Saturday morning cross country races
The Leeds Schools Sports Association Saturday morning KS2 cross country races will start next month at Cardinal Heenan.
These races are competitive and the distances are approximately 900m for Year 3 and 4 and approximately 1500m for Year 5 and 6. Races start at 10am.
There are four races across the year.
Race 1 7th November – Cardinal Heenan
Race 2 28th November – The Clearings (Middleton)
Race 3 27th February – Woodhouse Grove
Race 4 13th March – Prince Henry’s Grammar School
You can sign up via Arbor and you don’t need to enter all four races. Due to a new registration system, only register your child if you are sure you can attend.
Spelling
One of our rapidly growing spelling strategies this week was silly sentences! As you can imagine, we had lots of fun.
Y3 had to write a ridiculous sentence containing as many of our spellings as possible and the outcomes were rather bizarre!
Help at home by playing one of the spelling games we’ve learnt in school. Some fan favourites are:
- hangman
- bubble writing
- pyramid words
- rainbow writing
Check out our Super Spelling Strategies for more ideas.
Maths: 3-digit numbers
This week, continuing our learning about numbers to 1,000, we’ve been looking at how 3-digit numbers are made up.
It’s important to explore numbers in varied ways. We’ve used bar models, part whole models, pictures, numbers and words.
This matching activity meant we had to draw on all our knowledge about the composition of these numbers.
Help at home by spotting 3-digit numbers in and around your home. Ask your child to tell you what each digit represents.
Reading: performing poems
Today, in reading, we performed the poem The Dragon Who Ate Our School. We decided on the following R2s to make our performances successful:
- good rhythm
- actions
- prosody
- good volume
Help at home by reading a poem together! Can you add actions, vary your voice expression or change the volume to highlight certain parts?
Science: classifying diets
This week, in science, we looked at the different diets of humans and animals.
We carried out some secondary research about the different diets that animals have which are herbivores (only eats plants), carnivore (only eats meat) or omnivores (eats both types).
We also classified and grouped different foods depending on whether they could be eaten by a vegetarian, vegan or pescatarian. We used a three way Venn diagram which was tricky at first!
Science: food groups
This week in science we learnt about the five main food groups: protein, fats, carbohydrates, fruits & vegetables and dairy.
Help at home by matching up the actions in the pictures above to the job of each food group below:
- builds and repairs muscles
- gives energy
- provides energy and supports absorption of vitamins and minerals
- provides vitamins and minerals
- contains calcium for healthy bones and teeth
Living and Learning – JLT election
Well done to all the children in Y3 who made a speech for the JLT. We were a respectful audience who listened carefully to all the well thought through points.
Next, it was off to the makeshift polling station in the shared area.
Help at home by discussing why this links to our Ancient Greece topic in history!
Half term football opportunity
Here’s a new football venture starting locally during half term.
Living & Learning: Me and my community week 2 November
Our next whole school themed week, based around identity, diversity and community, will be taking place from Monday 2nd November. This is the first of two themed weeks in the year. In our ‘Me and My Community’ week, children will learn about what it means to belong to a community, from family to national or even international communities. Importantly, our children will also learn to respect and celebrate different communities.
Active travel in the community
We encourage children to get out in the community in an active way on their way to and from school. By walking/scooting/biking to school, families will be keeping our community safer and healthier by reducing congestion at the school gate. Maybe even pick up a piece of litter on the way. Even by parking further away from school your child could then travel the final part of their journey by foot, bike or scooter.
Email us ([email protected]) a picture of your active travel, maybe by a landmark in our community on your route to school, for the chance to win one of three vouchers. Entries to be submitted by 4pm on Thursday 5th November.
New school charity
At the end of the themed week, classes will have the chance to discuss our charity shortlist and the Junior Leadership Team will have the final vote for which charity they would like our school to support, replacing our current charity, Martin House Hospice.
Identity day
Friday 6th November will be a non-uniform Identity Day. Children are invited to dress in clothing that represents part of their identity, for example uniform from a club they attend, a team they are part of or support or traditional dress to represent their heritage. There is no donation or contribution required for this day.
SAVE THE DATE PTA coffee morning Friday 6th November 9-10am
As part of the week, we welcome all parents and carers to an informal coffee morning to meet other members of our school community including representatives from the PTA. A whole school community Wake up Shake up will follow at 9:50am in the main playground.
Can you help?
Maybe you speak another language and you would be happy to speak to children about this or you would like to share about your own family culture and heritage. If so, please contact the office to pass on your details. Also, do you have any local community links that may support our week?
Reading: retrieval
This week, we’ve been reading an extract from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
First, we discussed the vocabulary to make sure everyone really understood what was going on. Help at home by asking your child what these words mean: glimpse, glossy and inquisitive.
Today, we let out creativity shine … alongside our very important retrieval skills of course!
We had to read the text and pick out any information that told us how the character of Mr Tumnus looked. Then came the fun part – drawing and labelling it.
