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Cooking in the new curriculum

Teachers have been busy learning about the different cooking skills we’ll be teaching your child this year!
Today we’ve made a tasty (and healthy) garden salad!

Budding actors and actresses

Friday was filled with drama and costume making as Years 1 and 2 set to work to create a performance in just one day! While half of the class worked on creating a scene, the other half were hard at work cutting, colouring and combing masks and props for the final performance. Then…we swapped.

The show took our audience through a number of paintings just like Katie (the main character of our class novels) and watched her lose a girl’s hoop, argue with monkeys, run from a tiger and dance with shapes – not to mention hiding from the gallery guard!

If you couldn’t make it, here are a few pictures from our main performance.

We have a new Chair of Governors

Over the summer holiday, Mrs Janice Rush stood down from her role as Chair of our Governing Body.

Mrs Rush became Chair at the same time as I started at Moortown: in the autumn term of 2007-2008 school year.  Having put in seven years as Chair (and some time on our governing body before that), we will miss her a great deal and are extremely grateful for all her efforts.  She has worked tirelessley and tenaciously to help the school move from ‘good’ to the outstanding school we are today.  She provided the right balance of support and challenge to me and to a governing body which has become even more integral to our school and the processes we have in place.  In recent months, she was especially proactive in attempting to secure the best possible outcome for the field, and for this we are also grateful.

Mrs Becky Lawrence, our former Vice-Chair, has been voted in as the new Chair to replace Mrs Rush.  Currently on maternity leave, Mrs Lawrence works for Children’s Services and brings a wealth of experience and skills, especially statistical expertise.

Mrs Rachel Greenhalgh, mother of Y3 and Y1 children, is our new Vice-Chair.  Like Mrs Lawrence, Mrs Greenhalgh has a great deal of useful skills, with a particular passion around the teaching and learning of Maths.

Meet the artists in Year 1

The first week of our Big Topic has been really busy. We had an amazing day with Splats – the children worked on their scene from Katie’s Picture Show for 45 minutes and then it all came together for a professional performance. Well done to all of the children and thank you to Arran who co-ordinated the whole day and narrated the story in the performance. There are a few photos below from the day and also some photos of our own artists – following Vincent Van Gogh’s lead, drawing sunflowers.

19 September 2014

This week’s homework is talk time homework.  Your child needs to be ready to talk about this homework on Wednesday 24 September.

What did Katie do?

There should be lots to talk about this week after our exciting day with Splats.  Here are some questions you might want to ask:

• Who is Katie?
• What happened when she went to the art gallery with Grandma?
• Who did she meet in the paintings?
• Which painting would you like to go inside?
• Did anything in the paintings change?

As this is talk time homework,  we do not expect lots of written work from the children.  There is a slight change in expectations this year – please make a few brief notes showing what was discussed.  Older children are expected to write their own notes but this is something that we can develop during the year.

We are looking forward to hearing all about your discussions.

19 September 2014

Here are this week’s spellings. There will be a spelling test on Friday 26 September.

Well done to all of the children who did really well with their spellings this week.  Year 1 did particularly well seeing as it was their first spelling test.  Here are some ways that you can help your child learn their spellings:

• spend 5 minutes every night looking at the new spellings
• use the words in sentences: if you put the word in context then it might be easier to remember
• turn the telly off

19 September 2014

Our homeworks this week are Talk Time and Practice Makes Perfect and are due in on Wednesday 24 September.

The Talk Time homework is I can talk about the types of books I like and why I like them. 

Children should talk to you and other family members and friends about the subject. They need to have a good awareness of different genres of story and that authors write in a particular style to suit a particular audience. This discussion will hopefully help children with this.

The Practice Makes Perfect homework is I can write descriptive sentences about a character.

This week in English, we have been writing descriptions of characters in the Fighting Fantasy books. Your child has a picture of a character in their homework books and should write about this character. Below is a quick guide with a couple of ideas for how you could help your child to improve their descriptive sentences.

Start with quite a simple sentence:

The scary monster was holding a battle-axe.

1. Improve the vocabulary

The scary monster was holding a battle-axe.  Scary isn’t a strong enough adjective for this sentence so I’m going to change that and improve the vocabulary in the rest of the sentence: The petrifying monster was wielding an enormous battle-axe. 

3. Include an add-in (opener, ender or middler) to their sentence.

I’m going to add a middler to our sentence to give the reader some more information about the monster. Notice the commas used to separate the middler from the rest of the sentence: The petrifying monster, who was bearing down on me, was wielding an enormous battle-axe which was covered in dried blood.

19 September 2014

This week, the spellings are all verbs which have the suffix ‘ate’. Your child will have one of two lists in their learning list. They should learn all the words on the relevant list.

Please make sure your child is spending around ten minutes each evening learning these.  As well as this, there are other ways to support your child at home:

• Use the words in sentences: your child might create some sentences, or you might dictate a sentence to them.  Each sentence might include just one adjective from the list above, or – for a challenge – include two, three or more! (I’ve then included a current affairs themed example, but this shouldn’t be needed after a while!)
• Look out for other words which have a suffix when reading with your child each evening.
• Turn the telly off and use the words in discussions around the table each evening, or on your way to school.All the words are adjectives – words that describe things (nouns); create a ‘bank’ of other ambitious adjectives, and start using them in every day conversation.All the words are adjectives – words that describe things (nouns); create a ‘bank’ of other ambitious adjectives, and start using them in every day conversation.All the words are adjectives – words that describe things (nouns); create a ‘bank’ of other ambitious adjectives, and start using them in every day conversation.
• All the words are verbs. Create a ‘bank’ of other ambitious verbs, and start using them in every day conversation.

Sunflowers – by Year 2

We’ve got art fever in Year 2 with the start of Big Topic. We’re looking at a series of books based around a little girl called Katie. She visits the Art Gallery with her Grandma but always manages to get into mischief by journey right into the paintings!

Katie knocked over  Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ in this weeks story but don’t panic – we’ve created our own (that’s just as good, if not better) to replace them.

Here’s how we created this whole class piece of art…

Martha even had a go at doing her own coloured version at home.

Yoga through the rainforest

Year 2 went on a journey through the rainforest on Wednesday but nobody left their yoga mat! We had great fun doing a rain dance as we got used to the rainforest’s humid climate and then climbed trees and met many animals before sailing down the Amazon and back home. Take a look at our fantastic poses.

What a great yoga class. Well done, Year 2!