Summer 1: Week 3
This week, we’ve been very busy getting ready for the King’s Coronation this weekend.
This afternoon, we had lots of fun reading The King’s Pants by Nicholas Allan. Throughout the week, we designed a new pants for The King to wear on different occasions.
The King will wear my knickers…
FlM – when he sees a rainbows.
HB – when he goes to a party.
AS – on a school trip.
TH – when he comes to my house.
AM – to a wedding.
AP – at a tea party.
SL – at Christmas
HM – when he’s exploring.
AT – when he’s crowned King Charles.
Today, we enjoyed a picnic style lunch in the hall with our friends.
This afternoon, we thought about different questions we would like to ask King Charles.
SB – Do you watch TV?
HM – Why is it called a Coronation?
AM – Who’s your favourite brother?
TH – What’s your favourite thing to do?
LC – What’s your favourite teddy?
Literacy
This week, we used our imagination to write our own versions of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. They came up with some fantastic ideas!
HM – The Very Hungry Bee
SL – The Very Hungry Ladybug
JQ – The Very Hungry Stag Beetle
AS – The Very Hungry Spider
TH – The Very Hungry Ant
On Wednesday, the children were eager to check on how much the caterpillars had grown.
LN – They are spiky
LC – They are really big now.
AM – They are climbing to the top.
EC – They look might make a chrysalis soon.
Yesterday, we looked at different types of butterflies and talked about what they look like.
JQ – They have wings.
AP – They are symmetrical.
EC – They have lots of colours.
AS – They are beautiful!
LC – They have legs.
Help at home: The life cycle of a butterfly has four stages. Can your child remember the four stages? Draw a picture of the life cycle.
PE
Yesterday afternoon, we had our second Foot—Tech session. We continued to practise the three key skills: push, kick and throw.
Amazing writing!
Every morning, after the children have done their morning jobs, they do a morning activity. Yesterday, Miss Gaunt and I were blown away by their writing! Some of the children wanted us to take a photo of their writing to show you at home.
Help at home: Write a sentence about this picture.
We hope you have a fabulous long weekend with family and friends. See you on Tuesday.
King’s Coronation!
Today we celebrated the upcoming coronation of the King! We came dressed in the colours of the Union Jack: red, white and blue. At lunchtime we came to the hall with Reception and Year 2 to have an (indoor) picnic! It was delicious!
After lunch, we did some brilliant crafting, including making our very own crowns!
Help at home by talking to your child about the coronation and how it is an important in event in our recent British history.
Red Cross: Asylum Seekers
On Friday morning, we had a visitor from the Red Cross visit Year 6 to help us learn about refugees and asylum seekers.
We discussed empathy and the experience of asylum seekers, thinking about how we would respond if we were forced to flee our country. We read a story about a 13-year-old Syrian refugee and used key words from the story to create a poem.
Here is a poem written by one of our Year 6s:
School is free
Healthcare is free
Loving family
Everything changed
Uncle died
Have to move
Have to prove my identity
Been abused
Been robbed
Need to rotate
To reunite with my family
Help at home: ask your child what a refugee is and one thing they would do differently after today’s workshop.
What haven’t they done?
Your two days of peace and quiet may be coming to an end but rest assured that your mini humans have had an amazing day and there is more to come tomorrow.
There have been surprising daredevils (sometimes the quietest ones are the bravest!) and some amazing discoveries! Lighting fires and a bit of foraging means they can survive anywhere – well maybe not but they have certainly learnt new skills. 
There has been a flurry of photos sent tonight so I can’t post them all but here are a few and I hope that you can see why we go on residential.
A massive thank you to Miss Birch, Mrs Charlesworth and Miss Gilliland for giving up their time and making this happen – I feel the long weekend might be very welcome after the last couple of days.
Learning at home
We continue to award learning at home certificates every Tuesday for Lexia, Numbots and Times Tables Rock Stars. These are for achievement and effort.
Congratulations to the eleven children who have achieved their Level 9 (end of Year 2 learning) certificate for Lexia and the additional five children who are working on Level 9 currently.
For those children working towards Level 9, please continue to work on Lexia at home (little and often is best!).
Living and Learning: I know the importance of a healthy diet.
In our living and learning session today, we discussed the importance of a healthy diet.
What do you think we mean by a healthy, balanced diet?
SSK – Diary is part of a balanced diet.
HW – Vitamins are good for you because they make you healthy.
HA – You need 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day.
LN – Milk keeps your bones strong.
What foods do you enjoy?
FlM – Vegetables!
MB – Fruit – we eat it at school for snack.
AP – I eat steak.
TH – I eat fish.
Help at home: Look at the Eatwell Guide again at home. Can you see any foods you include in your diet? Can you tell your adult what food groups they are in?
Living and learning: Sun safety
This half term in Living and Learning, our topic is ‘healthy me’. We are learning about the different ways we can keep our bodies healthy.
Last week, Year 3 learnt about sun safety and the positives and negatives of being out in the sun.
Have a look at some of Year 3’s suggestions for how to stay safe in the sun!
Help at home by asking your child how they can stay safe in the sun this summer.
Living and Learning: Health and Prevention
Over the past two weeks, in Living and Learning lessons, the children have been looking at the importance of hygiene (especially handwashing) and the importance of sleep.
We defined hygiene and talked about several different ways we could make sure our hygiene was good. A few responses were: showering, brushing teeth and washing hands. Afterwards, we focussed on why we need to keep our hands clean (to prevent the spread of germs) and how to keep them clean. We also found out some very interesting facts about germs: did you know that if one million micro-organisms were packed right next to each other they would only cover a pin head in size? Did you know there are more microbes (good and bad) on one person’s hand than people on the planet!
Furthermore, we discussed how sleep has a variety of benefits. These being an improvement in memory; decision making; concentration and mood; immune system; and growth and repair. We learnt that a child aged 10 should be getting about 10 hours of sleep every night!
Help at home: Learn the handwashing soap and sanitiser song and put those actions into practice!
Or try some of our top tips to get a better night’s sleep:
- breathing exercises to slow down your heart rate;
- writing down worries in a diary;
- thinking of good things that have happened that day;
- talking to someone you can trust.
Living and Learning – I know the importance of sleep
This week in Living and Learning, Year 4 have been recapping and learning more about sleep. Sleep is really important for us for so many reasons. For example:
- It helps our minds to feel ready and positive for a new day.
- It helps our body to grow and repair.
- It helps our body to feel energised.
Without enough sleep, we won’t be as able to concentrate and learn as well as we might if we did have enough sleep.
Children need 10-11 hours sleep a night on average. This sounded like a long time to Year 4 but we agreed that our bodies need it as we are growing constantly!
We also discussed the important of a sleep/night time routine. This includes all of the small things that we might do that help us to get a better sleep. Here’s what we came up with together:
- Brush your teeth,
- get into your pyjamas,
- have a glass of milk,
- read a story or book,
- have a calm conversation with someone at home,
- close the curtains/blinds
- get cosy in bed,
- listen to calm music or an audio book,
- focus on one thought rather than lots of thoughts,
- hug family and pets goodnight
- go to the toilet so you won’t need to get up in the night!
All these things, that we probably do without even thinking, are important in getting our bodies and minds ready for sleep.
Help at home: Write down your night time routine. Is there anything you could change to help you sleep better? Is there anything you could do more of to help?
Science – plants
This half term in science we are studying plants. First of all we talked about what we already knew about plants. We knew so much and we named about 10-15 different types of flowers!
In our first lesson last week, we looked at some onion bulbs and talked about how bulbs are different to seeds. Can your child name any other plants that grow from bulbs?
We planted some onion bulbs in some soil and gave them a good water.
We also set up an experiment where we took away something from the bulb. One bulb had water and soil but no light. Another had water and light but no soil and the final bulb had light and soil but no water. Which one do you think will grow the best?
Today, we checked on our bulbs after they have been growing for one week. We were very impressed by the results!
Help at home by talking to your child about plants you can see in the park or the garden. What are they called? How do they grow? Can you name the parts of the plant?
