Book Club – Oracy Book Wars
In today’s Book Club, we had a debate to find out who truly has the best book in the class.
Moh said, “Some R2s for debating are to use powerful, persuasive vocabulary, to speak loudly and clearly and to keep calm!”
We used sentence stems to make sure we were responding to others’ arguments such as “I hear what you’re saying but I disagree…” and “While you make a good point, I firmly believe…”
To develop our oracy skills, we made sure we were speaking fluently, at a good pace, projecting our voices and giving reasons for our choices.
Miss Wilson set the challenge and stated why her book was the best.
Next, we made notes to prepare for the debate.
Finally, we used our oracy skills to complete the Book War!
Special mention goes to Albie, Sami, Harris and Will who all debated excellently, as voted by the class!
Design and technology: bridges
In order to get the boy, the mole, the fox and the horse (from our class novel) across the river, we’ve made bridges!
We had to work in pairs to make our sturdy structures!
We had to make sure we were reflecting on the design criteria and testing it every so often.
Stay tuned for the finished articles!
Living and Learning – mental health
What might affect our mental health?
Anything! It could be a friendship issue, not taking care of yourself or even a life event such as moving house or school (like us next year!).
What might the person be feeling?
“They might feel anxious,” said Safiya-Mishal.
Isabella said they might look happy on the outside but be really sad inside.
“They might be paranoid about little things,” said Noah.
How can that person help themselves?
- go for a walk – Priya
- talk to someone – Ethan L
- avoid what’s making you sad for a bit – Phoebe
- make sure you’re sleeping and eating enough – Talha
- write your feelings down – Miss Wilson
- do some mindfulness – Albie
How can others help the person?
Leo said, “They could ask them if they want to talk but they might not.”
Sami advised, “You could remind them that everything will be ok.”
“They could comfort them or just be with them,” suggested Jasraj.
Homework Heroes
We thoroughly enjoyed our homework review session on Friday. The quality and variety of submissions was excellent.
Take a look at some of the – many – highlights.
Harris, Musa and Kashif combined forces to create this truly impressive retelling of the story. The level of detail and sheer creativity shown here is brilliant.
Emma’s origami from memory (Wow!) …
Albie’s Axolotl – inspired by his writing…
Testing homemade paper aeroplanes must have taken resilience and concrentration just like Humpty.
This superb creation of what might have been on the top shelf of the cereal aisle…
Check out Daisy’s recreation using some fantastic haikus…
Well done, Y6.
Our perfect performances
Today, we’ve been performing poetry about animals!
We needed to have voices that were expressive and fluent when performing the poem that we had memorised off by heart.
It was also important to project our voices and make sure we were facing the audience.
Our new class novel…
“I predict it will take place on a farm because all those animals could be found there,” said Moh.
Sami predicted that the boy would go on an adventure and meet the animals along the way.
Sometimes it’s nice to read the reviews of a book but it’s also important to come to your own conclusion. The last review is quite poignant, though!
“The artwork is confusing but I like it,” said Tasha.
Felix mused, “I wonder why the Fox seems to be the only one coloured in?”
Watch this space!
Planning an experiment
After the Fall inspired us to make paper aeroplanes and find out which is the best.
In groups, we planned a science experiment with a different variable – challenge your child to define this!
Today, we made and tested our aeroplanes!
Ask your child to explain how we ensured it was a fair test!
Our Brilliant Maths
This week, we’ve continued our place value learning with rounding.
Just look how neat we are to show off our fantastic understanding.
Challenge your child at home to explain how they would round to the nearest 10, 100, 1000 or 10,000. They might use a number line or the look next door method!
Reading
Reading is super important. In fact, we think it’s one of the most important things you can do to support your child at home.
Some studies have found that children who read regularly are more likely to be happy in adulthood, more likely to earn more money and more likely to do well in all school subjects.
Whilst we understand life is busy, we’d love it if you could read with your child every day (ideally for about 20 minutes but anything is better than not reading at all).
This article has a handy reading for parents guide if you’d like any more information or tips.
Our Reading Activities leaflet will provide lots of activities to make reading an even more enjoyable and active experience for all. Check out the ‘Help Your Child‘ section of our website for a range of guides and tips for helping your child across a range of subjects.
Some common questions about reading:
When should my child have their reading book in school?
Our library session is a Thursday morning where we can browse the library or exchange a book. Children can now take their library book home. It might be a good idea to have one of your library books at school and take one home to read. Make sure you keep it at home until you’re ready to swap it; it will be quarantined at school beforehand!
My child can read fluently. Should they still read aloud to me?
Ideally, yes. They can spend time reading on their own, too – we encourage this. However, it’s really important that children still practise the skill of reading aloud. It helps improve their confidence and improves their ability to read with expression. Being read to is really important, too – so don’t underestimate the power of a bedtime story!
The book my child has brought home is too easy / hard. What should I do?
This will rarely happen but if you do think your child’s book isn’t the right level please get in touch with me.
Living and Learning: 8Rs for learning
For the start of this half-term, our Living and Learning focus is the ‘8 Rs for learning’. This is about promoting good learning behaviour for your child.
In class, the children will focus on different ‘Rs’. We use an animal to symbolise each ‘R’, which might help your child remember all eight – can your child remember which animal matches the correct ‘R’?
You can support your child at home – we’ve listed a few ideas to help you below. Ask us if you’ve any questions or comments.
Download top tips for promoting the 8Rs for good learning behaviour.
Risk taking
Talk about the difference between a safe and unsafe risk. At school, we want your child to take a safe risk by having a go at answering, even if unsure; trying something new and attempting harder learning.
Responsibility
Provide time and space at home so your child is able to organise themselves: their PE kit, reading book, homework, spellings and tables… Don’t organise everything for them!
Make a link between rights and responsibilities: your child has the right to a great education, but needs to be responsible for their own learning.
Responding
This could be responding to their teacher in class or responding to feedback in their learning.
Ready
Make sure your child is at school on time for a prompt start.
Make sure your child has had plenty of sleep so they are alert and ready to learn at all times.
Encourage your child to ask lots of questions – that shows they want to learn!
Resourceful
Encourage your child to be organised so they can play with a range of different toys.
Encourage your child to try new ways to solve a tricky problem.
Resilience
Encourage your child to keep going! Set a tricky challenge or puzzle for your child to do.
Encourage your child to think of different ways of doing things.
Don’t let your child win when they play a game – they need to experience losing, too!
Celebrate mistakes as opportunities to learn – be happy that your child found some learning hard and encourage them to ‘bounce back’ and learn from the experience.
Relate this ‘R’ to Humpty Dumpty and our current whole school topic, After the Fall.
Remember
Make sure they have time to learn spellings, number bonds and times tables – a little practice daily is best.
Play memory games:
Kim’s game: show them objects for 30 seconds… can they remember all the objects?
Can they build up the sequence, ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple’… ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple and a bike.’… ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple, a bike and a cucumber.’ etc … Take turns!
Reflect
Talk with your child about what they’ve learnt, asking questions about how they learnt, why they learnt it, when they’ll use their learning, how they would teach this to someone else, what learning might link with what they’ve learnt today…
This week, children will have the opportunity to not only reflect on their learning in general but also reflect on how the 8Rs supports their learning.
Of course, these characteristics are referred to throughout the year across all subjects to promote good learning behaviour.