CSI Fingerprinting
It’s the science day of curriculum week today and we’ve been learning about fingerprinting. We’ve learned that all fingerprints are different and that fingerprints have arches, loops or whirls.
Maths all around us
Maths can be found all around us and Year 1 completed a maths trail as part of our themed week.
- Can you find an array?
- What shape is the bench?
- What is the height of the bin?
Maths Day
As well as working with the Happy Puzzle Company, we’ve been doing lots of different maths in the classroom too.
The day started with lots of resilience to try and make our way through the maze.
We then looked at problems across lots of different areas of maths.
The day finished by looking at how musicians need to use mathematical knowledge to be able to keep a beat and read musical notes. We practised clapping in time before clapping to different musical notes. Finally, we all had an instrument and played different beats at the same time. Unfortunately, I was so busy being a composer that we don’t have any pictures but you can take my word for it – it was great!
Puzzling puzzles
Reception class and Year 1 began our current themed week with some problem solving mathematical puzzles with The Happy Puzzle Company.
With lots of teamwork, thinking skills and resilience, we enjoyed the challenge of all the puzzles.
Themed week
Today, we have been mathematicians which involved team-work, reasoning skills, adopting a systematic approach and lots of patience in order to solve some logic puzzles.
23 March 2015
Below (in orange) are some more sentences for your child to write at home. It’s helpful to follow this process…
- Read the sentence to your child.
- Ask them to repeat the sentence several times. They could whisper it, shout it or say it in a silly voice.
- Count the words.
- Say the sentence word by word for your child to write.
- Remind them to use a capital letter, a full stop and finger spaces.
- Ask your child to read the sentence back to check they have written every word.
- Write the sentence together, modelling how to read back.
- I must not tramp on the flowers.
- I kept bumping into things in the dark.
- A crab crept into a crack in the rock.
- Milk is good for children’s teeth.
- A drip from the tap drops in the sink.
- The clown did tricks with a chimpanzee.
- I can hear twigs snapping in the wind.
20 March 2015
This week’s homework is practice makes perfect. Please make sure it is handed in by Wednesday 25 March.
It is maths practice this week looking at grouping and sharing.
There are practical activities you could do to help your child understand this process:
- sharing sweets amongst the family
- grouping objects into groups of 2, 5 or 10
- playing cards where a number of cards have to be dealt to each person – How many were there altogether? How many does each person have?
- serving food eg potatoes – How many potatoes do we have? How many people? How many potatoes will they get each?
20 March 2015
There will be no spelling test on Friday 27 March as the children will be doing end of term assessments.
20 March 2015
The homework this week is creative and is due in on Wednesday 25 March.
I can show what I have learnt about persuasion.
The children have been learning about the art of persuasion in English lessons recently, writing some pretty persuasive emails and letters! For the homework, I’d like them to show me what they have learnt about persuasion. As a class, we thought of some ideas:
- Write another persuasive letter/email persuading me or someone else to do or change their mind about something.
- Create a poster showing off the features of Persuasive writing. The children have learnt this as READER (see attached photo).
- Have a structured argument – using connectives (see second photo) – with a parent, sibling, friend, etc.
Curriculum enrichment themed week
Themed weeks are always popular. Next week, we try something new – five consecutive themed days, each centred around a particular subject of the curriculum. A variety of events and visitors are planned.
On Monday, we’ll focus on Maths. We welcome the Happy Puzzle Company to school for a Puzzle Challenge Day. Using large 3D puzzles and challenges, pupils will improve their personal learning skills, thinking skills and team-working skills, whilst boosting their confidence in the processes used.
After school on Monday, there will be an opportunity for you to come and buy a puzzle or two. Happy Puzzle Company will be in The Space and will have a large range of puzzles available for you to buy. You should have received details and a voucher about this – ask at the office if you haven’t.
All lessons on Tuesday will have a Science theme. Children from Year 1 to Year 6 will be joined by Hands on Science, and will take part in their CSI Fingerprints workshop. Children will take their own fingerprints and be shown how to identify and find the characteristics that make them unique.
We’ll be enjoying a play by the Quantum Theatre on Wednesday: ‘The Writing on the Wall’. This will help us focus on composition, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation in our English.
Thursday and Friday mornings will see the return of the ever-popular learning carousel! Groups containing children from each class, Reception to Year 6, will focus on different areas of the curriculum: Art, Music, Computing, Geography, PE and DT. There will also be taster sessions in Urdu (led by our own Mrs Maqbool) and Mandarin (led by Master Mandarin). Children will rotate through the groups and will take part in all of these activities.
In addition, we’re hoping to welcome a local newsreader to an assembly – Harry Gration. He will speak to the children about the importance of Maths and English in his job at Look North.