World Book Day!
Today we celebrated reading in Year One! We all had an incredible time!
First thing we had an assembly lead by Gangsta Granny (aka Mr Wilks). We learnt all about the joy of reading and how we can spend our £1 book token! Some teachers also read parts from their favourite books.
After wake up shake up Year 3 came to visit and we shared some of our favourite books with them. They read to us and we read to them. It was such a wonderfully calm atmosphere.
After breaktime, we had a webinar with John Patrick Green – author of the Investigators books. We listened to how he creates the books and had a go at drawing some of the characters. The drawings were very impressive!
In the afternoon, we looked at some of the books the children had brought in to match their costumes. We loved reading all the different types of books.
Throughout the day we also read as many other books as possible. Which one was your favourite?
Help at home by discussing the activities your child has done today and looking at the free books they can buy with their £1 book token.
The Secret Garden
It was a pleasure to welcome M&M productions to perform ‘The Secret Garden’ for us. It’s a classic story (written in 1911!) about resilience and friendship. They gave it a modern twist with some familiar songs – it was very entertaining!
What a start to the week it was! Keep your eyes peeled for what we get up to on World Book Day, this Thursday.
Help at home by discussing what your child liked about the performance using the pictures above! Can your child retell the story?
We loved it!
Y2 – I really liked it because Master Colin was able to walk. He believed in himself.
Y6 – It was funny and had all the things a play should have. I’ll definitely be checking out the book from the library.
Y3 – The sign language song was cool and interesting!
Y5 – I liked the show because they had a creative way to change the scene. They had a great voice projection.
Yoga!
This afternoon in PE we had a Yoga session. We started with some calm breathing exercises which made us feel relaxed and peaceful. We then learnt some of the Yoga poses: warrior I, warrior II, triangle and twisting dragon. It was difficult at times to hold our balance but we were getting much better the more we practised. After getting the hang of each pose, we put the poses together to make a flow. We moved from warrior I into warrior II and then down to triangle. It took lots of control and patience to move from one pose to the another. We ended the session with a guided meditation which was so calming. I was very impressed with the children’s focus and engagement.
Help at home by asking your child to show you some of the poses from today’s lesson.
Big Walk and Wheel
We are taking part in the 15th year celebration of Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel, the UK’s largest inter-school cycling, walking, wheeling and scooting challenge. The challenge runs from 11-22 March 2024. It’s free to take part and we would love everyone to be involved.
Last year, in our category of small primary schools, we finished in 24th place out of 514 schools with an average of 91.14% of our journeys to school being active. We achieved the highest national (24th) and Northern England (5th) ranking out of those schools in Leeds taking part.
What do you need to do?
Encourage your child(ren) to walk, scoot or cycle to school on as many days as possible during the event. Park and stride can also be included if you park at Marks and Spencer or further away from school and walk/scoot or bike the final part.
Why we are taking part
Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel is a great way to build physical activity in children’s daily routine which is important for their physical health and mental wellbeing.
Active school journeys also help to reduce congestion and air pollution outside the school gate. A 2021 YouGov study showed nearly half of UK children worry about air pollution near their school. And that children thought active travel was the best away to bring down these pollution levels.
Plus there are some great prizes to be won every day if we get enough children taking part!
Useful resources
To help you prepare, Sustrans has developed a handy free guide to walking, cycling or scooting to school. It is packed with advice to help you have hassle-free journey to school.
Download your free family guide using this link: https://www.sustrans.org.uk/sign-up-to-receive-your-free-school-run-guide/
For more information about the event go to www.bigwalkandwheel.org.uk . Enjoy the challenge!
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.
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.
Living and Learning: Safer Internet Day
This week, it was Safer Internet Day and we spent the day focusing on these two key areas of online safety.
- I know that some things online may not be true (people and information).
- I know that I shouldn’t share personal information online.
We read Chicken Clicking, a cautionary tale about a chicken not using the internet safely. We thought about how Chicken Clicking could have done things differently and what advice we would give him to keep him safe.
This video also reinforced key messages about sharing personal information online like your password, name, age or address.
Throughout this learning, we reinforced the message that if the children were unsure or something didn’t feel right they should always Start Telling Other People and let a trusted adult know.
We talked through this sequence of seeking help.
Help at home: Can your child tell you the key messages from the texts we read?
Also, our online safety section has further support available for parents.
Reading refresh!
Every half term we have a refresh of the books in our reading corner. The children are given time to look through and browse the books on their table. After they have had a chance to look through them all they choose one to put in the the box. It was so lovely to see how engaged the children were with the new books and how much they love stories! We had time to read a couple of the new stories too. I can’t wait to read more of them when we come back after half term.
!
Help at home by reading the books your child brings home from the library or visiting the library over the half term
We are mathematicians
This week in Year One we have been working really hard on their maths learning. We have been using the numicon this week to add single digit numbers to teen numbers. I was really impressed how the children took on this learning and also how they recorded it so carefully in their maths books. By the end of the week we were using the numicon to find all the number bonds to 20. It really helped that we had such a good knowledge of our number bonds to 10!
Well done Year 1.
Help at home by practising both number bonds to 10 and number bonds to 20. Numbots is really good practice for this.
We are biologists!
At the start of this half term, we planted some daisy seeds as part of our science learning. We looked at what a plant would need to grow and how we look after it. We had to be very careful with the seeds as they were very small. First, we scooped some compost into our pot and pressed it down. Then, we put two seeds on top of the compost. Finally, we added some more compost on top and watered it. We will keep track of our seeds throughout the rest of Year 1.
Our seeds on 12/01/24. Our seeds on 25/01/24 (some little seedlings starting to show.)
Help at home by looking out for new plants growing in the park or in the garden. What parts of the plant can you see?
