School Saving Club paying in session
Our next paying in date for School Saving Club account holders is Thursday 08 December 3.15-3.45pm. If you can’t make this date, the next one will be on Thursday 02 February at 3.15-3.45pm.
Children must be accompanied to the sessions.
Alternatively, you can bring money to the office in a sealed envelope marked School Saving Club for the attention of Miss Hale.
School Saving Club accounts can still be opened. Please ask at the office for an application form.
Children who are in currently in Year 3 will have their account credited by Leeds City Council with £10 once opened.
Physical activity – the facts
In August 2016, the Government released its Childhood Obesity Strategy. This document outlines actions which will address the rising rates of childhood obesity.
Yorkshire Sport Foundation have produced the following poster with statistics and key information from the strategy.
We continue to monitor and improve our physical activity provision (see our current PE Provision Plan (pe-and-sport-premium-2016-2017) and our previous PE Provision Plan (pe-and-sport-premium-2015-2016).
Packed lunches
Struggling for ideas for a healthy packed lunch?
Change4life have some great tips and easy to prepare ideas based on the Eatwell Guide.
Also make reference to our Packed Lunch Guidance.
Day 4 of STEM week
Our brilliant STEM week continued today as we were visited by a representative from Marks and Spencer’s. We learnt about one of their biggest sellers: ‘Melt in the Middle Chocolate Pudding’. After learning about the history of the organisation, we learnt all about the chocolate desserts.
For example, did you know emulsifiers are used to ensure the cake lasts longer? They help the natural oils and waters remain mixed so you don’t get an oily pudding. After a bit more theory we were lucky enough to do a taste test. We sampled the pudding and gave it scores out of 5 – full marks from me!
After that, we reflected on some learning from Monday afternoon about staying safe online. We made iMovies to inform others of the dangers around online hackers.
A collage of our learning.
Did you know that lemons float but limes sink?
Neither did we. But it’s true: Lemons float and limes sink!
After we discovered this we predicted which objects would float and which objects wouldn’t float. Then, we investigated.
In our investigation, we learnt that whether an object floats has nothing to do with its weight, but its density. For example, in our investigation, we found that an empty can of coke floats and a full can of diet coke floats despite being heavier. Furthermore, a tiny paper clip didn’t float.
Right at the end of our lesson, some of the children enquired further:
- “If you put something that sinks on top of something that floats what happens?” (Pippa)
- “Do boats have sides to stop the water getting in and making it heavier?” (Edward)
We hadn’t planned to but we investigated it anyway – science is fun and we should enquire and investigate as much as possible. Ask your child what we found out!
Ask your child why a lemon floats but a lime sinks. They should be able to give you a ‘text-book’ answer including the words ‘density’ and ‘particles’.
Robot coding!
This morning, as part of STEM week, we were lucky to have a visitor who taught us how to code robots. In groups we were given a car and a computer and by the end of the session each group had programmed their robot to move in a variety of ways.
It was really exciting and we learnt lots about computer coding, science, maths and working with others.
Ask your child if they can figure out what this robot would do.
Hint: the number ‘1’ = forwards mode.
We learnt that coding can be quite frustrating – one tiny mistake in your script can mean that your robot does nothing. However, we did enjoy de-bugging (finding the errors) our scripts to ensure they worked.
Computing can be a scary topic for some adults (most of us aren’t part of the coding generation like Y5) but there are some great online resources that can help. A particular favourite of mine is Barefoot Computing. It’s free and links closely to the National Curriculum. Although it’s aimed at teachers, it will be beneficial for everyone because the website is also easy to navigate and understand.
Here’s some pics of us coding our robots…
VE Day celebrations
We had a great time dressing up and celebrating our very own Victory in Europe day on Friday.
It was a fantastic way to end our ‘Class Novel’ topic and we all had a great time. As well as having lots of fun at our VE day party, we also reflected on all the great learning we’ve enjoyed over the last eight weeks. It was particularly useful to hear which aspects of the topic the children have enjoyed the most and why.
Ask your child what they learnt over the course of this big topic and discuss the relevance/importance of this learning.
Also, discuss their views on the class novel they read. Did they enjoy it? Why? Did they empathise with the characters? Why?
Guided Reading
Due to STEM week, guided reading this week will not be happening as usual. On Friday, all children were asked to have read to their target page by Tuesday. Please don’t worry if your child doesn’t quite manage to read to their target page – I appreciate that it may be difficult to manage on top of homework and general life (although most groups will have had their target page set on Monday and Tuesday last week giving them almost a week to read).
When changes to guided reading are made it is always to improve learning. Although your child may generally read on a set day (eg Tuesday) this will change from time to time. Please don’t allow your child to be anxious about not having read to their target page – this does not make reading enjoyable. Instead, encourage them to read to their target page soon after they are given it.
Thank you.
Anti-bullying tips
Thank you, Emma (Year 2) for recommending CBBC for lots of Anti-Bullying Week advice.
Creative homework review
As always, we reviewed our homeworks as a class this week. The standard of homework is always high in Y5; I love it. Seeing how children respond to creative homeworks is one of my favourite things. It gives me lots of teaching ideas, too – thanks Y5!
This week, we were particularly impressed by these pieces:
Edward’s pot-washing time sheet.
Sam’s collage of maths in everyday life.
Pippa’s news report – love the jokes, Pippa!
Megan’s maths game.