Living and Learning: mental health
For the next three weeks, mental health is our new theme in our Living and Learning lessons.
Talking about feelings and knowing where and how to seek help for yourself or others is very important.
People can help you if you tell them how you feel.
If something is wrong and you don’t tell an adult, it might get bigger.
Start telling other people so you can feel better.
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.
Help at home: We’ve talked about how people’s faces and body language can help us to understand how others are feeling. What emotions are the children showing here? Maybe try some other emotions at home too.
Reminder: learning drop in
This is an opportunity to “drop into” school and share your child’s learning journal with them. This will involve looking through your child’s learning journey book.
Learning Journey Drop in 1 – 03.12.24 and 05.12.24 Times – 8.45 am-9.15am and 3.15pm-3.45pm
Guided Reading Week 3
Here are the target pages for this week’s guided reading. These need to be read by Friday 29th November.
Extra Time: up to chapter 15/page 66.
Divine Freaks: up to chapter 7/pg 74.
Mr Gum: up to chapter 9/pg 130.
How To Train Your Dragon: up to pg 83.
Kensuke’s Kingdom: up to chapter 6/page 85.
Living and Learning: Online Safety
In Living and Learning, this week, Year 5 learnt about online safety. We learnt about how apps and online games are businesses and their mission is to persuade people to stay online for as long as possible and encourage them to spend money or for them to make money through advertising. We discussed how this was not a good moral choice so we need to look after ourselves. You can do this by limiting your screen time, avoiding clicking on ads and clearing your cookies frequently.
We created posters to inform others about how to make healthy online choices.
North East Leeds cross country
** UPDATE ** Eight of our runners have qualified for the Leeds cross country final – congratulations!
Today, thirty of our Key Stage 2 children took part in the Leeds North East School Games Cross Country festival at Roundhay High School attended by twenty nine schools.
We had a great start from our Year 3 runners with three children coming in the top 15 including an amazing third and fifth place! Then, an effortless first place by one of our Year 4 runners was a great achievement. After that, we saw some excellent efforts and determination from the rest of the children throughout the afternoon with great support and encouragement from the other pupils.
Well done to all the children who took part and represented the school. We are sure there will be some qualifiers for the next race, the Leeds final. Watch this space!
Thank you to the parents who came along to help and support at this event.
If you’re child would like to take part in cross country, have a look at our physical activity guide for details of local running clubs and junior Park Runs.
Some of the children who took part, are regular runners at the Leeds Schools Sports Association Saturday morning cross country races. Details will shortly be sent out for the next race on Saturday 14th December.
Living and Learning: Online Safety
This week in Living and Learning we talked about online safety. In particular, we spoke about what we should do if an advert pops up on our screen when we are playing or watching. We explained that sometimes these pop ups want to trick us and might not be telling the truth so we should always tell a trusted adult and show them what has happened.
In circle time we spoke more broadly about online safety and I was very impressed with the children’s maturity and knowledge. We completed the sentence ‘I can stay safe online by…’
telling my parents when there is a pop up.
telling a teacher or trusted adult if they is something on the screen I don’t like.
switching it off if I am worried.
tell my parents if a stranger messages me.
staying with my parents when I am online.
Well done everyone!
Help at home by talking to your children about how to stay safe online and what they should do if they are feeling worried about something they see or hear online.
Science: conducting a fair experiment
We’re chemists!
In science, we’re learning all about the states of matter – solid, liquid and gas. We’ve also been exploring how temperature can change a material’s state. Today, we conducted a fair experiment to answer our enquiry:
Does the temperature of water affect the time it takes for ice to melt in it?
In order for this to be a fair experiment, we had to consider the variables in the experiment.
- independent variable (what we’re changing): the temperature of the water
- dependent variable (what we’re measuring): the time it takes for the ice to melt
- controlled variables (what we’re keeping the same): the volume of water and the size of the ice cube
Your children demonstrated some great scientific skills such as reading thermometers, using a stopwatch, measuring accurately and recording results.
Our conclusion: the hotter the water, the less time it takes for ice to melt in it.
Help at home: try this experiment again at home. Get your child to talk you through the independent, dependent and controlled variables.
We are chefs!
This week, Year 5 made mushroom and chickpea curry! We worked in small groups to prepare the ingredients and then cook them. We made sure that we washed our hands and wore our aprons for hygiene reasons.
We used the bridge cutting method and the claw cutting method to cut up our ingredients. These methods are the safest way to cut food as they help us from hurting ourselves!
Once we had cooked the curry, the children ate it with naan bread. LOTS of the children really enjoyed the recipe.
Autumn2: Week3
Maths
Our focus this week has been looking at parts and the whole of objects. We have been using a variety of objects to do this. For example, wheels are parts of a car that helps to make the whole. Our arms and legs are parts of our body that makes up us (the whole).
We have also been completing jigsaws this week and discussing how the pieces are the parts and the completed jigsaw is the whole.
Help at home: by looking at objects and discussing the parts and the whole.
This foundation then helps the children when partitioning numbers. For example, 5 is the whole and it is made up of parts 1 and 4, 2 and 3, 5 and 0.
Literacy led learning
This week we have been reading the book Night Monkey Day Monkey by Julia Donaldson. We have discussed that she has written lots of other books that we have read and that they often have rhyming words in them.
In the book, the monkeys discuss their shadows. This inspired the children to make different shadows and draw around them.
The book has a strong link with our word of the week- nocturnal. We have been discussing what that word means and what we normally do at different times of the day. For example, having breakfast in the morning and going to bed at nighttime.
The children have enjoyed making animal shelters for nocturnal animals in our creative area.
They also enjoyed making their own shelter using the parachute.
Help at home: by practicing reading the tricky words we have learnt so far:
is, I, the, as, and, has, his, her, go, no
Remember: to send the children to school with hats and gloves, as it is getting colder.
Living and Learning: online safety
This week, our Living and Learning focus has been about online safety and in particular spotting adverts online.
First of all, we thought about what an advert is and what a pop up is.
Adverts can be everywhere online and they can often be misleading.
They can pop-up on our screens, ask us to input personal information and even say things that are too good to be true!
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If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is! They’re businesses that are trying to make money.
We came up with a list of top tips to use when thinking about adverts online:
- Don’t click on adverts or pop-ups.
- Keep your personal information safe.
- Talk to a trusted adult if you see something inappropriate or you’re unsure what to do.
Help at home: Talk about what you would do if this popped up on your screen?
