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Learning to write

Now that your child knows lots of letter sounds, they are keen to use their phonic knowledge to write. The process of writing is not easy and research has shown that for some children, especially boys, holding a pencil can be physically painful if the muscles of the thumb and fingers are not strong enough.

Why not try some of the following activities at home to help develop the necessary muscles for writing:

• paint with fingers and with a variety of brushes
• use dough and plasticine to pound, roll, mould and pinch
• use scissors, hole punches and staplers
• pick up and sort collections of pulses, pasta and buttons
• let your child help prepare fruit and vegetables by cutting and pealing
• do up buttons and zips independently

Please encourage your child to write at home and hold the pencil correctly.  However, remember that if your child’s muscles are not ready, forcing them to write at length may put them off. Practising a little every day and doing some of the above activities is far more beneficial than a longer period of writing practice.

This week’s phonemes

This week, the new phonemes are ai, ee, igh and oa.

Remember to say the letter names (‘ay’, not ‘ah’) and encourage your child to join up the letters when writing.

This week’s ‘tricky words’ are my and was.

20 January 2012

This week, we’re learning to spell words with the split diagraph ‘i-e‘.  This changes a short ‘i’ sound (as in ‘Tim’ and ‘rid’) to a longer ‘i’ sound (as in ‘time’ and ‘ride’).

These words will be tested on Friday 27 January 2012.

20 January 2012

This week’s homework is Practice Makes Perfect. It’s due in on Wednesday 25 January 2012.

There is a worksheet in your child’s book. We are learning to form our letters correctly and then join letters together.

Have a look at our handwriting policy.

Moortown Tower

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd12TKqQl38&feature=g-upl&context=G2a2bf28AUAAAAAAAAAA

Our first Big Topic of the year was Our House. Moortown Tower is the final piece of work which brought together a lot of the learning we have done throughout the topic.

Thanks, parents, for all the shoeboxes!

What a great week!

Year Six should be congratulated this week on the amount of learning that has gone on in class.

Children have been working with new maths partners. Bronwen and Angel have achieved great success, as have Bradley and Adam.  Matthew has worked extremely hard: so hard he received a cerificate in assembly, with Mr Roundtree also noticing his progress in reading.  SEAL has been all about having the right to learn and taking responsibility for our own learning; Lauren‘s suggestions in this lesson were outstanding.

I’d also like to say well done for the excellent homework produced by the class and the amazingly sensible, mature and informed discussion we had about charities afterwards.

Here’s to another great week next week!

Expanded column method for addition

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKJRAajMsKw

The expanded column method is a way to add that makes links between how we might add mentally and the standard column method that we’ll move on to very soon.  We believe it’s important to teach this method so our children have an understanding of numbers and the number system and not just able to carry out a process.

20 January 2012

The spellings this week are all words which have a short vowel sound and require a ‘double up’ after the short vowel sound (like the ‘o’ in drop, which sounds different to a longer ‘oh’ sound).

A lot of the spellings are also in the past tense so will practise our ‘ed’ endings again.

Your child will be tested on eight out of the ten spellings on Friday 27 January.

25 January 2012

Spellings this week are the following rule: drop the ‘e’ for ‘ing’

Learn all the spellings from the list and find six more that fit the rule.  Learn the six you found too.

Spellings will be tested on Friday 27 January.

20 January 2012

Your homework this week is creative and is due in on Wednesday 25 January 2012. 

I can invent and make a page of a study book to show people how to write a great scripts.

Think of the following:

• How the page should look so it looks like a study book or important bits book.
• How you are going to make it creative and interesting to read.
• What information will you include to help your reader learn about scripts?
• What tips will you give to your reader?
• If you’re producing information about scripts, include stage directions, character lists, how many acts to include and how your actors speak and move.