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

Harewood House

Today, the children enjoyed a day out at Harewood House.

In the morning, we all loved meeting the famous Humboldt Penguins in their sanctuary. The classes learnt about how the penguins have adapted to their environment and what their diet consists of.

Following this, we strolled around the bird garden and found out lots of fascinating facts about the native birds of Harewood.

Ask your child about these birds. What can they remember?

We were amazed by some of the questions asked by the children and we also had a penguin expert among us!

Why are flamingos pink?

How long do penguins live?

What do parrots eat?

Are any of the birds dangerous?

How did these birds end up at Harewood House?

Before lunch, we took part in a penguin themed art activity. 

The children spent the afternoon (in the shade) sketching the house and the gardens. 

To round our super day off, the children spent time exploring in the adventure playground.

A hot, good day was had by all!

Potato picking

Mrs Small, Mr Atkins and some children have been busy tidying up our garden. They came across lots of potatoes that were planted last year. So many potatoes were collected that we used them to make a potato salad which was made available on the salad bar at lunchtime for everyone- delicious!

Living and Learning: Friendships

We have been thinking about friendship. Why are friendships important  and what makes a good friend?   

We discussed that it is likely most people will have different
types of friends—some will be ‘close’ friends (or family) and others might be ‘acquaintances’ or people we know…but less well.

After suggesting who our friends are, we then thought very carefully about  ‘online friends’. Are these people really your friends?

No, they are strangers.

You can’t trust them.

They could be anywhere in the world.

This led us to a conversation about the safety rules when having contact with someone online and the importance of talking to a trusted adult if you are worried about something you have read or seen online.
Did you know that most social media and gaming sites have a minimum age of 13?

Share these questions with you child at home?

Name three qualities of a good friend?

How are you a good friend?

Is it ok to fall out?

Are people we meet online, friends?

What would you do if you felt upset about a friendship?

Read the scenario below. What advice would you give Logan?   

Hey, I hope you can help me with this problem. I had some really great mates who I played football with at school and in the park. We always used to cheer each other on but recently I’ve noticed they don’t seem to want to include me in their teams. Yesterday, they even said I should just be ‘sub’ on the side-lines and after the game they didn’t really talk to me. I thought I was getting better at football and that it didn’t really matter anyway. Alex
is trying out for the school team and Clare and Sharma think they are the best. I feel really fed up and left out. Should I just give up on football and our friendship?    
Logan

This week’s bible story

Adam and Eve: Genesis 2.15—3.14

Do you know the names of the very first people in the Bible: Adam and Eve. In Hebrew (the language the story was written in) names tell you about who the person is, what they’re like. The names Adam and Eve mean ‘the first people ever’.

In the story God made a special garden for Adam and Eve to live in, and we know from the Bible that it was set in modern day Iran, next to Iraq in the Middle East.

Adam and Eve had been told that they could eat anything they wanted, except the tree that grew in the middle of the garden, which was called ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’. What do you think that name means?

Read the story of Adam and Eve

What do you do when you know you’ve done something wrong? What is the best thing to do when you’ve done something wrong?

In the story, God sent Adam and Eve away, out of the lovely garden, and they learned to be farmers, to grow their own food, and to work on the land.

But what might have happened if they’d been honest and owned up (’fessed up!); if they’d taken responsibility for their actions instead of blaming someone else? We don’t know. Perhaps we’d still all live in that garden, not having to work …

But this story is still told as an example of how, when we aren’t honest, it affects many more people than just us. We don’t know what might have happened in the story if Adam and Eve had been honest. But we can be honest about ourselves, and then we know that whatever we’ve done, it’s easier to make it right again if we take the blame, apologize and acknowledge our part.

Reflection

Think for a few moments about the story of Adam and Eve:

how they did what they knew was wrong;

how they blamed someone else for what they’d done;

and how often we do that too.

Prayer

Dear God,

Help us to be honest when we do something wrong.

Help us not to blame other people, but acknowledge our mistakes,

and apologize and so learn and move on.

Amen.

Arts and R.E!

Our new topic is linked to spirituality and we have already thought about how this can be expressed in different ways. We know that spiritually does not have to be religious but we looked at different pictures and thought about how Christians use visual arts to express spirituality.

Some of the pictures depicted well known biblical scenes such as Jesus on the cross. Others were more abstract.

The children had some brilliant suggestions about what the pictures represented and thought of their own questions that they would like to ask about the artwork.

Lots of writing!

We’ve been continuing to talk about different types of transport this week and lots of the children have told us which vehicles they’ve travelled on and where they’ve been to. We’ve looked at plane, train and bus tickets and have been writing our own in the mark-making area. The children have also been thinking about what happens during their day and have been making (and taking) their own registers and planning what they are going to do at nursery. Outside, we’ve been parking the vehicles in numbered bays and designing new petrol pumps. There has been lots of outdoor printmaking, too, and the children have experimented with rolling vehicles down our wooden hill to make tyre-track patterns.

As it’s been extremely hot this week, we’ve had fruit and milk time under the trees for a couple of days to try to keep cool out of the sun. Our beanstalks have started to bulge under the weight of the beans so we harvested our first crop on Friday and, after Mrs Boulton has cooked them, the children can have a taste of their own home-grown food.

The weather looks like it will continue to be warm so please make sure your child brings a NAMED hat and a NAMED water bottle to nursery. Also, it would be great if you can apply sunscreen to your child before they come to nursery in the morning. Any sunscreen brought into school should also be named. Thank you.

Fun in the sun!

Last Friday, ZS’s Dad came to help us spruce up our outdoor planters.

In RE, we talked people who are special to us and why some people are particularly special to us.
In Literacy, we used a map to locate seaside towns. We looked at some photographs of Scarborough and talked about the things we might see at the seaside that we don’t see in Leeds.

FH – The seaside town has a lighthouse but Leeds doesn’t.
OR – We don’t have boats but the seaside does. We have boats to travel on the sea.
DA – The seaside has little beach huts.
LS – The beach might have jellyfish.
LW- The beach has water but Wetherby and Leeds don’t have water.

The glorious weather has enabled us to spend lots of time learning outside. Please continue to make sure you apply sun lotion to your child before school. This stops us from missing any learning time. Thank you to everyone that has done that this week.
Click here to watch us learning outside.
Home-Link Challenge

This week’s message (Friday 17 June 2022)

To kick off this week, do check out this exciting event happening in Leeds: Little Amal has travelled over 8,000km and is in Leeds on Monday evening.

This week’s message comes from Mr Wilks, who leads on Science and foundation subjects across Sphere Federation…

What do we mean by topics?

Topics are the vehicle for delivering much of the learning in the foundation subjects (eg history, art, geography…). Each half-termly topic has a driving subject – the main focus for teaching pupils the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in life. The driver changes with each topic to ensure a broad and balanced curriculum.

Although the learning in each topic will be provided by the driving subject, there are opportunities for enrichment through other subjects. For example, learning in an art topic may be enriched by geography – learning about where an artist was born and lived.

Read more about the intent, implementation and impact of our topics.

What is this half-term’s topic?

Design and Technology is the driving subject for this half-term and it’s a great topic to finish the year! The focus for all classes this year is textiles (next year, it’s construction), so your child will be busy designing and making products using fabric.

A key aspect of the Design and Technology curriculum is the understanding that products don’t just get made. Instead, they go through a design process that includes three key elements: evaluate, design and make. Think of this process as a cycle. For example, Sphere Motors want to create a new family car. Before the car is made, they need to evaluate existing products and talk to customers so that they’re clear about what the new car needs to have. They will then design the car and evaluate those designs. They may make a prototype of the car to help them evaluate the designs. Next, they’ll decide on a final design that will go into production and get made. This finished product will be evaluated and the whole process starts again.

Each phase has age-related specific knowledge, skills and vocabulary that they’ll learn, use and apply across the topic. See page 17 and 18 of our Curriculum Statement.

Years 1 and 2

The product the children will be designing, making and evaluating is a hand puppet. They’ll start by learning about the design process before looking at and evaluating existing hand puppet products. They’ll then learn to use an over stitch and practise threading needles and tying knots. Following this, they’ll be introduced to all the materials they can use to create their puppet. Once they’re familiar with the materials, they’ll design their puppet. Next, it’s on to the making stage. They’ve already honed their sewing skills so they should be confident making and then decorating their puppets according to their designs. Finally, it’s evaluation time: children will compare their designs to their finished products. They’ll reflect on successes and things they’d do differently next time.

Years 3 and 4

The product the children will be designing, making and evaluating is a pouch. The function of this pouch is entirely up to them. It could be used to store some pens, trading cards, a shell collection. Children can be as creative as they like – as long as the pouch can be made using a 23cm² piece of felt!

Before they begin to design their pouch, they’ll learn about a famous designer and how they became a designer. They’ll also learn some important skills that a designer needs. Children will then evaluate existing pouches, with a focus on fastenings, and will then design their pouch. They’ll practise their sewing skills, becoming proficient using a running stitch. They’ll then begin to make their pouches. First, they’ll create a template which they’ll use to cut out the pieces. Next, they’ll join the pieces using their running stitch and create a fastening for their pouch. Finally, they’ll evaluate their designs by comparing them to their designs, testing whether they’re fit for purpose and reflecting on their successes and areas to improve.

Years 5 and 6

The product the children will be designing, making and evaluating is a cushion. Before they get stuck into their cushion, they’ll learn about some designers who changed the world: Isambard Kingdom Brunel, George Stephenson, Lewis Latimer and Jony Ive. They’ll learn about their creations and their impact and look for things that link the designers. Following this, children will learn about the importance of design criteria when designing a product. After this, they’ll be practising their sewing skills and learn how to sew using a backstitch. Next, they’ll evaluate existing cushions. They’ll then decide on the specific design criteria for their cushions and create their designs using an annotated sketch, detailing the dimensions of their product. They’ll learn about the importance of using sustainable materials when researching the filling used for their cushion (the plan is to use old, unwanted pieces of fabric to stuff the cushions rather than Polyfill so please have a look through your wardrobe and keep hold of any old t-shirts or other clothes as we’ll need them later in the half-term).

Children will use a template to cut out the shapes, use a backstitch to add decoration to their cushion before finally sewing the pieces together and stuffing them. The final stage is to evaluate the designs against the design criteria.

Help at home

Talk to your child about what they’ve been learning in class. The class news page of the school website is a good place to go to find out more about what the children are doing.

The school library and local libraries will have some books about Design and Technology which your child will be able to borrow and develop both their reading skills and design knowledge.

Finally, there are a lot of programmes on CBBC and CBeebies with a Design and Technology focus:

• Bitz and Bob
• Grace’s Amazing Machines
• Junk Rescue
• Maddie’s Do You Know?
• The Dengineers