PE: netball
This half-term in PE, we’re doing netball!
Netball is a fantastic sport for your children to practise a variety of different skills (e.g., passing, catching, shooting, defending etc.).
This week, we began exploring some different ways we can pass the ball in netball – chest pass and bounce pass. We recapped our ‘pass and point‘ technique which we used in rugby. When you release a ball during a pass, your fingers should end pointing towards where you are aiming. This is a great technique to ensure an accurate pass.
Help at home: if you have a ball at home (any ball will do) practise some chest and bounce passes with your child. Remember, you must not move with the ball!
Year 3 and 4 footballers
Today, ten of our year 3 and 4 footballers took part in the Leeds Well School Partnership Year 3/4 football competition at Goals.
We had a great day of back to back matches and all the children were determined, resilient, focussed and worked together as a team supporting each other.
The team fought to secure second place in their first round league and put in some brilliant performances across the day.
A special mention to our goalkeeper who made some amazing saves throughout the day.
Well done to all the children for representing our school so well.
Living and Learning: allergies
As part of our health and prevention focus in L&L, today Year 4 learnt all about allergies.
We began by answering the question: What is an allergy?
An allergic reaction happens when a person comes in contact with something that their body thinks will be harmful to them (called an allergen).
We discussed how all our bodies are different and something that may not harm us could make somebody else very poorly.
There are 14 main food allergens:
It’s important to remember that even though we might not see an allergen in our food, doesn’t mean it isn’t in there. To make sure we’re being careful and only eating foods which are safe for us, we must always look at the packaging. The main allergens are always in bold so it’s clear for us to see.
Your children then had the challenge of reading through some recipes and highlighting any allergens that appear.
Then, we discussed some signs of allergic reactions and what we should do if we suspect somebody is having an allergic reaction.
Mild/moderate signs:
- itchy skin rash
- tummy ache or being sick
- puffy eyes or lips
- itchy/tingling mouth
Serious signs:
- difficulty breathing or noisy breathing
- difficulty swallowing
- feeling dizzy, floppy or sleepy
Help at home: watch this video (until 3.22) and discuss these questions with your child. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFAbgaHg26U
- What happened?
- How did Max feel?
- What was the hospital worried about?
- Why did Max’s body react this way?
Leeds Rhinos Easter activities
On Friday 18 April, Leeds Rhinos are hosting their annual family day, where all child tickets (seating and standing) are just £5. As well as the Rhinos match against Huddersfield Giants, there are a host of activities that the whole family can enjoy – all included in the price of entry.
There is also a free open training session and meet the players event at AMT Headingley Stadium, during the Easter Holidays, on Tuesday 15 April. Children and families will have the opportunity to watch the Rhinos train, meet Ronnie the Rhino and get autographs/pictures with the players at the end of the session.
Performance Poetry
This week, we’ve been reading the poem ‘Walking with my Iguana’ by Brian Moses.
We began the week by exploring the poem and discussing vocabulary we were unsure of. We then watched the poet performing his poem (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoqCyDyc5Rc). While watching, your children noted down what made Brian’s performance so good.
He had a good rhythm.
He got the audience involved.
He had good voice projection and was really clear.
He used some actions.
He had good prosody.
Alongside our oracy (speaking) targets, we used these to come up with our own R2s (Remember Tos) for our performances.
In groups, your children rehearsed the poem before performing it in front of the class. It was great to see how confident and creative your children were and there were some fantastic performances – well done Year 4!
Help at home: read the poem (or choose a different one) and ask your children to perform it to you while thinking about their oracy (speaking) skills.
Reading Record Stars
Every Friday, your children bring their reading records with a completed activity to our Book Club sessions. This week, the children were asked to do a fact file all about a character from their book or the author.
I love getting the chance to see and hear about all the brilliant reading your children have done over the week.
A reminder of the reading record key info:
- Each week, the activity your child must complete is given on the homework sheet. More information on these activities are inside the record. If you are ever unsure which activity it is, please ask or choose a random one!
- The children need to bring their reading record in every Friday for Book Club where we discuss their books and develop their love of reading.
- The children’s grown-ups also need to sign and write a short comment about the lovely reading their child has been doing at home!
Any questions, please ask!
Help at home: continue to read daily with your child and sign their reading record to share this.
Science: conductors and insulators
Today, Year 4 were learning all about electricity in science. We spoke about…
conductors: a material that allows energy to flow through it
insulators: a material that does not allow energy to flow through it.
Your children worked in small groups to sort a variety of objects into conductors of electricity and insulators of electricity. They had some brilliant discussions while trying to reason why an item must be an insulator or conductor.
The plastic cup must be an insulator because we know the outside of a wire is plastic and that’s an insulator.
The metal objects are conductors because the inside of wires are metal and electric fences are made of metal.
What they found…
Conductors:
- coin
- key
- nail
- paperclip
- metal sharpener
Insulators:
- rubber band
- plastic cup
- newspaper
- mug
- glass
Then, we discussed why insulators are so important. They keep us safe and protect us from the electricity flowing through devices. Without insulators, we would get electric shocks when using electrical devices.
Help at home: walk around your kitchen and ask your child to identify different conductors and insulators of electricity. Ask them to explain how they know.
Moortown netballers
Well done to our Year 5/6 netballers who competed in the Bee Netball competition at Allerton High.
In each match, the team showed great teamwork and resilience. It’s great to see their netball skills progressing. Well done!
We’d also like to thank parents for helping with transport for this event.
Through our partnership with Leeds Rhinos, have a look at this special offer to see some more live netball this weekend.
Here are some local netball opportunities too.
Living & Learning: solving problems
This week in L&L, our statement was…
I can find solutions to different problems.
Before we try to solve a problem, we must recognise what emotions that situation is making us feel. Often, these emotions make things difficult for us because our brains are not very good at problem solving when our emotions are very high. Therefore, the first step of problem solving is trying to regulate our emotions.
Some of your children’s suggestions for regulating our emotions:
Take deep and slow breaths.
Listen to some relaxing music.
Do some colouring.
Go for a walk outside for some fresh air.
Talk to a trusted adult.
Write your feelings down.
Once our emotions are regulated, our mind is a little bit clearer and we are able to think of more appropriate and effective solutions to our problems.
Year 4 then became Agony Aunts. They were given two problems and had to work together to come up with suitable solutions to these.
I was really impressed by your children’s mature and responsible solutions to these problems. It was brilliant to see that they all knew the importance of speaking to a trusted adult whenever there’s a problem.
Help at home: practise some emotion regulation techniques with your children. Read through these problems and ask your children to come up with some solutions:
- Jalisha and her best friend Ella, both wanted the part of Cinderella in the play but Ella got the part.
- Daniel’s family are moving to Australia but he is really sad because he is going to miss his friends.
- Tom’s friend did better than him in the spelling test and keeps talking about it at break time.
Old Leos women’s and girls cricket opportunity
Local cricket club, Old Leos, have opportunities for womens and girls cricket. Please contact them for more information.
