World Book Day!
Happy world book day to everyone! This morning Year 4 and Year 1 got together to share our love of reading. Every child in Year 1 chose a book and the Year 4 children sat down and read it to them beautifully. The atmosphere in both classrooms was so calm and peaceful and the children loved it!
This is what some of the Year 1 children thought.
I loved that they read the story to us but also let us have a go at reading!
I thought my book was very funny!
Well done everyone! Make sure you carry on your excellent reading at home!
Supporting our school charity
St Gemma’s Hospice is our current school charity chosen democratically by the children.
Today, we welcomed Steph and Stewart from St Gemma’s Hospice for an assembly to find out more about the fantastic work they do in our local community.
Here, two of our junior leaders are presenting them with a cheque for £377 for the money we have raised so far.
Steph and Stewart commented on the impressive behaviour of the children and the intelligent questions they asked.
Our junior leaders are planning a visit to the hospice over the next few weeks to continue this partnership.
Living and learning: online safety and safer internet day
Over the last two weeks, Year 1 have been learning about four main areas of online safety (plus lots of other online safety tips too).
- I know that there are sometimes age restrictions online.
- I know that passwords are important.
- I know that some things online may not be true.
- I know that I shouldn’t share personal information online.
We welcomed Dave from d:side last week to support this learning and this week was Safer Internet Day.
We’ve had lots of discussions about staying safe online. We read the book Chicken Clicking by Tony Ross. In the story a chick gets access to the farmer’s computer and makes a chick friend online. He goes to meet his new friend in the woods… I’ll let your children tell you what happens next.
The children wrote some speech bubbles giving Chicken Clicking some superb advice about how he should have acted differently.
We learnt that the padlock next to the web address tells us this is a secure and trusted site.
We also watched some videos starring Jessie and her friends. In the first video Jessie shares some personal information whilst playing a game with a person who is pretending to be kind. We spoke about how we should always keep our personal information private.
On Thursday, we recapped our learning from Safer Internet Day and wrote some excellent reports about what we had learnt. Well done Year 1.
Help at home by reinforcing the important messages above but also that if anything worries or upsets your child they should tell a trusted adult straight away.
We are scientists
This term, Year 1 have been learning all about different materials. We have looked at what materials different things are made from and what properties those materials have. Last week, we tested different types of paper to see which was the most absorbent. It was lots of fun and we did a brilliant job taking turns as well as carefully observing and discussing the results.
This week, we tested the same types of paper but this time we investigated whether you could write on the paper. The results were very different! We discussed how different properties of materials make them suitable for different jobs.
Help at home by discussing what different materials things are made from and why that material is suitable for that object. Also, ask what would be an unsuitable material? Why?
Living and Learning: being safe
In Living and Learning and circle time we have been talking about hwo to stay safe. We have thought about when we might need to get help and how to get help.
The NSPCC Speak out Stay safe assembly gave a very clear message about being safe and in our weekly circle time, the children were all able to say how they would seek help (Start Telling Other People).
Help at home by reinforcing these important safety messages that were part of your homework last week.
The NSPCC has also developed an adapted version of their assembly for parents/carers to use at home with their children and some resources that can be used to enable further discussion whilst doing activities with your children.
You’ll also find online safety information for families of children with additional needs and disabilities.
Childline also have a website with age-appropriate advice for primary school children on topics such as bullying. It also has games and other interactive tools.
Geography – Local walk
On Tuesday this week we set off to explore Moortown on a local walk. Our aim was to visit 5 different locations and complete a survey of what we liked and disliked at each location. We looked at five different aspects of each location – noise, litter, recycling bins, safety and greenery. Each time we stopped at a location we worked with our partner to put a smiley, straight or sad face for each category. You can see some of the results below.
Today, we looked at our results and analysed them. We wanted to know which place we liked the best. In order to do that we counted up how many of each face we had for each location. The place with the most smiley faces was the winner. Lots of us found that Moortown park was one of the best places to be in Moortown – even in the freezing weather!
Help at home by talking what you like and don’t like about the local area with your child.
We are readers!
On Thursday afternoon Year 1 decided to change around their book corner. Mr McGriffiths spread out lots of new and interesting books on our tables and we were able to explore all the books. Everyone was very excited to look through and read these different books, which ranged from superhero potatoes to snow dragons via mischievous cats! In the end, we had to choose just one book to go into the book corner. It was very difficult to choose but we can’t wait to share our choice with our friends!
I was very proud of how enthusiastic all the children were when exploring and reading the books and I am very excited to get reading these books to the whole class!
Help at home: make sure you are reading your library books with your children every week as well as enjoying reading books to and with them. Don’t forget to write in your child’s reading record ever week when you have read their e-book.
Living and Learning: drug education
In our latest Living and Learning lessons, we’ve been learning about safety around medicines and household products.
We considered:
What are medicines?
What do they look like?
How are they used?
Why do people use them?
The children had lots to share about their experiences of taking different medicines and what they are used for.
Using different scenarios, we thought about what would be the best things to help. Sometimes a hug, some water, rest, a tissue or sleep can be enough to help someone feel better and medicine might not be needed.
Then, we considered safety rules at home and how to keep themselves and others safe.
We discussed the following safety rules depending on whether they were true or false or if it depends on the situation.
In some more scenarios, we thought about why the situation was unsafe and what the character could do to prevent a danger.
We need to take the right medicine for us.
Medicine should only be given by adults.
The wrong medicine can make you very poorly.
These are adult pills and they should not touch them.
They need to be kept in a safe place.
Help at home: please reinforce this key safety message at home. Make sure your child is aware of possible dangers at home, such as medicines and household products, and how to seek help if they need it.
Spring term after-school clubs
We are geographers!
This half term, our topic will focus on Geography. Our topic is called ‘The streets around our school’. We will be focusing on the environment we live in, any local issues and finding solutions to issues in our locality.
We are becoming geographers – a type of scientist who studies the Earth. Geographers study the land (the physical features of the Earth) and the people who live within it (the human features).
We looked on Google earth to see where we lived in comparison to the whole Earth. We know that we live in the continent Europe. The country England and the city Leeds. We looked at Moortown Primary School and Moortown park on Google Earth. We even spotted where our classroom was!
Try going on Google Earth at home. Can you find your house and places you like to visit?
We also looked at the different countries that make up the UK and their capital cities. Help at home by looking at a map of the UK with your child and talking about the different countries and cities.
