Noah’s Ark and Harvest Festival
This week in Foundation, our focus was the Bible story of Noah’s Ark.
The children produced story maps, using all of their new phonics skills to label them with the parts of the story. We also painted some beautiful rainbows and animals to add to a special display we will be creating in the school corridor, next to our library.
In maths, we completed our work on the focus number 2 by creating “pairs” of animals to board Noah’s Ark! We explored different representations of the number.
The children have also been learning about Harvest Festival. At the end of last week, we harvested our own haricot beans from Spring-time planting.
We used this as a starting point to discuss fruit and vegetables that grow from the Earth and how we use Harvest time to give thanks to God and those who work on the land, for the food we eat. The children made posters to display their understanding of the importance of Harvest time.
In our music session, we learnt a Harvest song about a special machine used to harvest crops:
Ask your child if they can sing you the song they have learnt this week.
Important reminders:
Parent partnership meeting: Takes place this Wednesday, 17 October 3.15-3.45. We hope to see many of you there and look forward to discussing ways you can share your child’s achievements both at school and at home.
Early Years Pupil Premium form: Could all forms be completed and returned to school this week. A reminder text message was sent out. If you need a new copy please ask.
PE Kit: PE takes place on a Thursday and began this week. Please provide a named kit of shorts and t-shirt. Thank you for the kits already in school.
Wellies and outdoor coats: Please ensure your child has a rain-proof coat in school every day. We also suggest having a pair of wellies in school, if possible. We love to explore our outdoor area in all weathers!
Thank you for your support and co-operation.
Time Travel – house in the past and now
Our current topic is Time Travel. We have looked at what is old and new (in relation to toys) and placed toys in chronological order. We’ve now moved on to looking at homes and how these have changed over the years. Last week, we took a trip around Wetherby looking at all the different houses around. Here are the pictures of our visit around Wetherby spotting old and new houses.
This week, we’ve looked at spotting which houses are Celtic, Tudor, Victorian and more modern. We have looked at the difference and talked about which we would like to live in and why. Here, we’re trying to sort the houses into groups.
Homework Superstars
This week in our homework review, we looked for children who had gone above and beyond what was expected to learn their weekly spellings. We decided we would look for:
- neat and joined handwriting
- using strategies from our school spelling lessons
- remembering the spelling rules
We chose some stand-out superstars. We were especially impressed with one of our superstars, who not only wrote out the spellings, but also the rule for each word.
Living and Learning
This week, we have been thinking about our 8Rs for learning. Years 5 and 6 were asked the question: Do you think one R is more important than another?
Summer thought ‘remembering‘ was more important than ‘reflecting‘ because you need to remember what you know first.
Hana thought ‘resilience‘ was most important otherwise you wouldn’t learn anything new.
Ceyda thought ‘resilience‘ because you will go far in life.
However, we all agreed that all 8Rs are extremely important to be a successful learner!
Love of Reading
We are loving reading our new library books!
Orienteering
On Tuesday morning, we got the opportunity to experience a new and frantic activity- orienteering. Checkpoints were placed all around the school grounds and using a very detailed map we had to navigate our way around a set route.
At first, we found it tricky to read the map and understand how to use it, but we showed resilience and soon we were all flying around school desperate to be the first to the finish the course.
Living and Learning: I use the 8 Rs to help me learn
In today’s living and learning session, we recapped the 8 Rs of learning. Here is what we could remember about our 8 Rs.
We talked about being ready to learn by showing that we are listening and we have eyes on the speaker so we can follow the instructions given.
We respond to feedback. We have stars and cool class tokens to show when we have made a good choice. This shows learning behaviour that we should try to do again. Warnings show that we have made bad choices and we should not make the same choices again. Next steps give us feedback on our learning and how we can improve.
Resillience – If we struggle with something we can “try, try and try again” just like our Christian Value perseverance.
Being responsible for our learning. It is our own responsibility to make sure we are getting on with our learning and to make sure we are not distracted by others. We need to make sure we have our PE kit and reading book in school.
We reflect on our learning. We thought about what we have done well and what we could improve on.
We remember what we have learnt and using this to help in other contexts.
Taking a safe risk involves putting our hand up and trying to answer a question when we think we know the answer.
Being resourceful is knowing what to use to help us or who to ask.
Reading Workshop
Thank you again to the parents who made it to our Phonics and Early Reading Workshop on the 25th September. For those who were unable to attend, please click on the link below to view the presentation shown at the meeting;
As always, please do ask if you have any questions and we will be happy to support you. If you did attend the workshop, please send feedback responses as soon as possible. This will help us to determine what went well and to tailor future parent meetings where necessary.
A reminder that our next session for parents will be our Parent Partnership Meeting- Wednesday 17th October 3.15-3.45pm.
Please return the slips sent home last week, to confirm your attendance.
Thank you.
Orienteering
We’ve had a brilliant afternoon orienteering around our school grounds.
“I loved it because there was lots of running around and activities. We had to stick keys in a hole, it beeped and then we had to keep on doing it until we had completed the whole map.”
Travelling through time…
On Friday, Hobgoblin Theatre company came into school and took the children on a trip through time – from the stone ages up until modern day. Along the journey, the children learnt many fun facts about history including how Thomas Farriner starter the Great Fire of London and wiped out the plague as he did, how Henry VII had 8 wives and how the Vikings invaded Great Britain. After the production, the children participated in a workshop – learning to become actors and how to create freeze frames.
Here are some pictures and quotes from the children about their experience.
“After the show, I liked it when we moulded people into different shapes.”
“I liked making statues.”
“I liked the funny costumes.”
“I like it when the actors told Jack to go and make them cups of tea.”
