History: I’m a Roman emperor!
During our history learning, we’ve learnt about the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was huge and spread across Europe and parts of Asia and Africa. Emperor Claudius was leading the Romans when they successfully invaded Britain (then Britannia).
We read a speech that Claudius may have given to the people of Rome (then Roma) while he was emperor. The children then had the opportunity to write their own speeches as Claudius themselves!
They stood in front of the colosseum and shared how they can successfully invaded Britain.
Here’s some photos:
Help at home by asking your child what benefits there were for the Romans to invade Britain.
Some clues:
Resources like cattle, tin, i_ _ _ and g _ _ _.
The Romans wanted land and p_w_r.
Reading: It’s so important!
We hope that you’re enjoying reading your child’s library book with them. We call this a ‘love of reading’ book – to do just that, encourage a love of reading for your child! Reading to and with your child can have a huge positive impact on your child’s education.
This research is a powerful message of the impact you can have when reading to/with your child:
At school, your child reads a physical book four times a week – with a focus on teaching phonics skills. This is then sent home as an eBook. The purpose of the eBook at home is to celebrate your child’s success (in phonics skills). Your child should be able to read most of this book confidently and really feel like a reader.
We’ve chosen to use eBooks at home for many benefits. Allocating eBooks frees up about two hours of teacher or TA time changing books – now spent teaching reading!
Here’s some information on how to access eBooks but if you’re having any problems please speak to your child’s class teacher.
Happy reading!
We’re artists!
This week, Year 4 finished their Wassily Kandinsky inspired sculptures. We used our concentric circles, skewers and strips of black card to create these. They turned out incredibly – I was so impressed with how effective they looked. Here are some of your children’s creations…
Help at home: over the Christmas break, have a go at creating some Napaltjarri or Kandinsky inspired artwork. Think about line, colour, shape and composition.
Nativity success!
This week our wonderful year 1s performed our school nativity. They showed amazing resilience, listening skills and dedication to each and every rehearsal resulting in a west end worthy performance. Both on Tuesday afternoon AND Wednesday morning, I think it is fair to say that we may have some future stars on our hands!
Well done Year 1, you were all brilliant!
Write like a poet – British Library
Today, Year 3 had a visitor from the British Library. We learnt a lot about the British Library like what they do, how they are different to a “normal” library and where they are based. Luckily for us, they have a base in Boston Spa!
The British Library have a copy of every single book, newspaper, magazine or even leaflet that has been published in Britain. They want to keep a record of all of these so that in years to come, people can look back and see what things were like over the years.
We read a poem – I Don’t Like Poetry by Joshua Siegel – and picked apart the vocabulary. We discussed what we liked and disliked about it. Then it was our turn to write our own poems. It can be quite tricky just to sit down and write a poem so we played lots of games to help us generate some ideas.
Some of us wrote about our day, our emotions, a hobby we like or just something random! The children really enjoyed it and were desperate to share their writing at the end.
Help at home by playing the word association game. Start with ‘apple’ and see what word the other person can think of that links to it and continue for as long as you can.
Topic – Art History – Paul Klee and Leonardo DaVinci
This week our Year 1s have been learning about the history of Leonardo DaVinci and Paul Klee. They all took part into some research, finding out where Leonardo DaVinci and Paul Klee were born, when they were born and even what their famous artwork is called.
They worked really hard on this and really impressed us with their researching skills. They even looked at a map to see the countries where they were from!
DT – Cooking and Banana sandwiches
This week in school our Year 1s have been learning about cooking and how to safely be in a kitchen. They learnt how to make banana sandwiches and they all did an amazing job. The children were really sensible, safe and made sure to support each other. The end results looked delicious!
Each pupil had a go and even got to sample their own food once they had made it. I think it’s fair to say they really enjoyed their first taste of cooking in school!
Writing: The Dream Giver
Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been planning and writing a narrative based on the beginning of this short film – The Dream Giver.
We learnt how to write using prepositional phrases to help set the scene.
…above me…
…on the windowsill…
…inside the golden eggs…
We learnt to write similes to help build the narrative in the reader’s minds.
The stars twinkled like diamonds.
The ballerina danced as elegantly as a swan.
I flew as quietly as a mouse.
The children did an amazing job at writing their narratives! We were so impressed with their ideas. They shared them with Year 5 and Year 5 were too.
Here are a few of the narratives for you to have a read:
Help at home by discussing your child’s narrative and what similes they used.
PE: gymnastics
This half term, we have been developing our gymnastics skills. We’ve been exploring jumps, balances and putting together sequences of movements.
Help at home: Our personal best challenge is to balance on one leg. Give this a try at home. Remember to look at something still to help you keep your balance. Can you beat your previous time?
Reading and Writing – Not Now Bernard!
In our Reading and writing lessons this week we have been learning how to put what we have read on to its feet in real life. The children have channelled their inner actors and actresses, by acting out scenes from our story Not Now Bernard! They have done really well with this, sharing some great ideas, laughs and most importantly they all supported each other in the classroom making it happy and healthy place to learn.
