01 July 2022
This week we have been learning about the word endings –ance and –ence. Please learn the following words for a test on Thursday 7th July
- hindrance
- apparent
- convenience
- excellent
- existence
- frequent
- nuisance
- sufficient
This week’s bible story
Daniel and the Lions Den: Daniel 6 (Omit verse 24 for younger or sensitive children)
Read the story of Daniel (omit verse 24 for younger or sensitive children)
Daniel was captured, along with many more of God’s people, and taken to live in a foreign country. In this country, they had different traditions and customs and it was not acceptable to worship God. But Daniel chose to continue serving God. Even though it meant that he was risking death, Daniel knelt down and honoured God by praying three times a day.
When the king discovered that Daniel was breaking the law by praying to God, he had Daniel thrown into a den of hungry lions. God stood by Daniel and rewarded his unwavering commitment to righteousness by protecting him from being eaten by the lions.
Reflection:
We’re going to have a little think about this story now and what we could learn from it about telling the truth.
Have a think about these questions:
Why did the other servants not like Daniel?
Why didn’t Daniel bow down and worship the king instead of worshipping God?
What do you think you would have done if you had been Daniel?
Can you think of a time when you have stood up for the truth in a difficult situation?
Is it ever OK to tell a lie?
Daniel believed in something so strongly that he was willing to risk everything – even his life – to stand up for that truth. In the story, God honoured him for his truthfulness and saved him from the lions. This sets us a good example to try to stand up for the truth on all occasions and (if appropriate) to know that God will be with us in that decision to tell the truth. It might be easier to tell a little lie on occasions, but one lie often leads to another and this can often mean that lots of people get hurt in the process. It would be good to aim to be like Daniel and to tell the truth on all occasions!
Prayer
Dear Lord,
Thank you for the example of Daniel.
Please help us to be brave enough to tell the truth on all occasions and help us to know that you will be with us when we find that hard to do.
Amen.
No spellings this week!
Due to tests in years 3 and 4 that are coming up next week, there will be no spelling test on Friday 1st July.
All about transport!
This week, we’ve been continuing with our theme ‘On the move’. The children have looked at maps, sorted different vehicles into the categories of ‘air’, ‘land’ or ‘sea’ and they’ve also described familiar routes around school. We’ve been junk-modelling cars and trains and drawing our own tracks, too. As the weather’s been so hot, we’ve spent lots of time outside conducting experiments. One was to find out how our small cars would cope with different sorts of weather conditions. We tried using foaming soap to represent snow drifts but enjoyed the foam so much that we ended up making impromptu pretend ‘ice creams’ with it! Who’d like some soil sprinkles on theirs?
Last week, we harvested our first crop of broad beans. On Monday, after the beans had been cooked, the children had the opportunity to taste their own vegetables. Some children were not very keen to try them; however, others really enjoyed them (and some even asked for a second helping).
The children have also been looking very closely at their faces using mirrors. We spent a long time talking about all the details we could see, thinking about our eye and hair colour and what shapes our heads are. After these discussions, the children drew some fabulous self-portraits in pencil.
In phonics, we’ve been continuing to think about initial sounds. We’ve also played lots of games to help us identify the different sounds (phonemes) which make up simple words. Metal Mickey, our class robot, has been eating all sorts of strange things for his dinner including a ‘h-a-t’, ‘c-a-n’ and ‘p-e-n’. In maths, we’ve been using positional language (such as ‘under’, ‘beside’, ‘behind’) and have also tried to describe a route to our friends. Next week, we’ll be talking about capacity and we’ll be using the words ‘full’, ‘half-full’ and ’empty’ in our learning.
Please remember to name all of your child’s belongings. The current heatwave means that we have lots of discarded jumpers, cardigans and other items to send home at the end of the day.
Ahoy there!
Our focus book has been ‘The Night Pirates’ by Peter Harris. On Monday, we found a note at the back of the book. The note said:
Look carefully outside and you will find…
We looked outside and found a bottle buried in our sandpit with a letter inside. 
We talked about the skills/qualities we would need to join Tom on an adventure. Here are some of the skills/qualities that the children came up with:
- brave
- good listener
- strong
- clever
- perseverance
- quick
- sneaky
We then had a go at writing our letters to Tom. We talked about using ‘Dear’ or ‘To’ at the beginning of our letters.
We’ve also been super busy completing this week’s chilli challenges.
We created our own treasure maps.
We cleaned the ocean of plastic to help look after our sea creatures.
We investigated magnetic and non-magnetic materials.
In maths, we have deepened our understanding of the counting system and recapped some key skills:
- tagging each object when counting groups of objects
- knowing number names and their order
- knowing that the last number counted gives us the total in the set
- counting body movements
- using different strategies to keep track of we’ve counted and not counted
- counting beyond 20
Every morning, we write a sentence about a picture. We’re super proud of our writing skills!
Thank you!
Finally, thank you to all the parents/carers that came to one of our learning journey drop ins. It was lovely to welcome you all into the classroom. We hope you enjoyed looking through your child’s books and talking to your child about everything they have enjoyed/achieved during their first year at school.
Home-Link Challenge
This week’s message (Friday 24 June 2022)
Thanks to everyone who responded to this year’s annual survey. We’ll spend the next few weeks reviewing the responses and building in some action points to our School Improvement Plan.
This week’s message comes from Miss Beatson, who writes about our Junior Leadership Team…
This year, the JLT have had a busy time taking on various responsibilities in school. Here are a few highlights:
24 June 2022
This week, we have been reminding ourselves how to use apostrophes for contractions.
Use the words below and use their contracted forms in a sentence.
- I am – I’m
- do not – don’t
- I will – I’ll
- did not – didn’t
- is not – isn’t
- cannot – can’t
- should not – shouldn’t
- was not – wasn’t
24 June 2022
During this week’s Talk Time, you’ll explore an important moral dilemma.
Shops should try to sell clothes as cheaply as possible.
When discussing the statement, there are a number of factors to take into consideration. Your conversations at home may begin by attempting to answer the following questions:
- Who would benefit from clothes being sold as cheaply as possible?
- Bear in mind that not everyone shares the same level of wealth.
- How would this impact on the amount of clothes people own?
- Would people buy more clothes than they actually need?
- How would lower prices impact on the shops themselves?
- If more clothes are needed in shops, how would that impact on the manufacturers?
- in terms of issues such as workload and pay
The following R2s will help your child to reflect on the discussion points:
- What are the reasons for (the pros) selling clothes as cheaply as possible?
- What are the reasons against (the cons) doing so?
- Reach a conclusion – Do you take one particular side or is there a compromise that could satisfy everyone?
Science – Animals, including humans
Today, the children have enjoyed looking at some tadpoles and frogs that were brought in by a child who has a pond in their garden. We talked about the life cycle of a frog and how there were 6 different stages.
In our Science topic this half term, we have been looking at different animals and classifying them. The children knew that a frog is an amphibian. Can they tell you any other facts about amphibians?
After we looked at what different animals ate and decided if they were herbivores, carnivores or omnivores.
23 June 2022
Year 1: grander grandest fresher freshest quicker quickest
Year 2: metal pedal capital hospital animal pencil fossil nostril many again
