Homework that’s ‘out of this world’
As always, Year 5 have really impressed me with this week’s homework. We were tasked with showing what we know about the solar system and we had some fantastic ideas: informative books, puzzles, models and diagrams adorned our classroom. We really enjoyed exploring each other’s work.
Here are some we really wanted to show you at home.
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Learning workshop
Don’t forget our Learning in Reception and Year 1 workshop on Tuesday 10 November at 2.30.
See you there!
Learning to write
The children are progressing quickly with their phonics learning and reading. Alongside blending to read, the children also need to segment words to spell. Children often find this harder and lack confidence in their ability to write.
In Reception, the children take part in shared writing activities where they can ‘have a go’ on whiteboards with the support of adults. We then encourage independent writing in all the areas of provision. This includes writing a label for their model, writing a shopping list in the role-play shop or writing a letter to a friend. At the moment the children are busy writing spells! We value all the children’s attempts at writing and model writing (and making mistakes) to them.
You can help at home by:
- providing plenty of different types of pens and pencils and encouraging your child to use a correct grip
- encouraging them to use the school’s handwriting style and to use lower case letters; we teach that a capital letter is required for the first letter in a name and at the beginning of a sentence
- praising – spelling is harder than reading words so praise, don’t criticise. Little whiteboards and pens are a good way for children to try out spellings and practise their handwriting
Don’t forget our learning workshop this week and our phonics mornings next week.
Malham
We had a fantastic day in Malham last Monday (2 November) due to the great weather we enjoyed and the great geography learning we did (both physical and human).
On our return, we wrote a newspaper article to inform others about our day so, rather than tell you about it myself, I’ll show you a couple of the reports we wrote alongside some great pictures.
Look at how drastically the weather changed along our journey!
Finally, we returned from our fairytale land of blue skies and warm weather back to foggy Leeds.
Top vegetable choices
If your child chooses school dinners, they are served two portions of vegetables or vegetables and a portion of salad with each meal. As we are all aware of the importance of eating vegetables, all children have been consulted on their favourite vegetables based on the vegetables that currently feature on the school dinner menu. The most popular choices will now feature more regularly on the menu.
We would also like your views on school dinners. Look out for the school dinner survey due to be sent out next week.
Some great PE
With a new half term, we’re changing focus in our PE lessons. Students from Leeds Beckett University joined us today and we really enjoyed their session. It tired us out and was great fun, too! We look forward to working with them each Wednesday this half term. 
Don’t forget to always have your PE kit in school on Mondays and Wednesdays.
What’s cooking?
Lots of cooking skills were practised this afternoon with Mrs Taylor. The wraps looked delicious and very healthy! I’m sure your child can now be a great help in the kitchen!
Also, tomorrow is our class assembly. It would be great for you to see how hard the class have worked!
Athens or Sparta – which was better?
As part of our Holidays Big Topic, we have been studying Ancient Greece. In class today, we split into two groups, Athenians and Spartans, to debate which polis (city) was better.
Our team leaders were picked based on how each polis used to decide their leaders. Athens had a democracy so that group had a vote. Sparta was ruled by a tyrant so the group didn’t get a say as to who would lead them. After that, we split into groups and decided why each polis was better than the other. 
We then debated our points but could not decide overall which polis was better.
Why not ask your child which polis they think is better?
Changing direction
Clockwise, anti-clockwise, quarter turn and half turn are all vocabulary Year 2 have been using when giving instructions to move in different directions. Using clocks as a reminder for clockwise and anti-clockwise, the children had to move across the world map to the different continents and oceans. This is one way our maths learning can be linked to our Big Topic about holidays.
Welcome back
A quick welcome back for the second half term. We’ve got an exciting run up to Christmas, kicking things off with our trip to Malham Cove and then taking on a new and exciting topic.
Topic – Mission to Space
We’re leaving Holidays behind for the second half of the Autumn term and jetting off into space. Tim Peake is to be the first English astronaut to go to the International Space Station in December of this year and Year 5 and 6 are joining many primary schools across the country on a project that looks into what he will experience there, culminating in his launch on 14 December. Through Science, English and Maths, we’ll boost our understanding of Space and try to answer the many questions we already have about it.
To help at home, see what books you can find at the local library or research the project at home by googling ‘Tim Peake Space Project’ to find out more.
Maths
Alongside many space-related maths ventures, over the next couple of weeks we’ll be learning about multiplication and division. We need to be able to multiply numbers up to 4 digits by one or two digits (4653 x 3 or 2353 x 22) and divide up to 4 digit numbers by one digit (3603 / 3). It’s also important for us to understand the terms ‘factor’ and ‘multiple’ and to know and recall prime numbers.
To help at home, use Mathletics multiplication and division activities for extra practice and see what real maths you can get up to together. Maybe you’ve got a recipe to make 12 butterfly buns and you need 500 for a wedding! There’ll be some multiplication to get what you need for that from the shops.
English
The half term begins with our imaginations in overdrive as we take on the challenge of writing adventure stories set in Space. We’ll practise speech punctuation and complex sentences before planning our own stories and then making them into exciting adventures to be enjoyed by each other in our reading area.
To help at home, point out and pick up on descriptive language in the books your child is reading and discuss how they could use this in their own writing. Keep practising spellings and make sure that their meanings are understood and they can be written correctly into a sentence.
