Living and Learning – body image guide for parents and carers
Our focus in Living and Learning, for the rest of this half term, is body image.
What is body image?
Body image describes our idea of how our body looks and how we think it is perceived by others. This can include our thoughts and feelings about our height, weight, shape, skin colour, and our appearance and attractiveness more broadly.
This parent and carer guide has been designed to give practical ideas to support your child in building their emotional resilience in this area.
Great competitors
Well done to pupils who have represented school recently in sporting competitions.
Congratulations to our Year 3 qualifier in the West Yorkshire cross country final. She ran a fantastic race at the event at Temple Newsam.
In wet conditions last Friday, our Year 5/6 hockey team competed in the Leeds Quick Sticks competition. Well done to all the children involved.
Thank you to parents and carers who supported these events by transporting the children.
Why is travelling actively to school important?
Sustrans have recently published this article about the importance of travelling actively to school.
With just two weeks to go, Sustrans Big Pedal, is one way we will be encouraging active journeys this term alongside our year round Living Streets WOW sustainable travel initiative where the children record how they travel to school on our daily travel tracker.
Sustrans Big Pedal is the UK’s largest inter-school cycling and scooting challenge, that inspires pupils, staff and parents to choose two (or three) wheels for their journey to school. We would love everyone to be involved. For the first time, walking (and park and stride) will be counted alongside cycling and scooting.
This year’s Big Pedal will run for five days, from 25th March to 29th March.
You might also be interested in a current bike promotion from our local Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative branch.
The story so far…………….
Last week, for their homework, the children were asked to present a summary of our class novel so far. Today, we celebrated each other’s work and made comments in their books. Below are just a few examples of some of the fantastic creations.
We all miss you!
As some of you are already aware, we have been without a member of our class for most of this school year. This has been due to illness that has required lengthy hospital stays, treatments and many different medications. Despite all of this, our much missed friend has remained positive and determined to overcome her illness. We are pleased to report that progress is great and we are looking forward to welcoming our classmate back soon.
Today a small group of children walked down to pay a visit and showcase their World Book Day costumes. Due to the risk of infection, the children just had a quick wave through the window.
Apostrophes
This week, we have been focusing on the correct use of apostrophes.
The children need to be able to use this punctuation mark within their writing accurately. In English, we use apostrophes in two ways, to show possession and to show contraction (or omission).
Apostrophes are used to tell us that something belongs to someone.
For example, if you were talking about a football belonging to Ben, you would say ‘Ben’s football’.
There is only one of Ben, so this is called singular possession.
In Year 4, children move onto using apostrophes to show plural possession.
If there are two or more people owning something, an apostrophe is needed to show plural possession. In this case the apostrophe goes after the plural owners, so if a group of girls each own a hat and you want to talk about all these hats, you would say ‘the girls’ hats’.
Apostrophes to show contraction or omission
If we put two words together and miss out some letters, we need to add an apostrophe where the missing letters are. For example: ‘do not’ would change to ‘don’t’, the contracted form.
During our lesson, the children attempted an apostrophe puzzle. Communication was a necessary skill required to master this tricky, hexagonal jigsaw. Well done everyone!
Quiz your child on the sentences below. Where does the apostrophe need to go? Can they explain why?
Group or singular possession?
This is Janes cat.
The man stole the ladies handbags.
The womens meeting began at eight.
The little ducks feathers were very soft.
The cars wheels had fallen off.
Marks hair was wet.
Class Fours classroom was very tidy.
Ukulele
Every Tuesday afternoon, the Year 4 classroom is filled with sharp, bright, crisp and lively sounds that resonate all around school. As part of our music lessons, the children have been learning to play the ukulele.
The ukulele is a four-stringed musical instrument made from wood that resembles a small classical guitar. It produces a characteristic sound that immediately takes us to tropical environments. The class have been working with determination to master the various techniques needed in order to confidently play a tune – or two!
The tutor has taught the children all about the seven basic major and minor ukulele chords – A(m), B(m), C(m), D(m), E(m), F(m), G(m) – and how they can be played using between one and four fingers.
Active Blasts
In Year 4, we are starting to incorporate more physical activity into our day by taking part in some ‘active blasts.’
The science behind active learning is that activity promotes better learning and behaviour, whilst improving physical health and mental well-being. Just 20 minutes of exercise increases brain processes and enhances cognitive control for up to 1 hour. Active children develop strong self-esteem and become happier learners.
Our session today was a muscle based activity incorporating a chair. We began with a shoulder squeeze, followed by some bicep curls, shoulder presses, elbow squeezes, seated abs curls, spine twists, standing up and sitting down slowly and controlled, standing up hamstring curls, calve raises and side leg lifts. After each exercise, we had a twenty second rest period.
Question your child about this new regime. Do they enjoy it? Does it help them to concentrate for longer? How do they feel afterwards? Which has been their favourite ‘active blast’ so far?
Leeds Playhouse
Drama can be used to improve the quality of children’s writing. This is because, when children are acting out a story, they’re learning about genre, narrative and how characters function in stories, which improves their knowledge of story structure. As well as this, by taking on a character and becoming immersed in their life and world through drama, children can experience how it feels to be a certain person with a particular personality, which enables pupils to write more thoughtfully and creatively. Drama is also ideal for developing and extending vocabulary.
Today, to enhance our Big Topic, Year 4 have been taking part in a drama workshop delivered by The West Yorkshire Playhouse. The session was based on our current class novel ‘The Firework Maker’s Daughter’ by Phillip Pullman.
After being transported into the story, the children thought about the various characters and how they may have been feeling at different parts in the novel. We were all very impressed by the standard of rich, descriptive language floating around the room.
Following this drama experience, Year 4 will be producing some descriptive writing. The children’s motivation to write has been enhanced by their involvement and enjoyment of today’s workshop.
Fe Fi Fo Fum! The Easter production has begun…
Big news in Years 3 and 4! We have officially kicked off rehearsals for the Easter production.
The production is called ‘Fe Fi Fo Fum’. So far we have held auditions and allocated the parts to pupils. Fe Fi Fo Fum is an action packed panto which brings the story of Jack and the Beanstalk up to date with a hilarious script, colourful characters and irresistible songs. Jack has to overcome his terrible fear of heights – a bit of a problem when trying to climb a beanstalk!
How can you help?
It is vital that your child brings their script into school every day. We are rehearsing regularly and annotating onto our scripts.
Please encourage your child to practise their lines at home and know what they need to say and any actions they need as well.
We look forward to seeing you all at the Easter production. Thank you for your support at home on this.
