Inventions – Taboo!
“Today, we played Taboo where you had to describe an invention without saying four main words.” – Kismat
“All the inventions were from or connected to Leeds.” – Eliza
“My favourite invention was the Jelly Tots because I like recent stuff.” – Henry
“My favourite invention was Cluedo because I really like the game.” – Zak
“Mine was the mouse trap so you don’t have any mice stealing your cheese!” – Omar
“The oldest invention was the locomotive. It’s connected to Leeds because it was the first ever steam locomotive and the person who designed it came from Leeds.” – Ben
“The most recent invention was Jelly Tots in 1965.” – William
“The most challenging part was guessing the other person’s invention when they were describing it.” – Evie
“The most challenging part was trying to describe the invention because there were four words and you couldn’t say them but describe it without saying them!” – Zidaan
Living and learning – Identity
Our Living and Learning theme this half-term is Identity. Pupils will learn about what makes themselves and others special, valuing the similarities and differences between themselves and others and what is meant by community. This will be taught through our Living and Learning sessions and also a focused week – Anti-bullying week (12 November).
Also this half term, our new school charity will be chosen. Every year, we nominate a new charity to support. This year, we have been supporting MakeAWish. We decide this on the basis of a Talk Time homework, and then school councillors make the final decision.
Our Living and Learning long term plan details the learning for each year group across the year and you can keep up to date with our weekly Living and Learning statements on the parent noticeboard in the playground and also on the school calendar. We will begin and end this half term with a focus on manners.
I apologise when I need to.
I say please and thank you.
Bonfire night themed menu
When we return to school, on Monday 05 November, there will be a bonfire night themed menu.
Election ready
The polling station is all set up and ready for the annual School Council elections tomorrow.
Good luck to all candidates.
Making a Viking sun compass
Did you know that the Vikings were one of the first groups of people to invent the sun compass? Where would we be (literally) without inventing a way to navigate the globe?
This week, we have combined our statistics in maths and our Time Travel – Inventions learning to create a sun compass of our own. Hopefully we find out which way is North in the process!
We started by drawing a 9 x 2 table to record time and shadow length.
(We practised some measuring skills at the same time.)
At set intervals throughout the day – as long as the sun was playing ball – we went outside to create our sun compass.
First, we held a metre ruler perpendicularly to the floor to create a shadow. Using tape measures, we found out how long the shadow was and placed an ‘x’ in chalk at its tip.
As you can see from our tables, it was 333cm at 10am- much longer than we predicted!
Challenge your child! True or false? Explain why:
- The shadow was longest at 2pm
- The shadow was shortest at 11:30
- The shadow was 147cm at 10:30
After some intervals, we made predictions about the length of the shadow with varying degrees of success:
By the end of the day, we had made lots of chalk marks on the floor. By drawing a line from our starting point to the closest section of the curve, we have found North!
Active travel in October – week three winner
Well done to our week three winner who made active journeys to school every day last week.
Our active travel section on the website has recently been updated. Have a look at some of the initiatives we take part in to encourage a happy and healthy start to the school day.
Living and Learning – Democracy
This week, we’ve based our learning around our rights and responsibilities – I can take part in democratic decisions.
First, we wrote down what we knew already about democracy. Then, we watched a video from a trusted news source (Newsround) and wrote down what we had learned. Challenge your child: What was the red line on the floor for in the House of Commons?
Through our discussions, we defined some key words…
… and devised some questions that we wanted to know the answer to.
An interesting discussion arose surrounding the age of voting. (Finlay asked: ‘Why do we have to be 18 to vote?’) Some of us thought that it should be lowered because politics affects children, too. Others thought 18 years of age was appropriate because you are legally an adult with enough life experience.
In the interest of all things democratic, we had a vote on the matter.
Should we change the voting age?
21 out of 28 people said yes. 7 out of 28 people said no.
Zakariya noticed that 28 is in the 7 times table: 4 lots of 7 = 28.
We discussed that 7 out of 28 is the same as saying 1 out of 4 or one quarter. That’s the same as saying 25/100 which is equal to 25%.
Using this knowledge, we worked out that 21 out of 28 is the same as saying 3 out of 4 or three quarters.
“It must be 75 out of 100,” said Maggie. Or even 75 one hundredths or 75%!
1 quarter + 3 quarters = 1
25% + 75% = 100%
7 + 21 = 28
Now we know that 75% of Year 5 think the voting age should be changed.
Next, we had another anonymous vote: Which group would you change the voting age to?
The 15-17 category had the majority.
Good luck to all the candidates standing in this year’s school council elections.
Living and Learning: Confident Me self-esteem and body confidence workshop
Recently, Year 5 and 6 took part in a Confident Me self-esteem and body confidence workshop led by representatives from Dove and Unilever.
Body image forms part of our Living and Learning later in the year and as children comment they enjoy visitors delivering Living and Learning, we were keen to run this workshop once again.
The Confident Me Workshop is one of the Dove Self-Esteem Project’s programmes. It addresses issues of body confidence and low self-esteem. The workshop covers topics such as: appearance, beauty and body image and examines how images of models, actors and celebrities are fabricated or manipulated to portray a ‘perfection’ against which our kids often measure themselves. Most of all, the workshops help young people develop the skills and behaviours that lead to positive self-esteem and body confidence.
Resources are available to parents to support and follow up this learning at home.
Active travel in October – week two winner
Well done to our week two active travel winner (08 – 12 October) who was randomly selected to receive the latest £10 voucher.
Our week three winner will be announced early next week.
We have a final weekly prize to award and also a prize for someone who has made an active journey to school every day in October. These prizes will be awarded straight after half term once our Living Streets travel tracker data is available.
Remember an active journey can be walking, biking, scooting or parking away from the school gate and striding the last part of the journey.
Lost property
School Council are involved in a project to try and reduce the amount of lost property we have at school.
Starting this Friday, lost property will be available to look through in the playground to hopefully reduce the pile we have already this term!
Naming your child’s items helps to get things back to their owners so we will also be offering a clothing name labelling service for 20p per item. Profits will go to our school charity, Make-a-Wish.