Philosophy Friday – 29.11.24
Philosophy is thinking deeply.
Every Friday, we start our day with some time to wonder and ponder.
We’ve a different question each week – there’s no obvious right/wrong answer and no underlying moral message. All children are given the opportunity to contribute their ideas and give reasons for their thoughts.
This week’s question related to our current topic:
This half-term, we’re artists. We’ll develop our art knowledge and skills.
This question sparked some interesting discussion and debate.
It doesn’t even have to be good. You can do anything you want as long as you had a good time doing it.
– Freddy
It’s always going to look nice to someone. I believe you should do whatever you want.
– Izabella
If every painting looked like something, it could be a bit boring. It could just be colours and shapes.
– Olly
It’s the colours that make a painting beautiful.
– Ellis
Our oracy focus this half term is:
Help at home by discussing this week’s Philosophy Friday question with your child. Can you find any examples of art that don’t immediately jump out as resembling something?
PE – Gymnastics
We have been working hard in Year 5 and Year 6 developing our gymnastic skills. We have been performing many jumps and balances and putting together short routines – all whilst maintaing control.
Today we used more of our gymnastic equipment and transferred our skills. We explored, experimented and created ways of moving around the space available.
Help at home – We have some amazing gymnasts in our class. If your child is keen to join a club outside of school, we have many gymnastic clubs in and around Wetherby. Why not give them a go?
Topic – Art
LO – I can use visual and tactile elements to achieve my intentions
In topic this week, we have been looking at artwork by Orla Kiely. We have been annotating her work highlighting visual and tactile elements, such as colour, line, repeated patterns, symmetry and shape.
We then created our own mono prints using a leaf design. The children really enjoyed the activity and showed off their creative sides. The work produced was superb (much better than Mr Kilner’s).
Help at home – Look at designs by Orla Kiely. Ask your child to highlight any repeated patterns or lines of symmetry. Which designs do they prefer, why? How do the designs make them feel?
Living and Learning – I can talk about my feelings
This week’s Living and Learning statement is:
We discussed a range of emotions and the importance of recognising and talking about them.
Emotions are feelings – they can change all the time. We all experience a whole range of emotions, from anger to happiness to fear. This is ok and normal.
Emotions and feelings are our mental health.
We talked about how we can read people’s faces and body language to help us understand how they might be feeling. The children had a go at showing what these emotions might look like.
Everyone has the right to ask for help. If you need help with your emotions, or you notice someone else might need help with their emotions, speak to a trusted adult.
Help at home by discussing this learning with your child. Encourage your child to talk about their feelings – do they know who to speak to at school if they need help with their emotions?
Why not try completing this emotions chart with your child to highlight how emotions can change over the course of a day or event?
Living and Learning: I can talk about my feelings
This week, we’ve been exploring emotions and how they shape our feelings. We’ve talked about how emotions can change all the time and how it’s completely normal to experience a wide range of them—from anger and fear to happiness and excitement. Emotions are an important part of our mental health, helping us understand ourselves and others.
During our circle time on Monday, we focused on specific emotions: happiness, excitement, worry, and tiredness. Together, we reflected on how each of these emotions feels in our own experiences.
- “I felt worried when I stayed at my cousin’s house, and my mum wasn’t there.”
- “I feel happy when I come to school because I love learning.”
- “I felt excited when I went on holiday.”
- “I felt happy when I had hot chocolate while feeling unwell.”
Today, we became “emotion detectives”! We practiced identifying emotions by studying pictures. We carefully examined facial expressions and body language to decide which emotion best fit each character. It was a fun and insightful way to learn how to recognise feelings in others!
Afterward, we all took turns demonstrating how different emotions might look and feel through facial expressions and body language.
proud
surprised
fear
nervous
sad
happy.
Help at home: Take moments throughout the day to check in with your child and ask how they’re feeling. Encourage them to think about their emotions—what might that feeling look like? Does it have a colour, shape, or even a sound? This can help them better understand and express their emotions.
Reading – Inference
In reading, we’ve been reading The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas and Helen Oxenbury.
It’s a comically inverted version of the classic fable and the children have thoroughly enjoyed reading it. We spent some time discussing the pig’s character:
We’ve been using the text as a vehicle to practise our inference skills. Inference is the skill of using clues to make a sensible guess about something we don’t know.
One of our favourite activities for practising inference is ‘hot seating’ in which characters, played by members of the class (or the teacher!), are interviewed by the rest of the group. It encourages children to embody a character, thinking deeply about themes and ideas, and exploring their behaviour. We had great fun pretending to be the big bad pig!
Help at home by trying a hot seat activity with your child’s current book. Can they embody a character and dramatise their behaviour?
Online safety
We talk a lot about online safety in Year 5 and Year 6. It is crucial that the children are aware of how to stay safe, how websites keep us logged in and the role that cookies play.
Below are links to explain pop-ups and cookies in some detail:
When online, here are some key principles to keep safe:
If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Limit your screen time.
Avoid clicking on ads.
Clear your cookies frequently.
If you want to spend money, set a reasonable limit but ask yourself – is this really worth it? Will I want this in a year’s time? Can I use the money for something else?
Living and learning – I know how to make careful choices
This week, Year 3 have learnt about making careful choices in and out of school. We’ve also spoken a lot on how to disagree with other respectfully, especially if you feel you are in an uncomfortable position. In circle time, the children began by finishing off the sentence stem ‘I feel respected when…’ – here’s some pupil responses:
I feel respected when I’m listened to.
I feel respected when people give me time to myself if I ask for it.’
I feel respected when people give me eye contact.
We then went into imaginary scenarios, where children can offer advice and support to the situation. Pupils discussed different ways that we can disagree respectfully with others, especially if we are feeling that the situation is wrong or uncomfortable. Even with friends and peers, it’s important to disagree respectfully if necessary. All pupils responded well in this session and left feeling happy and healthy.
Peace at last!
This week we have been reading ‘ Peace at last‘ by Jill Murphy
We have been talking about all the different noises Daddy Bear could hear whilst he was trying to get to sleep! Some of those being animals outside, Can you remember what kind of animals are awake at night time?
That’s right.. Nocturnal!
One of our favourite nocturnal animals has been the Hedgehog. Sometimes we see them around school, especially in our forest area. We must remember to be quiet as they are sleeping.. Shhhh!
This week we were scientist, we made some delicious hedgehog bread. We talked about the ingredients we needed and how to use the weighing scales to measure how much we would need. Once we mixed our dough, we had to give it a good knead- this is a fantastic fine motor skill to help strengthen your child’s hand’s. We made sure our key ingredient was in.. Yeast. Without the yeast the dough wouldn’t rise. The children observed the process of the dough rising before we put them in the oven.
Here is our end result!
Help at home: Have a go at making some bread at home, What animal could you do this time? below is the recipe we used to make our bread
- 400g of wholemeal bread flour
- 1 sachet of yeast
- 380ml of luke warm water
- 2 tbsp of vegetable oil
- 1 tbsp of salt
Mix all the ingredients together and then knead for 10 minutes.
Shape your dough and add in any extras such as raisins for eyes.
Allow ro rise for 1 hour in a warm place.
Place your dough into the oven at 180 for 15 mins, (make sure your grown-up helps with this part)
Allow to cool and enjoy!
Notice:
Reminder of Parent Consultations this coming Monday 25 November 3:30-5:30pm
We’re going to the Moon!
Some of the children may have come out to you on Friday saying they need to bring snacks and a teddy as we’re going to the moon. This is partly true apart from we will be providing the snacks! So please just bring one of your teddies to school with you next week. I’ve got mine ready, he can’t wait to go!
Have a lovely weekend
The Nursery Team
Living and learning – online safety
As a class, we reflected on what we could do if we were presented with a search result that was not appropriate, we received a pop-up advert/message or received an unkind/inappropriate message when we were playing on an online game. The children had lots of ideas which they were keen to share with each other.
The 3 most popular tips were:
- tell a trusted adult
- close it
- block them
Help at home: If you are keen to learn more about how to keep children safe online, take a look at the advice provided by the NSPCC: NSPCC safe online