We are gymnasts!
This half term, we have had Jane and Lucy helping us in our P.E lessons by teaching us gymnastics!
We have been balancing, jumping, rolling and travelling across the hall.
Check out some pictures below!
Living and learning: mental health
This week, Year 1, with the help of some of the characters from the Beano, have been learning about a range of emotions.
Emotions are feelings. They can change all the time.
We all experience a whole range of emotions, from anger to happiness to fear.
Looking at someone’s face and their body language can help us to understand how others might be feeling.
How might Dennis be feeling? What clues tell you this?
We discussed why it is important to recognise and talk about our emotions and how to seek help with our feelings or if we notice a friend might need help.
Everybody in the class had some great ideas to help ourselves when we feel strong emotions and we will discuss this more next week.
Well done Year 1.
Skipping School
Hello everyone,
Year 4 had a fantastic morning with Skipping School leader – Katie. She took the children through each step, such as how to hold your skipping rope in a smile shape and when to jump after the rope clicks the floor. They then worked up to doing complicated straddle jumps and crossing the skipping ropes! The children were great and were really resilient (as it can be quite tricky!) while working together and encouraging one another.
Year 4 will be participating in the Skipping School Competition after Easter which is all about getting moving and having fun while doing so! We will be practicing the skipping skills we learnt today, up until that point.
Help at home by getting the children skipping.
Stars and Monet
Literacy
This week, we’ve been reading the book How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers. We worked together to sequence the story and talked about what happened at the beginning, middle and end.
We also had a go at writing how we would catch a star.
On Wednesday, we talked about star constellations. We researched our star sign constellations and had a go at drawing and painting our own.
Art
On Thursday and Friday, we explored impressionism by looking at Claude Monet’s series of impressionist oil paintings of the Houses of Parliament. We used short, thin marks when using the soft pastels to create the background. When we were happy with our background, we used acrylic paint for the House of Parliament.
Maths
This week, we developed our understanding of the composition of numbers by investigating the composition of 3, 4 and 5. Composing and de-composing numbers involves the children investigating part–part–whole relations, e.g. seeing that 3 can be composed of 1 and 2.
Through practical experiences, we explored combining parts in different ways to find out the whole.
We had lots of fun playing the ‘Hats’ game.
How many children are wearing a hat? (part)
How many children are not wearing a hat? (part)
How many are there altogether? (whole)
“1 is wearing a hat. 2 are not wearing a hat. There are 3 children altogether.”
“3 children are wearing a hat. No children are not wearing a hat. There are 3 children altogether.”
“2 are wearing a hat. 2 are not wearing a hat. There are 4 children altogether.”
We watched the Numberblocks Stampoline video and had a go at printing our own Stampoline patterns of 4 and 5.
Poetry Picnic
This week’s is called Mice by Rose Fyleman.
We talked about how poems can sometimes have rhyming words in them. Can your child tell you the rhyming words in this week’s poem?
Christmas is coming!
We’ve been practising our Christmas songs for our Christmas performance. We just love to sing and dance in Reception! We can’t wait to for you to come and watch us on Tuesday 13 and Wednesday 14 December.
Reminders
– PTA Christmas fair – Friday 09 December
– Learning journey drop in’s – Monday 12, Tuesday 13 and Thursday 15 December at 8.50 – 9.30am or 3.15 – 3.45pm
– The cold weather is here! Please make sure your child comes to school wearing a suitable coat.
– Please label hats, scarves and gloves!
Home-Link Challenge
Living and Learning: mental health
This week, Year 2, with the help of some of the characters from the Beano, have been learning about a range of emotions.
Emotions are feelings. They can change all the time.
We all experience a whole range of emotions, from anger to happiness to fear.
Looking at someone’s face and their body language can help us to understand how others might be feeling.
How might Dennis be feeling? What clues tell you this?
We discussed why it is important to recognise and talk about our emotions and how to seek help with our feelings or if we notice a friend might need help.
Next week, we will be thinking about self care techniques that can help us to look after our own mental health. Mindfulness is one example of a self care technique. We do lots of mindfulness techniques in class – ask your child to share them with you. Also, look out for the wellbeing bingo for you to try at home.
Christmas Dinner Menu – 08 December 2022
Catering Agency, our school meal provider, will be running a special themed Christmas menu on Thursday 08 December. Please contact the office if your child would like a school dinner on this day (no action needed if your child normally has a school meal on this day).
Live webinar with author Alex Willmore
On Thursday, Year 1 and 2 met author Alex Willmore (virtually) in a live webinar. It was great for the children to be inspired by Alex’s storytelling, illustrations and the introduction of his new book ‘ I DID see a mammoth!’.
As well as enjoying Alex’s new book, all the children followed Alex’s live drawing to draw their own mammoth. Alex talked about how he became an author and gave the children tips of how to create their own stories.
Art: creating William Morris wallpaper
This week in Art, we created our own wallpaper using our favourite parts of William Morris designs.
First, the children searched the internet to find their favourite design and then cropped the picture to select the part they loved the most. This was then our starting point to create our own wallpapers. The children experimented with repeated patterns by using rotation.
The class loved using the iPads to create their own designs:
Why not, at home, find other artists that use nature as a stimulus (starting point).
Science – What’s that sound?
This half term, our Science topic is called ‘What’s that sound?’. We are physicists because we are learning about physics.
So far, Year 4 have learnt how a sound travels into our ears and that is because of vibrations. For example, if an object like a car door is slammed shut, the car door vibrates and the vibrations travel through the air to our ears! To find out more, we went on a sound walk around the school to find as many different sound sources as possible.
The children heard lots of things, such as;
- children talking/shouting
- car horns
- ambulance siren
- car engines
- trees rustling
- foot steps
- fridge humming.
We worked out that we heard most of the sounds in the front playground due to being nearer the road.
Some sounds were high pitched and others were low pitched. The sounds that are there to catch our attention (ambulance sirens) are high pitched and the sounds that are more common (car engines) are low pitched.
Our second lesson was exploring sounds further and fortunately for the children, making sounds with our bodies! We tried to compose a “song” using our bodies. We clicked, stomped, hummed, thumped and shouted. We then experimented with the drums by placing rice on the top and seeing what happened when we hit it hard and hit it softly. In conclusion, the harder we hit the drum, the higher the rice flew and the softer we hit the drum, the lower the rice flew.
Have a look at us in action:
Nursery Rhyme and Anti-Bullying week
This week, we celebrated Nursery Rhyme Week. In Literacy, we read Each Peach, Pear Plum by Allan Ahlberg and Janet Ahlberg. When reading the story, we played ‘I Spy’. The children were encouraged to describe where the characters are using prepositional language, for example, Cinderella is hiding behind the cupboard.
After reading the book, they had to find a nursery rhyme character hiding in the classroom. The children had a go at writing the character’s name or a sentence describing where the character is hiding.
This week’s chilli challenges were all linked to nursery rhymes. Take a look at some in action…
Building a wall for Humpty Dumpty.
Playing Busy Bus with our friends in the maths area.
Baking a cake as fast as we can in the playdough area.
Catching fish in the water area.
Naming Old Macdonald’s farm animals and drawing our favourite.
Drawing number stories using 5 Little Speckled Frogs.
How many frogs are sat on the logs?
How many are in the pond?
Painting ‘Starry Night’ pictures.
On Wednesday, we looked at some past and present household artefacts and compared them. Some children had a go at drawing them using charcoal.
Living & Learning
This week is also Anti-Bullying week and yesterday we talked about the definition of bullying and what we can do to stop it. Which led onto us talking about kindness.
We made a kindness heart and talked about how we can be kind.
Florence – Including someone.
Avraj – By loving someone.
Lily – By looking after them.
Ryan – You can give them a hi-five.
Awais – Give to charity.
Seerat – Help someone who’s hurt.
Poetry Picnic
This week, we decided to learn a nursery rhyme. Check out our amazing actions!
Marvellous Maths
Thank you to all of the parents and carers who came to the maths stay & learn sessions this week. It was lovely to see so many of you! We hope you all thoroughly enjoyed it. The next stay & learn is a Funky Phonics Phase 3 session in January.
Reminders
– Library books must be returned every Friday.
– Learning Journey Drop In’s
Monday 12, Tuesday 13 & Thursday 15 December 8.50 – 9.30am or 3.15 – 3.45pm
A sign-up letter will be sent out shortly.
– PE is on Monday and Wednesday next week.
Home-Link Challenge
