Reasoning in maths
We’ve been thinking recently about what we can do to explain our maths. Yesterday, we got out some physical resources and had to prove our answers using the resources, images, pictorial representations, words and mathematical strategies.
It can be tricky to understand what a multi-step question is actually asking you do calculate and thinking of the problem like this is one way we can help ourselves. It also helps us to improve our reasoning skills: one of the three key areas in the National Curriculum alongside fluency and problem solving.
Big Pedal
Get set… we’re taking part in The Big Pedal 2017, the UK’s largest inter-school cycling and scooting challenge that inspires pupils, staff and parents to choose two wheels for their journey to school. The challenge runs from 20th to 31st March. It’s free to enter and we would love everyone to be involved.
Why we’re taking part and prizes available
Active travel to school is proven to improve the health of children by preventing obesity, reducing congestion and carbon emissions around schools and increasing concentration in the classroom.
By taking part, the school will compete for a national Big Pedal 2017 Trophy and will be in with a chance to win some fantastic national prizes including world champion BMX and mountain bike stunt shows, a visit from world famous explorer Alastair Humphreys, 9 brand new Islabikes and much more!
We also have prizes just for pupils (and parents and carers) at Moortown Primary School including two new stunt scooters, a scooter action camera, a track pump (donated by Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative), M&S and Filmore & Union vouchers (both donated).
How you can help to increase our chances of winning?
On each day of the challenge schools compete to see who can record the greatest number of pupils, staff and parents cycling or scooting to school. Each day that at least 15% of pupils at Moortown Primary register a bike or scooter journey, the school will go into a daily draw for fantastic national prizes. Our best 5 days (based on % participation) will determine our final position in the challenge and if we clock up the most bike and scooter journeys nationally we’ll win a Big Pedal 2017 Trophy! Moortown Primary School prizes will be drawn separately by the school.
What’s next?
All you need to do is encourage your child(ren) to cycle or scoot to school every day during the event, and join them on their way – parent/carer and sibling journeys are counted too and you might even win a prize!
Some children tell us they can’t take part in these events because they live too far away from school and have to come by car. We encourage these families to park further away and complete the final part of the journey by scooter or bike. These journeys can be included in our school total.
Bikes and scooters should be stored as safely as possible in our storage area beside the Year 3 and 4 classrooms.
Finally, if you have any Big Pedal success stories or photos to share, please send them to moortownoffice@spherefederation.org so we can use them to encourage others.
Roller Coaster Engineers
Yesterday morning, we were joined by some students from Leeds University who helped us become roller coaster engineers.
We were given some basic equipment and had to make a marble rollercoaster that involved twists, loop-the-loops and it had to end with the marble landing in a plastic cup.
We had a great time designing and making our roller coasters and would like to thank Leeds University for sharing their expertise with us.
Allerton Grange
This morning, we were lucky enough to go to Allerton Grange for a PE lesson. We enjoyed practising our hockey, football and netball skills under the guidance of the Year 11 junior sports leaders.
Here’s a few pictures of us in action…
Scratch Projects
Recently, as part of our ‘Time Travel: Entertainment‘ topic we’ve been creating our own games using Scratch. Each game is loosely based on Pac-Man and we’ve spent the last few weeks planning, designing, creating and improving our projects.
The children have worked extremely independently and have taught me a lot about using the Scratch software – I still have a long way to go to catch up with them, though. I’ve been most impressed with how the children have helped each other over the course of making these games. Like most things, some of us are more confident than others and we’ve worked really well as a team to make sure that everyone is involved and learning all the time.
Similarly, I’ve been super impressed that lots of us have gone home and created our Pac-Man style games using our personal Scratch accounts. These games have been really useful as a teaching tool because we could see a WAGOLL (what a good one looks like).
Good work, Year 5!
Team players
Today, as part of our learning about our current SEAL theme (Getting On), we thought about what the ‘perfect’ team player would look like. We thought about our strengths as individuals – of which we have many – and then combined them to make the ultimate team player.
Ask your child…
- What did we decide was really important?
- Is there anything you would add to the list?
- Which of these attributes is most important/least important?
- Which of these things do you consider to be a strength of yours?
- Which of these do you think you’re not so good at yet? (The ‘yet‘ bit of this question is really important because, with practice, they will become good at this.)
We think the ‘perfect’ team player would have these attributes…
A good team player would ask him/her self…
West Yorkshire cross country finalist
Congratulations to Grace who this week achieved 14th place in the Leeds Primary Schools cross country final at Middleton Park out of over 100 runners in her Year 5 girls race.
This means Grace has now qualified to represent Leeds at the West Yorkshire Cross Country Final at Temple Newsam. A fantastic achievement!
If Grace has inspired you to give running a try, why not take part in the local weekly Junior Park Run at Roundhay Park.
Fire Safety
This afternoon, we’ve been joined by two firefighters from Moortown Fire Station. They came in to educate us about fire safety. The afternoon was incredibly useful and we learnt lots about how to stay safe.
We learnt what fires need to get started: the Triangle of Fire. Ask your child if they can remember what this means. Importantly, we learnt how crucial it is that every house has an agreed fire safety action plan. This is a series of things that each person in the house will do in the event of a fire. Do you have one at home? The firefighters were very keen for everyone to have a fire action plan agreed with the people they live with; it’s a huge predictor for how likely you are to escape unharmed in the event of a fire.
Really importantly, we learnt about the dangers of making hoax calls to the emergency services. Ask you child why making false calls to the fire brigade can have deadly ramifications.
On a very serious note, I was alarmed that some children in the class thought the emergency services number was 911 not 999. Please make sure that your children are aware of critical information like this for their safety and yours.
Homework Review
As always, our homework was great this week. We had lots of varied responses to our creative piece: demonstrations, Scratch projects, interviews with parents, videos, collages and loads more.
Below are some of our favourites. It’s always interesting that the children’s favourite pieces are not always the most ‘jazzy’, or the most colourful, but the pieces that are original, different and interesting.
World Book Day
We’ve had a great morning celebrating World Book Day. It’s been great to dedicate so much time to reading and, for some of us, getting dressed up has been great fun, too.
Already today we’ve crammed in lots of great learning:
- A special World Book Day celebration assembly.
- Mrs Burke came in to read a couple of her favourite children’s books to us.
- We had the chance to particpate in group discussions about the books we’ve brought in.
- We did ‘speed dating’ but with books where we had one minute to recommend our favourite book to a friend.
- We spent time reading someone else’s book to see if we enjoyed it
- And, this afternoon, we’ll enjoy some time relaxing and reading just for pleasure.
Here’s a few pictures from our day so far…
