read their new book and ask questions about the book to help prepare them for class discussions.
I look forward to hearing the children’s discussions next week!
Thank you,
Miss Birch
Living and learning: being safe
Being safe is a key part of our Living and Learning curriculum which includes a Staying Safe themed week coming up in July.
There are lots of different situations in our lives where we need to make safe choices. Some examples include staying safe online, road safety and water safety.
We have been thinking about what is a ‘safe risk’. For example, putting your hand up in class to answer a question even if you are unsure of the answer is a safe-risk. Jumping off a cliff is not!
We also thought about which grown-ups would be good to talk to in school and out of school (start telling other people) if we ever feel unsafe. Brothers, sisters and friends would also be good to talk to and discuss feelings but telling a grown-up (over 18) would be the best thing to do to get help.
Help at home: by asking your child what a ‘safe-risk’ is.
Being biologists and safe online
For our science learning this week, we used secondary sources to find out about animals that live in polar and desert habitats. Using non-fiction books and the internet, this gave us chance to put into practice some of our safer internet day learning. Not everything we read on the internet is true.
We could check more than one website to see if it tells us the same thing.
The National Geographic website is a website I’ve heard of. We could look at that one.
The children were also being safe online by showing an adult if something popped up on the screen before continuing.
Help at home: have a look at a non-fiction book at home with your child. Ask them how to use the contents and index pages.
Living and Learning: Kooth mental health talk
Year 5 had a visitor from Kooth. Kooth is a free, safe and anonymous online website (approved by the NHS) where children from ages 10-18 can receive mental health support. It is full of self-help tools, mini activities and discussion boards to get the assistance you need. The best thing about it is that every post or comment is approved before it’s live so it’s a totally positive zone.
Some of the main messages from today’s learning were:
- It’s ok to ask for help – it can be really difficult to manage your mental health, so you don’t have to do it alone
- Try to move or be active each day – being active and doing gentle movement each day can help improve your wellbeing
- Find helpful ways to experience, express and manage your emotions – you could try some Kooth mini-activities to help develop helpful habits and valuable life skills
- Focus on what you’re good at – build on your strengths to boost your confidence and self-esteem
-
- Help at home: Take a look at the website and discuss what can be done to improve your mental health.
Living and Learning
This week, our Living and Learning statement is I recognise emotions in myself and others. Yesterday, we had fun looking in the mirror and acting out different emotions with our friends. We thought about what happens to our face when we experience different emotions. 
What happens when you do an angry face?
Rowan – Your teeth go sideways.
Rayaan – It looks like a monster.
Jasmine – I know it’s angry because she’s got eyes down and straight lips.
What happens when you do a worried face?
Zara – Your bottom lip comes out.
Teddy – Sometimes your lips can go together.
We also thought about what we can do if we see someone looking sad.
Zara – Ask if they are okay.
Teddy – If someone’s looking upset, you could say sorry.
Bryher – You could ask them to play with you.
Help at home: Talk to your child about their emotions . You could play a game of Guess my emotion by acting them out together.
Living & Learning – I recognise emotions
This week, we welcomed a visitor from Kooth to talk to us about mental health and emotions.
Kooth is a free website approved by the NHS to support young people with mental health used by over 1.5million children nationwide. It’s anonymous and full of self-help tools, mini activities and discussion boards to get the assistance you need. The best thing about it is that every post or comment is approved before it’s live so it’s a totally positive zone.
Help at home by exploring the website and having a discussion about your mental health triggers – what makes you feel both bad or good?
Here are some key messages from this week’s living and learning:
- it’s ok to ask for help
- keep active
- focus on what you’re good at
- find helpful, practical ways to express and manage your emotions
Science and PE: What is physical activity?
This week, Year 5 were joined by some visitors from the University of Leeds. They came in to talk to us about maintaining a healthy lifestyle. By the end of the lesson the children were able to define what physical activity is, explain why exercise is good for you and understand the difference between a warm-up and cool-down.
Aerobic exercise is a type of activity that makes your heart beat faster and makes you breathe a little harder.
Anaerobic exercises are quick and intense activities that use energy stored in muscles, not relying much on oxygen. This includes movements like:
- Sprinting
- Jumping
- Lifting heavy weights
Our visitors will be back next week to talk to us about healthy eating and nutrition.
Help at home: Discuss how often we should be active every day and how we can live more active lifestyles.