Night Monkey Day Monkey
This week in our light and dark topic, we’ve been learning about day and night.
Night Monkey, Day Monkey
We’ve been reading Night Monkey, Day Monkey by Julia Donaldson.
The story follows two monkeys who find themselves awake at their opposite times of day. They are very confused by what they see and need help understanding everything! Our word of the week is: nocturnal. We know that nocturnal means “active at night”
We’ve been writing about nocturnal animals and features of day/night.
Science: shadows
We’ve been making further investigations into shadows, by spotting them outside and by using our dark tent. We know that to make a shadow, we need a source of light. When that source of light is blocked, it casts a shadow. We explored using mirrors to reflect lights differently and used colour paddles to change the colour being projected onto the tent wall.
Maths; part-whole
In Maths, we’ve been looking at the ‘parts’ that make the whole of something. For example, the parts of us that make our whole body. Our head, eyes, legs etc. are the parts, our body is the whole.
This leads on to understanding the composition of number; the parts that can be added together to make a whole number.
PE; Gymnastics
This half term, Friday PE sessions are gymnastics. We are exploring movement and balance, developing fundamental skills and learning how to demonstrate our skills to others.
Phonics
Autumn 2 week 3 has focused on the single letter phoneme z and digraphs zz, qu, ch
We’ve learnt the tricky words; go, no, to, into
Tricky words are words that should be read by sight.
In provision, we’ve been playing what’s in the box and reading the words to match pictures we find.
Poetry Picnic
Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called Shoes.
We talk about how a poem sometimes has rhyming words and sometimes doesn’t. We also talk about how a poem can have a fast rhythm or a slow rhythm.
Click below to watch Reception recite this week’s poem
Help at home; Stars
Next week, we’ll be looking to the skies again! We are learning about the night sky and stars.
We know this is a topic of interest for many children in Reception. If you have any books or resources to share that are linked to this topic, we would love to see them.
Words, words, words
After adjective day, we have been trying to use interesting vocabulary instead of always using ‘everyday’ words.
We tried to put words in order from the strongest to the weakest.
Living and Learning – Online Safety & Money
This week in Living and Learning, we discussed online adverts: what they are, where we might see them and what their purpose is.
We thought about ways to stay safe online including not giving out our personal information, not clicking through on pop-ups (knowing when something sounds too good to be true!) and speaking to our adult(s) about anything that worries us.
Help at home by talking to your child about adverts or pop-ups that they see.
Living and Learning: Staying safe online
This week’s Living and Learning lesson was all about online safety. We looked at how apps and online games work like businesses – trying to keep users hooked for as long as they can. They do this by using things like: personalised gameplay, giving out rewards, and having leader boards or other social features to keep people engaged.
To share what we learned, we made posters to help others understand how to make better, safer choices online.
Help at home by talking to your child about how they use the internet and ways they can stay safe online.
The weather is changing!
It has been a cold one this week. Our hats, scarves, gloves and warm coats are back out in full force as the weather changes.
Since September, Ks1 have been tracking the weather and spotting changes in temperature and how this is affecting a tree in our school playground.
In September, the tree was full of green leaves. The weather was warm and sunny most days. On the day we checked the temperature it was 18 degrees.
The following month was October. We checked the tree again. The season had changed from Summer to autumn. As we checked the tree, the weather was cloudy, but mild. The temperature was 13 degrees. The tree had lost some of its leaves. Many of the leaves remaining on the tree had turned brown or orange.
This week we checked the tree again. It is now November. The tree has lost nearly all of its leaves. We took this photograph the day before it snowed. It was 1 degree when the photo was taken. The following day it was -1 degree. It was very cold.
We know that the seasons affect how the weather changes and this causes changes in the leaves of deciduous trees.
KS1 are looking forward to checking the tree again next month!
Help at home by discussing seasonal changes!
1,2B PE – large apparatus in gymnastics
We had an exciting PE lesson this week. The children moved in different ways across the different apparatus.
Composition of number
All the year 1 and 2 classes are working really hard on learning our addition number facts – how to ‘make’ a number.
Knowing these facts instantly is like learning to read fluently. It is essential to help when more challenging maths concepts are taught.
Help at home by asking your child to tell you all the ways to make 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10.
7 and 2 make 9
9 is equal to 7 plus 2
Using 9 cubes to make 9 in lots of different shapes also helps us to visualise the number.
Year 3,4 Skipping School
This week, we all enjoyed a skipping workshop where we practised our skipping skills, including the single bounce and double bounce. We all got the chance to skip using the large skipping rope.
We will continue to practise our skills over the next few months and some of the year 4 children will have the opportunity to take part in a skipping festival in the Spring.
Help at home by challenging your child to practise their skipping skills. It’s a great way to keep fit!
Design and Technology: food
Cooking has been on the menu for 5,6 again! The class enjoyed spending time in the hub creating a whole new recipe. This time, they were turning their hand to chickpea curry. All the recipes that the children make are designed to develop food preparation skills, be healthy, reflect seasonality and be easy and practical to try at home. The recipe included ingredients such as chickpeas, onions, mushrooms and curry paste. The children applied skills such as weighing, peeling and using different knife grips such as the claw grip and bridge hold. The children really enjoyed the cooking and enjoyed eating it even more.
Help at home: Follow the recipe with your child at home. Can you make any variations to the recipe to make it even more delicious?
Adjectives are amazing and awesome
We had a fabulous day learning about word classes yesterday and, in particular, adjectives.
We all dressed up as an adjective, learnt a song about adjectives, labelled objects with adjectives and made some interesting expanded noun phrases.
Help at home by talking about your favourite adjectives. Mrs Latham’s is flummoxed, Mrs Brown’s is picky and Miss Young’s is squishy!
