Living and Learning – I know how to seek help.
Last week, our Living and Learning focus was how to seek help when it is needed. Asking for help is important in lots of different situations. We discussed how it could be something smaller like asking for help during a lesson or something bigger like asking for help with friendships or family.
The children watched the NSPCC assembly where it highlighted children’s rights and gave the clear message of ‘Speak out, Stay safe’. The children identified who their own trusted adults are and felt comfortable that they could ask for help.
This is a topic that we talk about often in school but it’s important that it is spoken about openly at home too! In circle time, we all shared how it makes us feel to have to ask for help and there were lots of mixed feelings. For example, feeling worried or silly but also feeling confident and happy.
Help at home: Visit the Childline website, which has age-appropriate advice for children on topics such as bullying. It also has games and other interactive tools.
Model of our Solar System
In a recent Science lesson, we learnt about the different planets in our Solar System.
We learnt about the heliocentric model of the Solar System by which all the plants revolve around the Sun that is in the centre.
We learnt that different planets are different distances away from the Sun.
In order for us to fully grasp this concept, we scaled down the actual distances between the planets and represented their relative distances in the playground!
We found out that Mercury is the nearest planet to the Sun and Neptune is the furthest away!
Help at home by seeing if your child can remember the order of the planets from the Sun. We made a mnemonic in class to help us!
Living and Learning: I know how to seek help
This week, we have discussed how to seek help when it is needed. The children watched a NSPCC assembly where it highlighted children’s rights and gave the clear message of ‘Speak out, Stay safe’. The children were confident at identifying who their own trusted adults are and felt comfortable that they could ask for help.
This learning will be revisited in a couple of weeks time when they will have a workshop to recap their learning and deepen their knowledge of being safe.
Help at home: Discuss who your child would speak to if they needed help and/or visit the Childline website, which has age-appropriate advice for primary school children on topics such as bullying. It also has games and other interactive tools.
Writing: Narratives with dialogue
Over the past couple of weeks, the children have developed ideas, planned and written narratives which contain dialogue. The focus of the work was for the speech to convey character and advance action. Our inspiration was a silent animation where the two main characters were carrying out a heist for a priceless ruby, however, the plot took a turn and the thieving brothers ended up in a fight.
The children then created their own two characters who were also trying to steal something and similarly ended up in an argument.
Have a look at these extracts from their fantastic work:
Living and Learning
This week, our Living and Learning was ‘I know how to seek help’. We talked about different scenarios and how/who we would ask for help.
AP – I would ask a teacher.
MB – I would ask my Mummy and Daddy.
SSK – I would ask the police.
TH – I would ask my neighbour.
FlM – I would ask someone who works there who is wearing a hi-vis jacket or wearing uniform.
DD – I would ring 999.
Super Reception!
Supertato took over our classroom this week! The children have loved reading this story. On Tuesday, the children noticed the veggies taped to a table with pictures of the Evil Pea all over the writing area. Just when we were about to start reading the book, we found a letter from the Evil Pea.
On Wednesday, the Evil Pea had been up to his mischievous tricks again! The veggies were trapped in a shopping basket hanging on a door!
All week the children our new role play area has been very busy with determined superheroes trying to solve the crimes and capture the Evil Pea!
Super writing!
Every morning, the children have a morning activity to do before phonics. We’ve been super impressed with their amazing sentences this week.
Maths
In maths, the children continued to develop their understanding of composition, or the numbers within numbers. We used the Hungarian number pattern (die pattern) to explore ways to represent numbers. By using this die pattern, it is helping the children understand the ‘5-ness’ of 5.
We started by sing the ‘5 Little Aliens in a Flying Saucer’ song to help us see remember the pairs of numbers that make 5. When another alien joined the gang, they quickly realised there was no space! FlM said, “We need to build another spaceship.” Therefore, we used a double dice frame to begin to explore 6 and 7 as numbers that are composed of ‘5 and a bit’.
Music
This week, the children learnt all about robots and made their own robot to use next week in music.
AT – They might be used to help people.
TH – They do what you say.
JQ – You can control it.
FiM – A robot could help you with your shopping.
MB – I would put a button on to move it.
SL – I would put hands on my robot so it can do the cleaning.
SS – I might use a remote control.
AS – I would put legs on my robot.
Poetry Picnic
This week’s poem was an eight-line poem called A Little House. We highlighted lots of digraphs, trigraphs and tricky words when reading the poem.
Reminders
- Fiddly Fingers Stay & Learn – Friday 03 February 8.50am-9.30am
No need to sign up just come and join in with some fun finger gym activities. Due to limited space, only one adult per child can attend this session. - Parent-Teacher meetings – Monday 06 & Tuesday 07 February
- Class assembly – Wednesday 22 February – 2.40pm – 3.00pm
Reading
As you all know we love to read at Moortown Primary School. Starting from today, Year 5 will be reading with Reception every Friday. It was lovely to see and hear all the children engaged in a story.
Writing a report
For the next few weeks in writing, we are writing a report on a volcano.
A report is a text type that give us factual information and describes ‘how things are’. Some features of a report include headings, subheadings, bullet points and rhetorical questions.
Today, Year 3 used the iPads to compare various text types and identify which were reports and which weren’t. After identifying the reports, we were then able to identify specific features of a report that would help us be successful when writing our own in a few weeks time.
Living and Learning: I know how to seek help.
In our living and learning sessions over the last two weeks, we have been exploring risks and how to seek help if we need to.
We looked at different scenarios and placed them on a continuum based on how much of a risk we thought they posed. Some of the scenarios were:
– learning to ride a horse
– learning to drive
– taking up a new hobby
– drinking energy drinks on a daily basis
– stealing from a shop
– putting your hand up if you’re not sure of the answer
After we’d established the risks involved with each, we spoke about how some things are worth doing because the risks are minimal but other things definitely aren’t!
When would you know if the risks involved made something not worth doing?
We spoke about how we often get that feeling in our stomach if we know the risks are too great. We also spoke about how if we weren’t sure, we should always speak to a trusted adult!
Help at home by talking with your child about different things they may encounter in their lives as they progress to high school and beyond and the risks associated with them! This will help them make informed decisions in the future!
Well done, Y6!
Living and Learning: being safe
In our Living and Learning lessons, we have been thinking about being safe in a variety of situations.
Here we are sorting some activities, that all have an element of risk, depending on whether they pose a low or high risk. There were some different opinions and the children were able to justify the decisions they had made.
We also played this hazard identification game to spot and learn about potential risks when at home.
The wires are going across the carpet. Someone might trip up over them.
The candles are burning close to the curtains so they might catch fire.
There’s a hot drink near the edge of the table. Someone might knock it off and it would burn them.
Our reading fluency text this week also has a being safe theme.
The NSPCC Speak out Stay safe assembly gave a very clear message about being safe and in our weekly circle time, the children were all able to say how they would seek help (Start Telling Other People).
Help at home by reinforcing these important safety messages ready for your homework this week.
The NSPCC has also developed an adapted version of their assembly for parents/carers to use at home with their children and some resources that can be used to enable further discussion whilst doing activities with your children.
You’ll also find online safety information for families of children with additional needs and disabilities.
Childline also have a website with age-appropriate advice for primary school children on topics such as bullying. It also has games and other interactive tools.