Guided Reading Information
Year 5 have been given their guided reading books.
The class have been divided into groups and each group has been given a book to read at home. This will last for this half term.
During our Book Club sessions each Friday, each group will discuss what they have read so far and share their reading record activities related to their book. This will be a fantastic opportunity for the children to explore characters and storylines more than they might do normally!
Every Friday during Book Club, each group will be given a new page to read to for the next Friday. This information will be posted every week on our class news.
What to remember:
- Your child has a book that they need to read every week (up to a chosen point marked with a post-it note).
- The reading record activity needs to be completed using their new book.
- A comment from a grown up needs to be written in their reading record.
- Group reading books and reading records need to be brought in every Friday.
Help at home: listen to your child read their new book and ask questions about the book to help prepare them for class discussions.
I look forward to hearing the children’s discussions next week!
Writing: Francis
This week, Year 5 have started their new writing topic. Over the next two weeks, the children will write a short narrative which creates tension and suspense. We used an animated video as our stimulus which was sourced from the Literacy Shed.
This film is perfect at building tension: the narrator uses pauses and varies the speed at which he speaks in order to build the suspense. As well as speech used to create tension, the music also plays a key part in creating suspense.
Help at home: Watch the video with and without music. How does this alter the tension created?
We are Historians
This week we finished our history topic by looking back at our key concept of trade. We spoke about how we buy things nowadays and how we pay for them. We came up with lots of different ways that we can pay for things: cash, cards, phones and even watches! We looked back at how our grandparents might have paid for things and the difference between then and now.
Finally, we discussed what people did before there was money and coins. People in the distant past traded the things that they has lots of for the things they needed. Then we had a go ourselves. We split into 4 groups and were each given something that we were farming. There was a chicken farm, an apple farm, a milk farm and a carrot farm. We had to trade with the other farmers to get a bit of everything! It was quite difficult at first because we were so eager to trade we gave away all of our produce! After a few goes we were able to trade with the other groups really well and everybody got what they needed. We spoke about the different value of each item and whether they were worth the same amount.
Help at home by discussing what trade means with your child and times they might have traded something.
Spring 2: Week 1
Welcome back! I hope you all had a wonderful half-term break. Thank you to those who have emailed some pictures. If you’ve not sent any, please do send them to moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org. Sharing photos from home helps to develop your child’s communication and language skills.
This week, we’ve been reading The Train Ride by June Crebbin. We pretended we were looking out the window on a train. We used our imaginations to think about what we might see.
Yesterday, we learnt about the first locomotive. We used this website to find out lots of information about Robert Stephenson’s Rocket. We looked at different train pictures from the past and present. After talking about what’s the same and what’s different, we had a go at putting them in order from the oldest to the newest.
Help at home: Look at the website again with your child at home. Talk to your child about Stephenson’s Rocket.
Tricky word password
This week, we’ve introduced our new tricky word password. When the children come in and out of the classroom, they have to read the tricky word on the door. We will change the tricky word daily to help children remember the tricky words.
Help at home: Continue to practise reading and writing the phase 2 and 3 tricky words.
Maths
This week, we further developed our comparison skills by looking at different sets. We encouraged the children to focus exclusively on the numerosity of sets, without being diverted by colour, shape or size. We reinforced the language of ‘more than’, ‘fewer than’ and ‘an equal number’ when describing how many objects were in each set. ‘Fewer than’ was used rather than ‘less than’, as the focus was on countable things.
Help at home: Which hand has more pom-poms? Which hand has fewer pom-poms? How do you know?
Poetry Picnic
Click here to watch this week’s poem. We had lots of fun mixing, pouring, frying and tossing pancakes.
We’ve got some exciting events coming up in March!
Monday 04 March – Whole school theatre performance
You should have received a message about this.
Tuesday 05 March – Our first school trip to the National Railway Museum
We are very excited about this!
Thursday 07 March – World Book Day stay and learn session – 9-10am
Come and read a story or two with your child.
Wednesday 13 March – Our class assembly – 2.40pm
Skipping school
This week, Year 2 had a great skipping afternoon with Katie from Skipping School and the children showed great perseverance and resilience during the session.
We learnt all the Year 2 skipping individual and group skills that we’ll be performing at the Year 2 skipping festival in June. More details to follow.
If your child would like to buy a skipping rope to practise these skills at home, they are available in class for a subsidised cost of £3 per rope. We are subsidising the cost with the PE and Sport Premium as a way to encourage physical activity out of school.
Cross country star
Congratulations to our Year 3 runner who represented Leeds today in the West Yorkshire cross country final. Competing against pupils from Calderdale, Bradford, Wakefield, Kirklees and Leeds, he ran a fantastic race at Temple Newsam and should feel very proud of achieving a top 15 finish.
Group reading!
Hello!
This week, Year 3 are beginning their second round of group reading!
The class have been divided into groups and each group has been given a book to read at home. This will last for this half term.
During our Book Club sessions each Friday, each group will discuss what they have read so far and share their reading record activities related to their book. This will be a fantastic opportunity for the children to explore characters and storylines more than they might do normally!
Every Friday during Book Club, each group will be given a new page to read to for the next Friday.
What to remember:
- Your child has a book that they need to read every week (up to a chosen point marked with a post-it notes).
- The reading record activity needs to be completed using their new book.
- A comment from a grown up needs to be written in their reading record.
- Group reading books and reading records need to be brought in every Friday.
Help at home by listening to your child read their new book and ask questions about the book to help prepare them for class discussions.
I look forward to hearing the children’s discussions next week!
Thank you,
Miss Birch
Living and learning: being safe
Being safe is a key part of our Living and Learning curriculum which includes a Staying Safe themed week coming up in July.
There are lots of different situations in our lives where we need to make safe choices. Some examples include staying safe online, road safety and water safety.
We have been thinking about what is a ‘safe risk’. For example, putting your hand up in class to answer a question even if you are unsure of the answer is a safe-risk. Jumping off a cliff is not!
We also thought about which grown-ups would be good to talk to in school and out of school (start telling other people) if we ever feel unsafe. Brothers, sisters and friends would also be good to talk to and discuss feelings but telling a grown-up (over 18) would be the best thing to do to get help.
Help at home: by asking your child what a ‘safe-risk’ is.
Being biologists and safe online
For our science learning this week, we used secondary sources to find out about animals that live in polar and desert habitats. Using non-fiction books and the internet, this gave us chance to put into practice some of our safer internet day learning. Not everything we read on the internet is true.
We could check more than one website to see if it tells us the same thing.
The National Geographic website is a website I’ve heard of. We could look at that one.
The children were also being safe online by showing an adult if something popped up on the screen before continuing.
Help at home: have a look at a non-fiction book at home with your child. Ask them how to use the contents and index pages.
Living and Learning: Kooth mental health talk
Year 5 had a visitor from Kooth. Kooth is a free, safe and anonymous online website (approved by the NHS) where children from ages 10-18 can receive mental health support. It is full of self-help tools, mini activities and discussion boards to get the assistance you need. The best thing about it is that every post or comment is approved before it’s live so it’s a totally positive zone.
Some of the main messages from today’s learning were:
- It’s ok to ask for help – it can be really difficult to manage your mental health, so you don’t have to do it alone
- Try to move or be active each day – being active and doing gentle movement each day can help improve your wellbeing
- Find helpful ways to experience, express and manage your emotions – you could try some Kooth mini-activities to help develop helpful habits and valuable life skills
- Focus on what you’re good at – build on your strengths to boost your confidence and self-esteem
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- Help at home: Take a look at the website and discuss what can be done to improve your mental health.
