Living and Learning: self-respect
To start our lesson about self-respect, we made our own creature creations. Starting with a head, someone else added a body and finally someone else added legs.
We had some great mixed up creations and not one of them was the same. The creatures were all different as we all have different drawing styles and imaginations and, just like the creatures, those differences make us all unique.
We thought about what else makes us unique and why we are special.
Our weekly circle time sessions give the children chance to build on this learning about respect and self-respect and our themed week, Me and My Communities, after half term will also reinforce this learning about our own identity.
Autumn fun!
I don’t know about you at home but we love autumn! From hibernation to deciduous trees, we’ve had lots of interesting chats during our literacy carpet sessions. Ask your child if they can remember some of the facts we’ve learnt this week. You could ask:
- What’s the weather like in autumn?
- Why happens to deciduous trees?
- Where do queen bees hibernate?
- Where do bats hibernate?
- What might you wear in autumn?
- What do some birds do in autumn?
- Can your remember any of celebrations that happen in autumn?
We looked at the story Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert. We looked closely at the illustrations, drew story maps and used our leaves from our brown bags to make our very own leaf men pictures.
We also went on a walk to see if we could find Leaf Man hiding in a pile of leaves. On our walk we found lots of wonderful coloured leaves but no Leaf Man!
Poetry picnic
On Monday, we started learning our new poem: Leaves are Falling. We had lots of fun practising the actions! Click here to watch us in action.
Library
This afternoon, we visited our school library. We had a wonderful time looking at lots of books with our friends and choosing one to take home. Please make sure your child returns their library book every books be returned o so we can return them and choose another exciting story.
PE
We love PE days! This half-term due to limited space we’ve had to do our PE sessions outside. We’ve enjoyed playing warm up games and practising our ball skills.
Next half-term PE will on a Monday and Thursday. Two gymnastic coaches will be coming to teach us some new skills!
Maths
In maths, we continued to use our ‘perceptual’ subitising skills (instant recognition) when listening to musical sounds. We also investigated making different shapes with four cubes just like the Numberblock Four. When doing this, we started to notice the sub-groups. For example, Numberblock Four can be arranged with 2 blocks on top of another 2 blocks or as a line of 3 with 1 on top.
Check out our other learning…
JLT Elections
Next week, we’re holding elections for the Junior Leadership Team. Two representatives from each class are chosen democratically by their peers.
Elections will take place on Thursday 20 October. If your child would like to be a junior leader, please help them to prepare a short speech about why they would be a good junior leader. These will be shared on the morning of the elections.
Reminders
- From Monday, your child will come into the classroom independently.
- Parent-Teacher Zoom meetings – Monday 17 & Tuesday 18 October
Finally…
Thank you to all the parents/carers who attended the Phase 2 stay and learn session this week. It was great to see so many of you and the children thoroughly enjoyed showing off their amazing phonics learning with you. We hope you found it useful!
As always, if you have any questions or would like to share any home learning please use our reception email moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org.
Home-Link Challenge
Living and Learning: self-respect
To start our lesson about self-respect, we made our own creature creations. Starting with a head, someone else added a body and finally someone else added legs.
We had some great mixed up creations and not one of them was the same. The creatures were all different as we all have different drawing styles and imaginations and, just like the creatures, those differences make us all unique.
We thought about what else makes us unique and why we are special.
Our weekly circle time sessions give the children chance to build on this learning about respect and self-respect and our themed week, Me and My Communities, after half term will also reinforce this learning about our own identity.
Living and Learning – I respect others
In Living and Learning, we looked at how we respect others. We discussed discrimination, protected characteristics and the Equality Act 2010.
Discrimination is defined as “the unfair treatment of people because of who they are or because they have a certain characteristic.”
The protected characteristics are:
- Race
- Age
- Sex
- Sexual orientation
- Pregnancy and Maternity
- Disability
- Religion/Belief
- Gender reassignment
- Marriage and Civil partnership
We looked at different scenarios (both made up and real-life cases), where people were treated unfairly and tried to find a solution to the problem.
We now have a greater understanding that individual characteristics make everyone in the world unique and we can respect people in several different ways.
Maths learning this week
This week in maths we learnt all about the greater than, less than and equal to symbols. We used cubes to build towers and then said which one was greater and which one was less.
The picture above demonstrates the symbols we have used really well and we have used this image in the week to help the children understand.
You can help at home by comparing groups of objects or numbers using the language of greater than, less than and equal to as well as the symbols. There is also a terrific Numberblocks episode introducing these concepts too. Watch a clip from it here.
Thank you and have a wonderful weekend!
Learning in Reception
On Tuesday morning, we went on our local walk around Moortown to look at landmarks. Before going on our walk, we looked at Google Maps to check the route. The children were so sensible and showed fantastic manners to members on the public. One person even commented on their amazing manners. Well done, Reception!
After our walk, we had a go at drawing our own maps of where we went. The were fantastic at using symbols on their maps!
Maths
This week, we’ve explored the composition of 3 and 4. We’ve investigated part–whole relations, e.g. seeing that 3 can be composed of 1 and 2. Through practical experiences we know that a ‘whole’ is made up of smaller parts and is, therefore, bigger than its parts.
Throughout the week, we’ve been collecting groups of 2, 3 and 4 objects. Here’s some children collecting 2 objects (one and another one)
We also explored making repeating patterns.
This week, the construction area has been very busy! Many children have been making models with the Mobilo. Check out their amazing models!
This week, one of the chilli challenges was to do an observational drawing of an autumn leaf. We talked about the colours we could see. Next week, we’ll be talking about autumn and doing lots of autumn challenges.
Mornings
From Monday 17 October, your child will line up in the playground and come into classroom independently. This will allow us to start our learning straight away. Please wait with your child in the playground until the bell goes.
Reminders
- Phonics Stay & Learn – 11 & 12 October
Thank you to everyone who has signed up! - Please email any ‘WOW’ moments or new interests at home. We love receiving and sharing photos in school.
moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org - You child will have been assigned their new e-book. Please make sure your child reads this daily alongside love of reading books.
- Reception coffee morning – Monday 10 October at 9am
Come and enjoy a coffee and chat.
Home-Link Challenge
History
How did the Greeks influence our lives today?
This week, the children researched how the Ancient Greeks have influenced our lives today. Their different innovations were so great that even the Romans kept some of them! They chose either Sport, The Arts or Science, Maths and Philosophy and used BBC Bitesize to find all the information they needed. They then presented their findings on a poster!
They all did a fantastic job and worked really well in their pairs. Here’s some examples:
Squashed sentences
A squashed sentence is when two sentences are squashed together without any punctuation.
An example: The fire was burning I was terrified.
This should be: The fire was burning. I was terrified. (…or some other punctuation, but not a comma)
We can also join two sentences with conjunctions.
An example: The fire was burning and I was terrified.
In class, we are focusing on separating two squashed sentences with a full stop.
To help at home, you could ensure that children are pausing at full stops in their reading. You could also write two sentences, based on the weekly spellings, which are separated by a full stop in the incorrect place, such as I went. Camping it was fun. Read the sentences together and see if your child could fix it.
Living and Learning: Protected Characteristics
In this week’s L&L session, we learnt about discrimination and protected characteristics.
Discrimination is… ‘the unfair treatment of people because of who they are or because they have a certain characteristic’.
We looked at a fictional planet, Figura, where we were given scenarios and had to decide if people were being treated unfairly because of who they were.
We then learnt that in Great Britain, we have laws that protect us from being discriminated under the Equality Act 2010.
This act protects people from being discriminated based on the following protected characteristics: race, age, religion or beliefs, disability, sex, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, being pregnant or on maternity leave and being married or being in a civil partnership.
After this, we looked at some scenarios and decided whether they were legal or illegal based on our learning about discrimination and protected characteristics.
Y6, like they have been in all of our L&L sessions this year, were very responsible and were able to have honest, open discussions throughout.
Keep up the good work!