Armley Mills Industrial Museum
Year 3 and 4 visited Armley Mills Industrial Museum today! The museum was full of amazing, old machines that get wool from a sheep, ready to weave into fabric.
Each class had a weaving workshop where they carded wool to make it smooth and straight. This was done by hand or in the later years, there were machines for this! Back in Victorian times, children as young as 7 were working on the machines… We decided that we’d much rather be in school learning than doing this!
We then saw a huge old spinning machine that helps to get the wool thin and looking like string or thread. It was very loud. The song, “wind the bobbin up” was explained as the wool is spun around one!
Finally, we had a go at weaving ourselves. There is a weft which goes left to right and a warp that goes top to bottom. The children weaved their fabric in and out to create some beautiful weaves!
We also spent some time outside in the garden getting some fresh air and exploring the other levels to the museum. We saw machines for sewing, projecting and banking. Very impressive!
Help at home by watching this BBC Bitesize video about weaving. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0015x4s/bitesize-daily-79-year-olds-art-89-year-olds-3-weaving
Living and Learning – RSE
This week, Y6 have been learning about RSE – Relationships and Sex Education.
We learnt about the scientific process of conception, what happens during pregnancy and what consent means.
As always, our sessions were framed around families, responsibility and respect.
Here are some quotes from our Y6 children after our learning:
“I knew a lot from chats at home but I found it really useful to go over it. I’ve read books but it was so good to be able to ask questions.”
“I was confused about a lot of this stuff before but now I feel much more confident.”
“Some of this learning was a bit funny but I found it really helpful.”
“No means no.”
Moortown’s super skippers
Today, Year 2 took part in the Skipping School KS1 festival at Leeds Trinity University against four other Leeds schools.
The children have been learning lots of individual and group skipping skills and today it was great to see just how much the children have progressed.
We were lucky enough to win some awards for the following events.
After all the points (skips) were added up, the winning school was announced…
We were so excited and proud to hear we had won!
A huge well done to all the children for fantastic determination, resilience and team work. They have worked so hard by practising in PE, at lunchtime and playtime, at skipping after-school club and even at home!
We looked super smart in our new KS1 PE tops too.
Skipping is amazing because it gives us exercise.
I really liked learning new skips at the festival.
It’s all been fun and it is good for your mental health.
Waterstones!
Yesterday, 10 children from Year 3 and 4 went on a trip into Leeds to visit Waterstones!
The children all chose a book to take home and we had great fun looking at all the different choices that were available.
Take a look at some of the books that we chose below! Have you/would you like to read them?
Science: We are biologists!
In our next science unit, we are biologists. Biology is the study of living things.
In this week’s lesson, we dissected a flower called Alstroemeria. We labelled the different parts and discussed which of them make up the male and female reproductive systems. Have a look at our work:
Help at home: Label the different parts of the flower.
Living and Learning: Relationships
Over the past 3 weeks, we have had a plethora of RSE lessons covering a range of topics. This week, we talked about relationships and what makes them healthy as well as families and what makes ours different and unique.
To start, we defined a relationship as “the way in which two or more people or things are connected, or the state of being connected” and then talked about the different relationships we have in our lives. Then, we discussed healthy and unhealthy relationships and thought about how we could support and improve them. Here are a few ideas:
- being kind, considerate and respectful
- being honest
- listening to each other
- respecting personal space, boundaries and privacy
- accepting others’ differences
We then talked about similarities and differences between our families and focused in our why our families are important to us. Here are a few responses. Families provide:
- love
- care
- support
- food
- shelter
- safety
Help at home: Talk with your child about the different relationships they have.
Living and Learning – Healthy me and my body.
We’ve been learning about our bodies in Year 3.
How are females and males different?
We came up with lots of ideas about how they are different but actually decided that many females and males have loads of similarities. For example; favourite colours, hobbies, hair colour.
One thing we decided that is definitely different is the body parts.
Year 3 were very mature and discussed how animals (including humans) have different bodies for different reasons. For example, females can produce milk for their young whether they are a cow or a cat.
It’s important that we know the names of our body parts and that they belong to us. We reminded ourselves of the NSPCC pants rule:
Help at home by naming as many body parts as possible! How many can you name?
Living and Learning – Body Image
We kicked off our new topic in Living and Learning by talking about body image.
We first made a human scale in the hall to show how confident we are with different things. One side of the hall was ‘most confident’ and the opposite being ‘least confident’. This showed us how different we all are ‘inside’.
We then thought more generally and came up with these ideas of how we’re different:
Some of these things we can’t change, could change or will change over time. Here’s what we decided!
Living and Learning: relationships
For the last few weeks, our Living and Learning lessons and circle times have been all about happy and healthy relationships between our friends, peers and families.
Here, we thought about what makes a family.
A family can be three people or four people. It just matters that you LOVE them!
A family is a group of people and they love each other.
A family is people who are combined together.
You can show you care for your family by loving them as much as you love yourself and be kind and respectful.
Family respect you, take care of you and show you kindness and love.
Sometimes, you might have fall outs but you will come back together.
We read some texts about how not all families are the same and that is ok. The children also enjoyed sharing special members of their family.
The Great big book of families by Mary Hoffman
What is a healthy relationship? What does a good friend do? What should I do if I’m not happy with a friendship? These were all questions we considered as we moved onto thinking about friendships.
Consent is also part of this relationships learning. We have already learnt about consent in terms of permission seeking when online but here we thought about it when we are with others. We practised showing how we give and don’t give consent and how we can also change our mind if we want to.
We will continue to use this text to support learning about consent.
Finally, you will have seen the children have brought home the NSPCC Pants Underwear rule. We revisit this important learning every year.
Help at home: read the NSPCC pants underwear rule with your child/children and think about how this keeps you safe. This parent guide is available too.
Orienteering
Recently, as part of the Leeds Well Schools Partnership, some of our Year 5 and 6 children participated in a come and try orienteering event at Potternewton Park.
After being briefed on the rules and how to complete the orienteering challenge, they set off with their partner armed with a map of the site to find the first check point. Then, it was back to the start to hand over to the other pair in their team for them to find check point two and so on until all twelve markers had been found.
The children worked brilliantly in their teams encouraging and supporting each other especially up the hill back to the handover station.
Well done to all the children for representing the school so well and developing these great skills.
It was really fun but the hill was challenging.
We got to work with a partner and in a team so it was good to work together.
We didn’t give up.
We learnt how to use the map to find different places.
