Reading – Sequencing and Summarising
In reading and writing, our focus text is Flooded by Spanish author and illustrator, Mariajo Ilustrajo.
We’ve really enjoyed this text, exploring the key themes by asking questions and making connections.
A theme is a big idea or message.
Flooded is a funny tale of animals in a slowly flooding city. Behind the humorous story and illustrations, there’s an important message. Flooded touches on themes of environmental crisis and responsibility, as well as the power of community, and working together to fix a problem.
We’ve used the text to practise our summarising skills – summarising is retelling a story in your own words.
The children impressed me with their skills, sequencing pictures from the story and writing a summarising sentence for each.
Help at home by inviting your child to summarise Flooded. Can they tell you about the key themes? Try sequencing and summarising events in a different text. What happened first? What next? What happened at the end?
Heavier Or Lighter?
This week, we have been thinking about weight.
We have been comparing objects in our classroom and using the words ‘heavier’ and ‘lighter’ to describe them.
Sometimes, we were tricked! Some of us thought that the biggest object might be the heaviest. We now know
, 
that’s not always the case!
Help at home: Can you compare some objects that you have? Which feels heavier and lighter when you feel them?
Living and learning: I know how to seek help.
This week, our living and learning statement is:
I know how to seek help.
In our weekly circle times, we always refer to ways we can seek help. I am really impressed with how well the children remember and use these systems – this ensures we maintain a happy and healthy classroom environment.
Help at home: Talk through the slide above with your child. Make sure they feel confident enough to use at least one of these strategies if they are worried or in need of help.
Science
Light
This morning, Year 5 and Year 6 carried out an investigation to find out what will happen to our shadow at different times during the day.
We measured our shadow at 9.40am, 10.40am and 11.40am.
The children really enjoyed the process and recording their results. We found that our shadows were longer earlier in the day as the sun was at a lower angle causing longer shadows to form.
Help at home – How are shadows formed? Light travels in _________ lines. What does opaque mean? How did your child keep themself safe during the investigation?
Topic: Geography
This half-term, we’ve been learning what it means to be geographers! This week, we ventured into our local community to carry out some exciting fieldwork. Before setting off, we talked about how to stay safe during our trip.
Here are some of the safety rules we followed:
- We wore high-visibility jackets so drivers could easily see us.
- We stayed with our group and our adult leader at all times.
- We listened carefully to instructions and only crossed the road when it was safe to do so.
During our fieldwork, we visited four different areas and made observations about noise levels, litter, recycling bins, traffic, how safe we felt and the plants and trees around us. We recorded our findings in a chart using happy, neutral, or sad faces.
Back at school, we analysed our results and wrote a sentence about which place we thought was the best. It’s been a fantastic week of exploring and investigating our community!
Help at home: Become a Local Geographer!
Encourage your child to observe their surroundings at home.
You can:
- Go for a short walk and note things like noise levels, litter, plants, and safety features (e.g. crossings or streetlights).
- Create a simple chart with happy, neutral and sad faces to record their observations.
- Talk about ways to improve the area, like picking up litter (with gloves!) or adding more plants.
This is a great way to reinforce their learning and show how geography connects to everyday life!
Living and Learning
Being safe
Here at St James, we always speak about child safety and how the children can ‘Speak out, Stay safe’. Our children are confident at identifying who their own trusted adults are and feel comfortable that they could ask for help.
On a weekly basis, we revisit the Childline number and where our children can go should they have any worries.
Help at home: watch this video together https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRSJ0U3xWM4
Penguin Huddle
In our literacy lessons this week, we enjoyed reading Penguin Huddle by Ross Montgomery. In the story, the penguins huddled together during an icy storm but it was so cold that they got stuck together and couldn’t break free!
Our word of the week has been: huddle.
We located the UK and the Antarctic on a map and found their locations on a globe. We then talked about how they compared to find similarities and differences.
Maths -composition
This week, children consolidated their understanding of the composition of 5 using the familiar rhyme ‘5 Little Speckled Frogs.’ By singing the rhyme and moving the frogs during each verse, children investigated part–part–whole relations, e.g. seeing that 5 can be made of 3 and 2.
Phonics
Spring 1 week 3 has focused on the digraphs ur, ow, oi and the trigraph ear.
We’ve learnt the tricky words; my, by, all. Tricky words are words that should be read by sight. We have also played Tricky Word Bingo this week, which was great fun.
Help at home: please go through the home learning sheet with your child.
Have a happy and healthy week and thank you as always for your support.
Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Rippon and Mr. Smith.
Reading
This week, Year 3 have been focussing on retrieval. In reading, to retrieve means to find information. To improve this skill, it’s important we read a variety of text types/books that are engaging for the children. I’d like to share a (and authors) that we’ve used this week. The children have really enjoyed the extracts in this book, so it may be something to explore reading at home!
The Boy at the Back of the Class
This is our class novel this half-term, written by Onjali Rauf. This fiction narrative highlights some real world issues for the children, but it written in a fun, intriguing and engaging way for children. Ahmet, the new boy at the back of the class, is a refugee – he has fled his home, a dangerous area, to a new place of safety. So far, we are getting to know more about Ahmet, through the eyes of others in his class. The children are really enjoying this book as they can really relate to the school setting. There are lots of links to our Christian Values, too!
Help at home:
Discuss this narrative with your child. What advice would you give to Ahmet? If your child has really enjoyed reading this book, perhaps look into some other books by Onjali Rauf and really enhance that love of reading!
Reading – unfamiliar words
It was great to welcome you to our classroom this week to share some ideas of how you might practise times tables and reading at home. If you were unable to join us this time, please let me know if you would like to find out about the ideas we shared.
One of the ideas we looked at was what you can do when you come across an exciting or unfamiliar word when you are reading at home. In class we use a frayer model (pictured below) to gain a better understanding of a word. At home you could use one part of the model or discuss a couple of the parts.
For example, if you were reading part of our class novel, The Firework Maker’s Daughter by Philip Pullman, your child might not be confident with the meaning of the word “muttered”.
You could start by looking for clues in the text as to what it means by asking questions such as:
What other word could have been used in the sentence to make this make sense?
How do you think they might be talking? Would they be shouting? Whispering? Would they be excited? Nervous?
After your child has used the clues in the text, they could use a dictionary or an online search engine to research the meaning of the word.
You could talk about how the -ed suffix shows that it is in the past tense.
Finally, you could challenge your child to think of their own sentence using the word muttered. Alternatively, could they think of any synonyms (words with the same meaning) or antonyms (words with the opposite meaning)?
Persuasive Writing in Year One
This week, our Year One class wrote persuasive sentences inspired by Clean Up! to encourage everyone to care for the beach and our environment. We’ve been learning how to use the conjunction “and” in our writing and the children practiced giving reasons why we should help. Some of their brilliant sentences included: “Clean up the beach and save the animals” and “Put your plastic in the bin so that the turtles can swim happily”
We talked about why it’s important to put rubbish in the bin and recycle. Rubbish left on the beach or in nature can harm animals, pollute the water, and make our beautiful planet look untidy. Recycling helps save energy, reduces waste, and gives materials a new life instead of ending up in a landfill.
Help at home:
- Discuss how your family can reduce waste and recycle more.
- Look for items around the house that can be recycled and practice sorting them together.
- Spot conjunctions like “and” in books, signs, or conversations.
We are so proud of the children for their thoughtful and creative writing. We are already seeing huge progress in their writing skills this term and they’re all becoming confident little writers!