Who do you think you are?
Our themed week is in full swing with many highlights so far.
- Mindfulness workshops for Year 1, 2, 3 and Reception.
- Dove self esteem sessions for Year 5 and 6 (Visitor feedback – ‘We really enjoyed running the sessions and the classes we had were great and very engaged!’)
- Visits from RNIB, BID sensory services and the Leeds deaf and hearing impairment team for all classes
- West Yorkshire Police Hate Crime session for Year 5 and 6
- Some Year 5 and 6 children attended the Moor Allerton Elderly Care ‘Old & New Games’ afternoon (Visitor feedback – ‘They were brilliant and a pleasure to have.’)
- Whole school assembly about charities by Val from the Salvation Army charity shop in Meanwood
- Year 4 visit to St Gemma’s Hospice
- Year 5 visit to Marjorie and Arnold Ziff centre
- Year 2 visit to Donisthorpe Hall
Thank you to parents who have attended our mindfulness workshop on Monday and our community coffee morning and wake up shake up today.
There is still more to come.
- PCSO visit to talk about community safety, road safety and monitor speed outside school in 20mph zone for Reception, Year 1 and 3
- Mindfulness workshops for Year 3, 4 and 5
- Learn languages in our community for Year 3 and 4
- Two more chances to walk, bike or scoot to school (Road Safety Week) to be in with a chance to win prizes on Friday
- New school charity will be chosen
- Have a go at the Who do you think we are? competition
Take a look at the class news pages to find out more about your child’s learning this themed week.
Takeover day
It’s takeover day today so the children have been taking over various class duties.
We’ve had a couple of people taking the register and organising dinner choices:
One of our excellent spellers took control of the spelling test:
Geography – comparing localities
We’ve been comparing two different localities in our topic lesson, today.
We’ve compared Lehututu, a village in Botswana which is in the Kalahari desert with Moortown.
We used a Venn diagram to classify the things which were the same and different in the two localities.
Diversity
Today, the focus for our themed week was diversity, looking at how people are different. We had two visitors to support this, focusing on visual and hearing impairment.
Firstly, we welcomed Natasha and Liz from RNIB. As our visitors are both registered blind, the children were able to find out first hand all about their life and then put themselves in their shoes.
After that, we worked with Linda Gledhill (Leeds deaf and hearing impairment team). We learnt some important messages about how to help someone if they are deaf.
- Don’t shout at them
- Stand close by
- Speak one at a time
- Don’t cover your mouth so they can see your lips
- Use sign language
We are special
Thank you for all the special objects and photos that have been sent in to show your children’s identity. As we have had so many, we’d like to keep them a little longer than this themed week so we can give the children chance to tell the rest of the class all about them.
If you do need your items back sooner, please let us know.
When talking about what makes me, me? this video generated lots of discussion and you may want to watch again with your child.
Identity
Yesterday we began our Who do you think you are? themed week by focusing on our identity, who we are, and how we are all special. We particularly enjoyed our mindfulness workshop to focus on how our emotions can relate to who we are.
Our super power of mindfulness can help us to make a better choice and control different situations.
There were lots of techniques that we can use in school and we have done already.
- Breathing hug
- Breathing tree
- Ok breathing
- Make your thumb come to life to show your emotion
- Calming bottle
- ‘I felt calm and I liked the relaxing music.’ Christina
- ‘I liked everything because I like mindfulness.’ Billy
- ‘I liked how we used the colours of glitter for the different emotions to make our calming bottle.’ Edris
- ‘I would use the bottle if I was sad or angry to make me ready to work.’ Vedant
- ‘If I shake the bottle, it will help me to be calm.’ Aadil
- ‘I liked the game where we did the secret tapping because it showed us that everyone is kind.’ Betty
- ‘I liked to show my emotions using the freeze frame.’ Tanvi
- ‘I liked to show my emotion by bringing my thumb to life as a way of telling others how I feel.’ Da’wud
It was great to see so many parents attending the workshop on Monday, too, so that some of the techniques can be used at home as well. Keep an eye out for a parent guide to support this with your child.
Money
This morning we’ve been combining coins to make amounts. We’ve spotted that there are different ways to make the same amount. 
Explorers – topic review
It’s the end of our Explorers topic this week and we’ve spent time reflecting on what we have learned.
This morning, we met with our Year 5 friends to discuss the topic. We looked at each other’s topic books and talked about the different learning we did during the topic. Next, we looked at some specific skills which we might have used during the topic (e.g. comparing and contrasting, working with others, problem solving) and found pieces of learning which evidenced these skills.
Mindfull or mindful?
Would you like to find out more about mindfulness and how it can be used to support your child at home?
As part of our whole school themed week next week, all children will be taking part in mindfulness workshops. There’ll also be a parent/carer session on Monday 20 November at 2:30-3:15pm.
Please contact the office if you would like to attend.
Who do you think you are?
In preparation for our themed week next week (20 November), it would be great if your child could bring in a photo of themselves as a baby and also something that is special to them. This could be a photo of special people, a special place or an object for the children to explain to the class so we can celebrate how we are all different but all equal.
We’ll use these in class on Monday 20 November if your child could bring them in on the day or Friday 17 November.
