Living and Learning: I recognise emotions in myself and others
This week in Living and Learning, we were looking at recognising emotions in myself and others.
We started with 6 words: kind, unkind, fair, unfair, right, and wrong. We heard different scenarios and moved to the word we felt summed up the scenario. Often, we could have gone to more than one word or children thought differently about the different people in the scenario.
We read the story ‘Have you filled a bucket today?’ We heard how we could fill someone else’s bucket with the actions we do and the words that we say. We created our own bucket thinking about what we can do to help fill someone else’s bucket.
Help at home: encourage your child to think about their emotions and to label how they are feeling. See if they can fill your bucket or another family member’s bucket with their actions or words.
Homophones hunt!
This week, we have been learning about homophones in Grammar. These are words which sound the same, but have different meanings and spellings.
For example: see and sea, sun and son, flower and flour.
We had to make homophone pairs by finding someone else with a different word that sounds the same as ours. We learned that some homophones are not pairs of words, but come in triplets!
For example: two, too and to, their, there and they’re.
Week 6 – People who help us
It’s hard to believe we are at the end of another busy half term! There has been so much great learning in Reception so thank you to everyone for working so hard!
This week we have been thinking about different jobs and different ways that people help us. We discovered that there are so many different ways to help others! Mr Atkins helped us to develop our building skills and we designed emergency vehicles and uniform for the emergency services.
We had a visit from Wetherby Fire Station on Thursday. It was amazing to see the fire engine and to learn more about what equipment they use and the different jobs the firefighters do.
On Tuesday it was Internet Safety Day. During the day we learnt different ways that we could stay safe online. We read a book called ‘Penguin Pig’ Which helped us to understand that not everything you see and read online is real. We then created our own made up animals so others could see not everything is real.
We love learning new poems and nursery rhymes during our daily poetry picnic sessions. This week we worked in small groups to create our poetry performances.
I hope you are all having a wonderful half term and look forward to seeing you all on Monday 20 February!
PE
This half term in PE we’ve been enjoying playing games to develop skills such as balancing with bean bags, hopping, jumping and leaping over objects and rolling, throwing and bouncing a ball.
Maths: making equal groups!
This week, we began our multiplication and division learning in Maths.
We’ve been thinking about equal groups – having the same number of objects in each group. Recognising equal groups can help us with our multiplication and repeated addition facts.
For example, we made 4 equal groups of 2.
Our repeated addition fact was 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 =
Our multiplication fact was 4 x 2 =
Have a look at some of the other equal groups we’ve been making!
2 equal groups of 6
4 equal groups of 3
Help at home by asking your child to make some equal groups out of objects in the home, for example, some books or toys.
We will be continuing our multiplication and division learning after half term, therefore I encourage you to be using Times Tables Rockstars at home to help with the 2s, 5s and 10s facts. Thank you for all your hard work this half term and I hope you have a happy and healthy break!
Living and Learning: I know that people should treat others respectfully when online.
Today has been internet safety day! In Year 4, we continually refer to online safety throughout the year – not just for one day.
This morning, the class had a discussion about online games and we looked at some guidance about age ratings. Lots of the children were unaware that some of the games they play are inappropriate and rated at much higher age groups.
The game Fortnite, which is very popular, is recommended for young people aged 13 and up. This is because of its action violence and open chat options. Chat to your child about the games they play online. Discuss why there are age restrictions and what the word ‘appropriate‘ means.
Following this discussion, the class were able to explore the ‘thinkuknow‘ website. This site provides resources and information for children and young people aged 4 – 18, their families and professionals who work with them. Check this out with your child. There’s a lot of information for parents, too! www.thinkuknow.co.uk
Our fluency text links to our Living and Learning and it is below for you to read with your child.
Monday 6 February 2023
LO: fluency (Living and Learning – Consent – book on display in classroom) 
Consent means giving someone a choice about touch or actions and respecting their answer.
Consent (for Kids) is an empowering introduction about how to respect yourself and others. Consent is like being ruler of your own country…population: YOU. Readers will learn about boundaries and how to set them; ways to respect themselves and others; what to do if someone makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe; and much more.
Finally, the children created images of themselves and surrounded them with ideas of how to stay safe online.
Safer Internet Day
Today, we have been celebrating at safer internet day.
This morning, we heard about Lee and Kim who learned that not everyone is who they say they are online and that we should keep our personal information to ourselves. We learned what personal information was and why it was important to keep it safe. We wrote on a padlock the things that we should keep private.
Later, we heard all about a new creature: a penguin pig! Only, we learned the little girl who found out about the penguin pig found out that it wasn’t a real creature at all. We learned that not everything we read online is true and that we should check with an adult if we’re not sure. We created our own creatures to help us remember that not everything we read online is true.
This afternoon, we met with Year 1. We shared our knowledge of being safe online through a game we played together. When we rolled the dice and landed on the HELP square, we had to pick up a situation card and discuss what we’d do to stay safe.
We ended the day by thinking of three top tips for staying safe online.
Help at home by asking your child their top tips and sticking to them.
Safer Internet Day
Today was Safer Internet Day in school. We thought about why and how we should stay safe online.
We started the day by reading a book calling Chicken Clicking. We reflected on the choices that Chicken made and why they were unsafe on the internet. We learned that we should always ask an adult if we are unsure of something on the internet, do not use websites that we do not have permission to use, never share personal information online and know that not everything we see on the internet is true.
This afternoon, we met with Year 1. We shared our knowledge of being safe online through a game we played together. When we rolled the dice and landed on the HELP square, we had to pick up a situation card and discuss what we’d do to stay safe.
We ended the day by thinking of three top tips for staying safe online. Help at home by asking your child their top tips and sticking to them.
Week 5 – Superheroes
What a fantastic week we have had in reception. We have continued with our focus book Supertato but focused more on superheroes.
The children decided that they wanted to build a city for their superhero to live in. They thought carefully about what they wanted their city to have. We saw some amazing bridges!
This week we learnt more about Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. Yayoi is also known as the princess of polka dots as she loves to add dots to her art creations. Yayoi has created sculptures and many different paintings. She has even used people as her canvas! We decided that we wanted to create some artwork inspired by this amazing artist. Check out some of our dotty designs.
There was an emergency in the kitchen this week! Julie came to see us to tell us that all the peas had escaped from the freezer! We thought this must be the work of the evil pea so we thought carefully about what we could do to find him. We decided that we would make some wanted posters so everyone at school could help us to find him.
A huge thank you for everyone who joined us for our funky fingers stay and play session on Friday. We loved sharing our classroom with everyone and hope you did too.
We have parents evening next week on Tuesday and Thursday evening. If you haven’t yet made an appointment please come and speak to me so we can arrange a time.
Mrs Payne
Living and Learning: Staying safe online
Today, we had a workshop all about how to keep safe online. We learnt that when we use the internet there are 3 important rules to follow:
- Always ask parents first
- Only talk to people you know
- Stick to places that are just right for you
Here are some of our comments on how to keep safe online:
“You can go on YouTube kids to watch videos,” said Elijah.
“Don’t wear your school uniform on a video as strangers will see the school logo,” said Ethan.
“If it has an 18 on, you can’t play it if you are under 18,” said Gabriel.
“Don’t click on pop ups as it may be a trick ,” said Leo.
“Always ask a teacher if you’re not sure and need help on an iPad,” said Busby.
“Grown ups have rules to keep us safe,” said Lily.
