Living and Learning this half term
- I cover my mouth (when I yawn, cough, sneeze). Get your child to demonstrate the ‘vampire’ method to family members at home.
- I can say something good about myself. It’s important that your child can confidently talk about themselves in a positive way.
- I pay compliments in a sensible way. Try paying compliments each day to each other!
- I receive compliments in a sensible way. Some children struggle to hear positive words about themselves, but this is important for self-esteem. Try paying (and listening) to praise and compliments.
- I know the difference between being proud and showing off. We encourage compliments to be paid – but encourage your children to know the balance between being having self-esteem and showing off.
- I recognise my talents. Talk to your child about talents, whether academic, physical, social or emotional.
Change4Life healthier snacking
Have you see the recent Change4Life campaign encouraging children to have no more than two packaged snacks per day to reduce their sugar intake? Remember fruit and veg are always the best snack and count towards your child’s 5 A Day.
The campaign is launched as Public Health England reveals half the sugar children consume comes from unhealthy snacks and sugary drinks. Children in England are eating nearly three times the recommended amount of sugar. Too much sugar can lead to harmful fat building up inside and serious health problems, and also painful tooth decay.
Recently children brought home the Family Snack Challenge. Can your family complete the 7-day healthier snack challenge? Change4Life provides lots of hints and tips for healthier snacking.
Supermovers
The BBC and Premier League have launched a campaign called Super Movers to encourage children to become more active while learning. Teachers will be using the video resources to get children moving in lessons throughout the day. This physical activity can contribute to the 30 active minutes children should be doing at school.
Why not use the Super Movers video resources to support your child’s learning at home. Activities range from learning times tables to apostrophes.
Hedgehog bread
Using our current topic of ‘Life Forces’, we decided to theme this half-term’s cooking around it.
What could be nicer than a hedgehog bread roll?
These are a great way to introduce the children to the art of bread making. With this fun and easy starter recipe, these mini hedgehog rolls are the cutest bake we’ve ever made!
We have done a fair bit of cooking so far this year and the children are becoming very confident in all the skills needed. These include staying safe in the kitchen and the need for good hygiene. Year 4 were able to weigh and measure the ingredients, and then could follow the recipe well.
Next, came the hard part – kneading the dough!
Using their knuckles, the class worked hard to knead the dough for five minutes. There were a few aching arms after this!
We discussed that when making yeast bread, the kneaded dough has to have some rise time. During rising, the yeast ferments (‘eats’) the sugar and develops the dough. Rising also improves the flavour and texture of the bread.
After kneading, we rounded the dough into a ball and left to rise for an hour.
When the rising was complete, the children set to work on shaping their balls of dough into hedgehogs. Using a pair of scissors appeared to be the best way to create the spikes.
Finally, with two eyes and nose, the little hedgehogs were ready for the oven.
The finished product – healthy, fun and of course cute!
Living and Learning – Safety Online
In Year 4, we regularly chat and remind the children of the importance of staying safe online. This afternoon, we had a discussion about some of the potential issues that could arise when using technology.
We used this video to remind us of all the safety problems and how to solve them.
Another useful site is www.thinkuknow.co.uk.
There are age-appropriate activities on both these sites.
Ask your child are they SMART:
Digestion
Today, we welcomed three university students who are currently studying medicine.
They gave a very informative talk to the class all about the digestive system. The children asked some great questions about the varying functions of different organs during the digestive process.
It was interesting to find out about each organ and the crucial role it plays breaking down the food, keeping the food we need for our bodies and getting rid of the waste!
Skipping
Funded through our PE and Sport Premium, Year 2 and Year 4 have recently taken part in a skipping workshop led by ‘Skipping School’; both classes will then be part of a Leeds wide skipping competition.
- ‘I learnt a lot! It was fun and I learnt new skills.’
- ‘I think it is a good idea to skip because we are a happy and healthy school.’
- ‘I liked the skipping because I got to learn new things.’
- ‘I loved the skipping and the new skills because skipping makes you fit.’
- ‘First, I was really bad at skipping but when Jodi came I got better. Now I like skipping.’
We are offering all children the opportunity to learn these new skills, from their peers, by introducing skipping as a physical activity at lunchtimes. This is one way we are promoting physical activity during the school day for children to get their active 30 minutes.
The Government’s Childhood Obesity: A Plan for Action, shares the expectation for all primary schools to provide a minimum of 30 active minutes every day for all pupils. The Chief Medical Officers recommend a minimum of 60 minutes a day of moderate to vigorous activity for children aged 5-18. Schools are expected to provide 30 of these minutes and families to achieve the other 30.
‘Skipping School’ also sell their ropes and we would like to offer all children the chance to buy a rope at a heavily subsided price (funded by our PE Premium) to continue learning these fundamental movement skills at home.
Ropes will be on sale at a price of £2 (normal price £5) before and after school during the week of 05 February. Starting with a stall at the PTA cake sale, Year 6 children will be selling the ropes in the playground subject to the weather. Please bring exact change wherever possible.
Fractions
Year 4 have been learning all about fractions and their equivalents. Some children were finding this concept quite tricky in class. We’d like the children to revise fractions at home and below is some useful information and ideas to support your child.
All children in Year 4 are expected, by the end of the year, to be able to recognise and show, using diagrams, families of common equivalent fractions.
What is a fraction?
A fraction represents a part of a whole or, more generally, any number of equal parts. When spoken in everyday English, a fraction describes how many parts of a certain size there are, for example, one-half and three-quarters. The numerator (the top number) represents a number of equal parts, and the denominator (the bottom number), which cannot be zero, indicates how many of those parts make up a unit or a whole. For example, in the fraction 3/4, the numerator, 3, tells us that the fraction represents 3 equal parts, and the denominator, 4, tells us that 4 parts make up a whole.
This is a cake with one quarter removed. The remaining three quarters are shown. Dotted lines indicate where the cake may be cut in order to divide it into equal parts. Each part of the cake is denoted by the fraction 1/4.
- Cut fruit and veg into pieces of equal amounts and look closely at the sizes of each piece. How many are equivalent to a half? Children find it hard to see that the larger the denominator, the smaller part.
- Ask word problems to secure understanding. If I had 48 grapes and my friend ate a quarter, how many grapes did my friend eat? Prove it!
- If ¼ of a packet of Jelly Babies is 7 sweets, how many are there in a whole packet?
- How many eighths are equivalent to one quarter? How do you know?
- How many eighths are equivalent to three quarters? Draw a diagram to show how you worked this out.
- True or false? Four sixths are larger than one half. Prove it.
There are fraction related activities on Mathletics that will also help your child to further their understanding.
Homework
Last week, the children were asked to show what they’ve learnt about habitats or food chains.
Yet again, the standard of homework produced was excellent and so very creative. Ranging from food chains made with paper links to lifelike habitats, Year 4 had the lot!
All the staff are constantly amazed by how much effort the children put into their homework. It is always a pleasure to see the class celebrate and share their work with each other. There are lots of great examples of homework below. Well done, Year 4!
Exploring classification
We began our topic lesson today with some Liquorice Allsorts on our desks. Why, we hear you ask?
The children were asked to work as a group to sort the sweets according to clear characteristics that can split the specimens into two new groups.
They had to think of some questions that may help them to sort and split the sweets. The children thought about the following characteristics or features:
• structure (layered, encased in a shell)
• shape
• size
• colour
Using the idea of a flow chart, we began to group the sweets. The children tried to make their questions interesting and ensured that they always needed a ‘yes’/‘no’ answer, for example, ‘Is the sweet a primary colour?’
Next, our aim was to recognise that living things can be grouped in a variety of ways.
Using the same idea as before, the children had to generate questions that only had a yes/no answer, such as:
- Can the animal fly?
- Does it lay eggs?
- Does it have feathers?
- Is it a mammal?
- Does it breathe air?
- Does it live in water?
- Does it live on land?
The class were able to create their own animal flow charts to group the various creatures.
