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!
World Book Day
Thank you so much to all the grown ups who came to our special ‘World Book Day’ stay and learn. We hope you had a lovely time, we’ve had a brilliant day celebrating.
This morning we had a whole school costume parade, we showed off our wonderful World Book Day Costumes as we danced to the ‘World Book Day’ Song by Mc Grammar. Then the teacher’s all swapped classrooms, Mr. Kilner who usually teaches in Year 3/4 came to read us a story. We loved listening to him and we loved his different voices!
Thank you so much for all your wonderful support in celebrating World Book Day, you’ve certainly helped us to raise the profile of books and reading. Reception absolute LOVE story time!
Help at Home by sharing a story.
World Book Day
World Book Day 2024 has been one to remember for Year 2! We’ve had a fun-filled day of celebration, raising the profile of books and reading.
The children arrived at school dressed to the nines as their favourite book characters, ready to share their books with the class. We started the day by sharing our books with one another and creating character profiles.
After a breathtaking costume parade in the hall, teachers swapped classes to read their favourite books. Year 2 were lucky to welcome Mrs Kendrew who read Tadpole’s Promise.
After playtime, we joined schools around the country for a special webinar with John Patrick Green, author and illustrator of the ‘Investigators’ series of graphic novels. The children enjoyed following along with John as he drew investigator Mango – the results were outstanding. We’ve got some future superstar illustrators in our midst!
Thanks to all our adults for your support in celebrating World Book Day. Raising the profile of books and reading for pleasure is hugely important and we can’t do it without your help.
Help at home by continuing to support us on our reading journey!