Be safe, be seen
With lots of media attention on serious risks to children, it’s sometimes easy to forget the more traditional messages. With the dark nights now upon us, it’s worth (re)emphasising with your child the Be Safe – Be Seen message.
Cardiff Council’s Road Safety team have a great page on their website which also includes a number of other links and resources. There’s also a government site with some games.
Learning workshops
Learning Workshops, led by teachers in school, are organised to help you support your child at home.
Two different Learning Workshops took place yesterday. One was intended for Reception and Year 1 parents and it focused on phonics and simple number facts:
- “Well explained in terms of the current methods in phonics and Maths teaching. Teachers were open to questions. Thanks – much appreciated.”
- “Good overview of early learning concepts and teaching methods. A useful workshop – thank you.”
- From a parent with older children at school: “Always nice to have a refresher workshop as many things – about phonics especially – come back to me which I’d forgotten.”
The second workshop, at 6.00pm, was all about grammar and writing:
- “Great to go through all the grammar – it’s years since I was at school so a brilliant overview!”
- “Very helpful ideas to assist my reluctant writer at home.”
- “Thanks for the grammar web links.”
- “Very clear and practical presentation of the subject. Helpful tips. Mr Owen made it simple and funny.”
Thank you to the parents who attended.
Forthcoming workshops and other ways to support your child at home are in the calendar (look for the events in blue) and listed below:
- What is ‘mastery’? workshop – Monday 16 November, 2.30pm and 6.00pm
- Reception phonics teaching – 18 / 19 / 20 November
- Maths workshop – Monday 23 November, 6.00pm
- Homework open afternoon – Wednesday 02 December (only suitable for Y1 – Y6)
- Open morning – Tuesday 08 December
- Reception phonics teaching – 20 / 21 / 22 January
- Open morning – Wednesday 27 January
- Topic open afternoon – Thursday 17 March
- Reception phonics teaching – 27 / 28 / 29 April
Learning workshop
Don’t forget our Learning in Reception and Year 1 workshop on Tuesday 10 November at 2.30.
See you there!
Learning to write
The children are progressing quickly with their phonics learning and reading. Alongside blending to read, the children also need to segment words to spell. Children often find this harder and lack confidence in their ability to write.
In Reception, the children take part in shared writing activities where they can ‘have a go’ on whiteboards with the support of adults. We then encourage independent writing in all the areas of provision. This includes writing a label for their model, writing a shopping list in the role-play shop or writing a letter to a friend. At the moment the children are busy writing spells! We value all the children’s attempts at writing and model writing (and making mistakes) to them.
You can help at home by:
- providing plenty of different types of pens and pencils and encouraging your child to use a correct grip
- encouraging them to use the school’s handwriting style and to use lower case letters; we teach that a capital letter is required for the first letter in a name and at the beginning of a sentence
- praising – spelling is harder than reading words so praise, don’t criticise. Little whiteboards and pens are a good way for children to try out spellings and practise their handwriting
Don’t forget our learning workshop this week and our phonics mornings next week.
Malham
We had a fantastic day in Malham last Monday (2 November) due to the great weather we enjoyed and the great geography learning we did (both physical and human).
On our return, we wrote a newspaper article to inform others about our day so, rather than tell you about it myself, I’ll show you a couple of the reports we wrote alongside some great pictures.
Look at how drastically the weather changed along our journey!
Finally, we returned from our fairytale land of blue skies and warm weather back to foggy Leeds.
Top vegetable choices
If your child chooses school dinners, they are served two portions of vegetables or vegetables and a portion of salad with each meal. As we are all aware of the importance of eating vegetables, all children have been consulted on their favourite vegetables based on the vegetables that currently feature on the school dinner menu. The most popular choices will now feature more regularly on the menu.
We would also like your views on school dinners. Look out for the school dinner survey due to be sent out next week.
06 November 2015 – practice makes perfect homework
As always, Year 5 have a practice makes perfect homework due on Wednesday 11 November.
To show I can improve on my writing target.
Each child has written their writing target into their book and need to show (in any way they choose) that they are aware of what this is and can practise improving on it. You might want to write a paragraph that demonstrates you are considering your target, or you could write individual sentences to help you practise. It’s up to you. Here are the different targets with an example to help.
- To be able to use expanded noun phrases – In front of him stood a long, dark corridor that was full of shadows.
- To be able to use relative clauses – Tim Peake boarded the rocket, which was ready for lift-off, and buckled himself in for a bumpy ride.
- To be able to add detail to openers – Beyond the Milky Way, where the stars shone brightly, a comet flew through space.
- To be able to use a range of openers – ‘ly, ‘ing, conjunction, preposition
06 November 2015 – creative homework
This week’s homework is creative and is due on Wednesday 11 November.
To show what I know about the Solar System.
We’ve had a fantastic start to our new topic, Mission to Space and this week’s learning has centred around the Solar System.
- How many planets are there?
- What are their names?
- In what order are they from the sun?
- Which is the biggest and which is the smallest?
- What orbits Earth? How long does it take?
- What does Earth orbit? How long does it take?
- How long does it take for the Earth to spin on its axis?
- What else would you find in our Solar System?
- Where is the ISS?
…Just a few questions we’ve been answering through a research-based topic where the children are taking lots of responsibility for their learning. Here are a few suggestions of ways the children could present their learning this week:
- Draw and label a diagram of the Solar System
- Write a story, travelling through the Solar System on a rocket
- Create a model of the Solar System
- Present information about the planets using mathematical facts and figures
As usual, you can use one page in your homework book. For this topic, Year 5 will also be using a website called Makewaves to share the work we’re doing in class with other people taking part in this national project. If you want to upload your homework to your Makewaves site, it will add to your portfolio and we can have a look at it in class.
06 November
We have been learning about shape this week. We have looked in detail at the following four basic shapes and so your child should be able to fill in the following table which can be found in their homework books. Please note that we’re learning that a circle has no sides but has a curved edge.
06 November 2015
Our homework this week is practice makes perfect. In English this week, we’ve been focussing on our own targets for writing and your child’s homework reflects that target. Your child has got one task to do, depending on their group.
To accurately spell high frequency words
This group have been looking at spelling rules and ways to practise their spellings. Their homework is to Look, Cover, Write, Check a group of high frequency words. Once they have practised these, they need to use them in sentences to describe fireworks.
To use ‘middlers’ effectively
‘Middlers’, which can be used to add extra information, are a type of subordinate clause. They’re placed in the middle of a sentence and are usually punctuated with commas either side. (Did you spot the middler in the first sentence?!) This group have to punctuate a group of sentences and then write their own sentences with middlers. When your child has completed this task, ask them if their sentence would make sense if the middler was removed – if it doesn’t, they’ll need to rewrite it.
To choose adjectives for impact
This group have been discussing how to use adjectives effectively. In their writing, they’re using an impressive range of adjectives but these adjectives do not always match the noun they are describing (I drank a colossal glass of water would usually not work as well as I drank a full glass of water).
To help with this, we’ve used target grids in class to rank adjectives for different purposes. On the grid, the best possible adjectives go in the middle and less effective adjectives are placed further away. Your child has a group of adjectives that describe fireworks and must rank them using this grid. They must then use the best adjectives to describe some fireworks.
To use a wider range of conjunctions
For this target, pupils have worked on expanding the types of conjunctions they use in their writing. A conjunction is used to join two words/sentences together to form one idea/sentence. We describe this as a ‘strong join’ in class. The homework for this group is about the choice of conjunction. They’ve been given similar sentences in groups of three that must be completed with either but, and or so. The challenge is to make sure that all three sentences make sense.
To punctuate sentences
This group are focussing on using capital letters and full stops to punctuate sentences. I have given the group pairs of sentences that have been ‘squashed together’ – children must decide where one sentence finishes and the next starts.