The Tiger Who Came to Tea
The children have been enjoying The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr.
Without seeing the book and using a few props, the class predicted what the story might be about.
I predict that…..
someone is having food
they will be drinking tea
a toy tiger will be the main character
this story takes place in a house
an animal has escaped from the zoo
the tablecloth means there will be a meal
After reading the book, the children answered some retrieval questions.
Retrieval is a reading skill where information is picked out from a text in order to answer questions about it.
Next week, the class will be writing their own narrative. Instead of a tiger that comes to tea, they can change the animal to one of their own choice (perhaps their favourite soft toy).
Finally, to celebrate all their hard work, we will be holding our own ‘mini’ tea party next Thursday morning. The children are invited to bring in their chosen soft toy and drinks and snacks will be provided.
Topic – Drop Down Morning
Last week in Year 2, we had a topic drop down morning. This is where we take some time away from our usual timetable to revisit some of our previous topic learning. We revisited history, geography and art.
We started the morning with our most recent topic;
Art
To refresh our memories, we transformed the classroom into an art gallery, adorning the walls with famous works by Leonarda da Vinci, Paul Klee and Barbara Hepworth. Children explored the ‘gallery’ in groups, discussing visual art elements including: colour, pattern, texture, shape, line and tone. There were some passionate opinions to be heard – future art critics, no doubt…
The children then played a game of Vocabulary Chase, practising their retrieval skills with a hint of competition.
Help at home by exploring art with your child. Can they use the visual elements of art to tell you what they like or dislike?
Geography
With art shrinking in the rear view mirror, we moved briskly to geography, starting with a matching task in groups. The children were challenged to match UK countries to their capital city and flag. Disagreements were navigated respectfully and compromises reached…
After a thrilling game of ‘Spot the Missing Sea’ (it will catch on in time, I’m sure), we revisited physical and human features. The children moved around the room, labelling physical and human features in a range of photographs. Super remembering skills were in endless supply!
Help at home by challenging your child to name the capital cities of the UK.
History
To round off our topic drown down morning, we returned to our topic; History – Heroes. We focused on the concept of inequality.
Inequality is being treated unfairly and not having the same chances in life as someone else.
The heroes in the spotlight were Leonora Cohen and Nelson Mandela. After revisiting some key information, the children were tasked with making connections between Cohen and Mandela. We focused on 4 main points:
- equal rights
- beliefs
- protest
- protected characteristics
Help at home by discussing protected characteristics. How many can your child remember?
If you’d like to know more about our current topic, Computing, we’d be delighted if you could join us today (Monday 18.03.24) at 14:30 for a topic review session. Please be prepared to join in!
Jack and the Beanstalk
This week our focus book has been Jack and the Beanstalk.
We talked about how it is is an old story and has lots of different version, the children really enjoyed the Jack and the Jelly Beanstalk version! During the week we have been busy planting our own magic beans. We have also completed some beautiful drawings of some tulips. In our PE lesson we mastered our balancing skills and even managed to move from one balance to another. Fantastic skills everyone!
Our word of the week was gigantic the children have really enjoyed using this during their learning.
‘My tower is gigantic, it is taller that me!’
‘I am going to pick the gigantic carrot at snack time!’
Help at home: find some things that are gigantic and tell your grown up about them.
Phonics
This week in our phonics we have focused on longer phase 3 words, words ending in -ing and compound words (words made up of two words i.e. rooftop) We have also been reviewing our tricky words.
Help at home: Please support your child with the tricky words sheet sent home. Please also keep accessing the ebooks.
Poetry Picnic
This week our poem was Spring Wind
When the spring wind blows,
In her gruff and growly way,
She’s saying keep your mittens on,
I’m blowing cold today.
But when the spring wind blows,
In her soft and gentle way,
She’s saying take your jumper off,
I’m blowing warm today.
The Classroom Challenges this week have been
- to make a ramp and push and pull a vehicle up and down it.
- to draw the spring tulips.
- to make a repeating pattern using the paint dabbers.
- to make a track outside and play a dice game with your friends.
- to make a map to the railway museum.
- to make an enclosure for the animals using the small blocks.
Forest School this week was another muddy one and included toasting marshmallows, these were thoroughly enjoyed by everyone!
Next week our week our focus book is The Tiny Seed by Eric Carl
Reminders and Notices
Forest School- Please send your child to school in their PE kits on Friday with waterproofs and wellies in a labelled plastic bag.
Waste Innovation- Please don’t forget to send in any donations for us to be creative.
Please can we also ask for any donations of children’s underwear, socks and old school uniform, we work hard and play hard in reception so things can get a little bit messy!!
Please don’t forget to email any pictures from home stjameseyfs@spherefederation.org thank you!
Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Rippon and Mrs. Feldman
PE
In dance this week, we listened to ‘Running up that Hill’ by Kate Bush.
We discussed how the song made us feel and what emotions we may want to include in a dance routine. The children, generally, enjoyed that music and some had even heard parents play the song before.
Afterwards, we worked in small groups and planned a dance routine to the piece of music. We had a blast and thoroughly enjoyed the lesson. We even learnt that Mr Roundtree likes the song too.
Living and Learning
I recognise that family and friends are important.
I can find solutions to different problems.
We have been focussing on these two statements over recent weeks and learnt how we can make positive changes to our life and to the lives of others. We recognise unkind words and behaviours and that often words and comments can sometimes to taken out of context and cause offence (particularly online). We have also viewed people with different emotions and discussed how we should speak to these people and talked about the kind of things we can say.
We have discussed working with different people in our class and that it is important to include everyone and not leave people out. We know that it doesn’t matter what differences we have with others, it is still important to be kind and respectful. The following video caused a lot of amusement but also has an important message.
Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog (it’s along the play bar) and turn off autoplay – this
avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip
after clip.
Year 6 CGP Books
Year 6 have recently been sent home with three CGP books to help support learning leading up to their SATS. Each week, Mr Freeman will provide specific pages for pupils to study and practise weekly. These areas may be different to the areas currently being learnt in maths – this is to help bridge any remaining learning gaps pupils may have.
Help at home: Encourage your child to spend some time working through their set pages. Remind your child that they’ll need to bring their books into regularly for class reviews. This will definitely happen every Friday, but children may also be asked to bring them in on different days.
Finally, please don’t stress about upcoming tests! Children often perform better when more relaxed and calm – let’s encourage this mindset.
Living and Learning – We’re All the Same and We’re All Different
In Living and Learning, we’ve been celebrating similarities and differences in ourselves and others.
I know we’re all the same and we’re all different.
This Living and Learning statement links to one of our British Values – Respect and Tolerance. “We are respectful” is one of our school rules and we discussed what this might look like in our school community and beyond.
We had a lot of fun recognising and celebrating our differences. Here are a few ways in which we noticed we’re different:
- physical appearance
- hobbies
- preferences
- families
We’re all unique and that’s ok!
We thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘Elmer’ by David McKee and it led to a fascinating conversation. The children then decorated their own Elmers and no two were alike!
Here are some of the questions we tackled:
- What is different about Elmer and the other elephants?
- How might Elmer feel about being different from the other Elephants?
- Why might Elmer have decided to slip away while the other elephants were still asleep?
- Why did Elmer want to cover herself in the berry juice?
- Why did she want to look like the other elephants?
Help at home by reading Elmer and discussing these questions with your child.
Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog (it’s along the play bar) and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.
Help at home by celebrating the differences which exist between your friends and family. Encourage your child to tell someone else what they really like about them and why.
Maths: Grouping tens and ones
Today, we have been looking at making groups of tens and ones. The children were asked to describe a number by the number of
tens and ones the number is made from.
The class used different representations of the tens and ones which were not always in place value order.
The children needed to count the number of groups of 10 and then
the ones to find the total.
. Here there are 3 groups of ten and one 1 – 31
Using Base 10 is useful, as it gives children no option other than to count tens and ones, since they cannot split the ten apart.
misconception 46
Here the ones are pictured before the tens. Children need to still count the groups of ten first and then add on the ones.
Help at home by counting in tens. Try grouping objects into tens and ones. Can your child write the number correctly?
What numbers are represented below?
We love to read and rhyme!
This week we celebrated World Book Day!
Thank you to those who came and shared this day with us. The children thoroughly enjoyed becoming their favourite book character and engaging in some nursery rhyme activities.
We’ve also been enjoying our weekly forest school sessions. This week we found lots of mini-beasts. We counted how many snails we found and made comparisons between the length of our worms.
Quick question! How do we know the difference between a Snail and a Slug?
This week’s focus story has been ‘Oliver’s Vegetables’ by Vivian French
What kind of vegetables did Grandpa grow in his garden?
Why couldn’t Oliver see the potatoes ?
Which vegetables would you like to try?
The children enjoyed being able to practice their chopping skills. We chopped up some fruit and vegetables to add texture and scent to our playdough.
Help at home: Would your child like to help you cut up some vegetables to make tea? What vegetables do you already know and what could we make with them. For example, we know that potatoes can be made into chips, mash and Jacket’s.
This week sound/s was: ‘H’ for helicopter
Rhyme of the week: I’m a little teapot
Have a super weekend everyone!
Miss Ward and Miss Harvey
Oracy
We have all been focussing on our prosody skills this week. Using the poem Good Hope by Benjamin Zephaniah, we have strived to use intonation, tone and volume, whilst ensuring we project our voice and make eye contact with our classmates. We have also discussed some of the issues Zephaniah may have faced and the key messages taken from the poem.
Well done everyone!
