Uncategorised

13 January 2012

This week’s spellings are all verbs in the past tense that end in ‘ed’. I’ve noticed that we are making some common mistakes when spelling these words. For example, ‘askt’ instead of ‘asked’. Another common mistake is missing out the e before the d. For example, talkd instead of talked.

Children will be tested on eight out of the ten spellings on Friday 20 January.

Phonics

This term, most children will be learning at Phase Three of the government’s Letters and Sounds programme. They already know nineteen sounds and can blend and segment two and three letter words. The purpose of this next phase is to teach another 25 graphemes, most of them comprising two letters (e.g. ‘oa’ as in ‘boat’), so the children can represent each of about 42 phonemes by a grapheme.

Children will also continue to practise CVC (consonant – vowel – consonant) blending and segmenting and will apply their skills of blending and segmenting to reading and spelling simple two-syllable words and captions. They will learn letter names during this phase, learn to read some more tricky words and also begin to learn to spell some of these words.

Some children will continue to work at Phase 2 and will be given extra support to help them progress.

If you have any concerns about your child’s progress with reading please ask.

This week, we are learning the phonemes j, v, w, x, y, z, zz, qu and the tricky words he and she.

13 January 2012

For all children in Year 1 to Year 6, the homework this week is Talk Time:

Which two charities should we support at school and why?

It’s time for children to think about our school charities.  Currently, we support the NSPCC and the WWF.  A previous School Council selected these because they wanted to help animals and people, and wanted to help nationally and internationally.  We’ve helped these charities for two years now, so it’s time for a change.  We need you to have a discussion at home about which charities would be best for us to support.  Each class will then discuss this and then the councillors will bring the views and ideas together to decide on the charities. 

You might want to discuss whether we support a local charity like St Gemma’s, or a children’s charity like Unicef, or a charity that have helped our learning, like the Dogs’ Trust, or even whether we should support charities in school at all.

06 January 2012

Spellings this week are all wow words we are using in class in our writing.

They will be tested on Friday 13 January.

All groups have the same spellings this week.

• gesticulate
• pilfer
• melancholy
• anxiety
• mundane
• pensive
• chivalrous
• dilapidated
• vigorous
• mediocre
• heinous

06 January 2012

As some of you may already be aware, Moortown Primary School is linked with a school in Durban, South Africa called Shallcross Primary. This partnership allows us to share our learning. This week’s Creative homework hopes to introduce the children in Durban to our local area.

I can draw what I see outside my window.

Encourage your child to include a lot of detail and spend some time doing this as some of best ones will be sent to the children at Shallcross Primary in South Africa.

06 January 2012

This week’s spellings are all words that include the contraction n’t.

06 January 2012

To spell words with the ‘ea’ sound.

The words will be tested on Friday 13 January.

06 January 2012

This week, the spellings are all words which use apostrophes to shorten or contract two words into one word.

The spellings will be tested on Friday 13 January.

Welcome back!

I hope you’ve had an enjoyable break. I’m pleased to say that the children have returned to school refreshed and ready to learn! You can help your child at home this term in the following ways:

• Practising the 2, 5 and 10 times table.
• Doubling and halving numbers (you could show this by using coins or other objects).
• Encouraging your child to use ‘because’ to explain their answers about books that they have read.
• Handwriting – you can download our handwriting guide here

Parents’ Evening will be in February so I look forward to seeing you all again then.

06 January 2012

This week’s homework is creative. It’s due in on Wednesday 11 January 2012.

I can find different materials around the house.

Remember, all objects are made of a type of material (wood, glass, pottery, metal).