Guided Reading Information
Today, Year 5 have been given their guided reading books.
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. This information will be posted every week on our class news.
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 note).
- 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: listen 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!
Living and Learning: Me and My Money
This week, we’ve been learning all about money!
We’ve talked about so many important topics and skills that are vital to our lives and financial futures.
We first had a maths lesson which looked at working out the unit prices of bulk items to help us decide on the cheaper options.
Next, we learnt about what tax is and why we have it. We then discussed why it is vital for our community.
Then, HSBC talked to us and we learnt about budgeting and how to be a critical consumer.
We also learnt about jobs in Leeds and what we might want to do when we’re older or where the most demand for employment might be.
Virgin Money taught us about loans, their roles at the bank and about bank accounts. They then set us an exciting challenge – to make £5 grow!
In the coming weeks, we’ll be putting our entrepreneurial brains to the test to see if we can make profit from a small business idea. Watch this space!
Help at home: Discuss how your child would like to make their £5 grow. Take a look at the suggested ideas.
Living and Learning: anti-bullying day and odd socks day
On Monday, all children will be learning about bullying and how to STOP bullying as part of the national antibullying week.
Our Junior Leadership Team have recently reviewed our bullying definition. As part of this, we use two STOP acronyms: Several Times On Purpose Start Telling Other People – one’s a definition of bullying and the other’s a solution.
On Monday, we will also be taking part in Odd Socks Day which celebrates that we’re all unique. Children are invited to wear odd socks to school, marking the fact we’re all different in some way.
Odd socks day sends an important message to pupils that they should be allowed to be themselves, free from bullying. It helps us celebrate anti-bullying day in a fun and positive way.
Help at home: Talk about our school definition of bullying and the differences between falling out and bullying, and between a one-off situation and something that’s happened more than once.
Me and My Money week – school charity donations
Donating money is one choice people might make when using their money.
As part of our Me and My Money themed week, we welcomed visitors from St Gemma’s Hospice, our current school charity, to hear how they have been using our donations over this year.
We have raised a staggering £1500 across the year so thank you for all of these donations. St Gemma’s Hospice are very grateful for this support.
There is one more way we can donate money this week and this is by bringing any spare 1ps or 2ps into class to deposit in each class’ saving jar.
On Friday, we shall be having a money trail with all the coins donated so please bring any spare change before then.
Here are Year 2 counting their coins so far.
We are readers!
This half term, teachers have been keeping an eye out for children impressing them with their reading.
In KS2, teachers were looking out for Reading Records where the weekly activity had been completed with time and care, book reviews had been done or challenges ticked off!
In KS1, teachers were looking for children who were putting the most effort into learning to read fluently.
Well done to our winners for this half term and welcome to the Library Team! They’ll meet with Miss Wilson occasionally to share their ideas and help make decisions about our library.
Take a look at some of their fantastic efforts:
Did you know?
Those who read for pleasure…
- Know more words
- Are better writers
- Have more empathy
- Have better general knowledge
- Have a better understanding of other cultures
- Are better at making decisions
- Do better in school generally!
Keep up the fantastic reading, everyone. There were so many people to choose from and you never know – it could be you next time!
Writing: Eye of the storm
Year 5 have been planning a narrative about the Eye of the Storm. They have been identifying and creating expanded noun phrases and figurative language.
Here are some of our figurative language creations:
- The ancient house screamed at the incoming airship.
- Towering trees shivered in the breeze.
- The colossal aircraft creaked unsteadily.
- The airship was as golden as the roaring amber flames.
- Tall, towering trees watched over the world.
- The blimp crashed through the building like a meteorite eating everything in its path.
To help understand the video more, we then went on to sequence the video.
This week Year 5 will be writing their narratives.
Help at home: Watch the video and discuss how you would describe the main character, the dragon and the airship.
Science: Space
Year 5 have now started their second science topic: Space! This week, we have learnt about our Solar System.
Here are some key facts we learnt:
- The Solar System is made up of the Sun, celestial bodies, eight planets and their moons.
- The Sun, Earth, Moon and other planets are approximately spherical bodies.
- The Sun is a star which releases heat and light and is at the centre of the Solar System.
- All of the planets in our Solar System orbit the Sun.
- The first four planets have solid surfaces whilst the last four planets have gas surfaces.
• Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars all have solid surfaces.
• Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune have gas surfaces. - Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet.
Then, we carried out research using secondary sources (a form of scientific enquiry). We used this information to create posters about the order of the planets and wrote down more key facts about each one.
Finally, we made mnemonics to remember the order in which the planets orbit the sun.
Help at home: Come up with a new mnemonic to remember the order of our solar system. Here is an example:
Mercury My
Venus Very
Earth Epic
Mars Marvellous
Jupiter Jumper
Saturn Suits
Uranus Unique
Neptune Neil
Or why not watch the ‘we are planets’ song.
Tom Palmer local events
This year, some children at school attended an online workshop with author Tom Palmer. Tom Palmer has been in touch to let us know about some local events he is attending in half term.
Message from Tom
For children and families – I am also coming to Leeds on Thursday 2 November
2023 :
* Farsley Book Festival – 10am-11am more here
https://trumanbooks.co.uk/event/flf-kids-day
* Chapel Allerton Library – 2pm
* Pudsey Community Hub and Library – 4pm
Writing: Non-Chronological Reports
For the past couple of weeks, Year 5 have been planning, writing and publishing their own non-chronological reports about a fictional city. The children were able to create their own made-up city and their task was ‘to give information’ (the purpose of a report).
Their writing needed to link to some of our geography learning (urban green spaces and city expansion) as well as contain parenthesis and a variety of sentence starters.
Have a look at some of our fantastic work:
Help at home: Look at this class post and the children’s work, try to spot parenthesis and a variety of sentence starters.
Bonfire Night Safety Visit
This morning, we were joined by our local PCSOs to talk about bonfire night safety. Have a look at our photos for the main messages.
