Topic – we are geographers
As we are drawing to the end of our geography topic, we are applying our geographical skills to study the impact rising sea levels have on the UK’s coastlines. We spent a few lessons looking at how rising sea levels had impacted places around the world, such as the Solomon Islands. We watched an informative video about the devastating impact on a local community.
Today, we used Digi-maps to study the Holderness coastline and we were able to look at maps from 1890, 1950 and the present day. Using drawing and measuring tools, we could see how much of the coastline had eroded. We compared Hornsea with Skipsea to see the positive impact coastal defences such as groynes have.
Help at home: Watch the video with your child at home. Can they recall the impacts that rising sea levels are having on this community?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/articles/zcyqdp3
Living and Learning: Being Safe
Over the last two weeks, Year 3 and 4 have been learning all about staying safe in our Living and Learning sessions.
In the first of our two sessions, we learnt about how to assess our own risks and personal boundaries. We learnt to explain what is meant by ‘personal space’ and ‘personal boundaries’ and why these are important. We moved on to describe how boundaries might be different for different people or in different relationships e.g. with friends, family, at school or online. Finally, we identified what might make someone feel uncomfortable and what they could do or who they could go to for help and support.
In the second of our two sessions, we watched the NSPCC Speak Out, Stay Safe Assembly and discussed how we can seek help. We talked about the different reasons why we might need to seek help and who we can talk to. This could be…
– a parent
– an adult at home
– your teacher
– a member of staff at school
– a grandparent or auntie and uncle
– Childline
Well done, Year 3 and 4!
Writing: Persuasive letters
This week, we’ve started working on our next writing project: composing a persuasive letter. Persuasion means convincing someone to take action through reasoning and clear arguments.
We’ll be writing to Steve Reed, the UK’s Minister for the Environment, urging him to take stronger action against climate change. In our letters, we’ll highlight the severe impact climate change is having globally and suggest what steps he can take to address it.
After we’ve written our letters, we’ll send them out and wait for a reply!
So far, we’ve examined some strong examples and identified key elements of persuasive writing.
On Friday, we focused on selecting phrases that we can use in our own letters.
Help at home: Have a discussion about how climate change is affecting our world. Is there anything we can personally do to stop it?
Lunar New Year
We have had a great week; children loved reading a book about the Lunar New Year and we watched some short video clips to find out how people prepare for the festival and celebrate with their families.
To join in with the celebrations, we painted ‘good luck’ banners in the creative area. We enjoyed decorating a lunar lantern with some patterns that we’re learning (circles, zig-zags, waves and lines) to help improve our pencil control. We used scissors to practice our “snipping skills” to help to let the light through. The children were very proud of their learning.
In the sensory area we explored noodles. They were “ sticky” “ stretchy” “ gooey” “ cold” and “ sticky” Lots of great vocabulary to describe how the noodles felt.
Help at home
Independence is an important skill for all of the children in Nursery. Being able to put on their coat, fasten it and go outside is a significant achievement. We support the children to do this independently at Nursery. Practicing these skills at home, maybe on a weekend when you have a little more time, will support the children’s development considerably.
Next week’s learning:
Nursery rhyme of the week –Jack and Jill went up the Hill
Sound of the week – ‘c’ for cat and ‘k’ for kite
Reminders
The weather is still very cold and we spend lots of our time learning outside. Please ensure that you child has a warm coat, hat and gloves/ mittens every day. As always, name everything.
Thank you as always for your continued support.
The Nursery Team
The Magic Paintbrush
This week, our focus book was The Magic Paintbrush.
We began by listening to the story for enjoyment. After becoming familiar with the story, we were then able to discuss the main events and characters.
The children then explored what they would do if they had a magic paintbrush.
Maths
In Maths, we’ve been using the song ‘five little aliens’ to explore one less within 5. We’ve been using Hungarian 5 frames (or ‘die’ frames) to represent and subitise numbers.
Later in the week, we used the aliens and frames to explore ‘5 and a bit’ We started with 6, then 7 aliens and noticed what each are ‘made of’ by subitising what we could see across the frames, for example:
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. This week’s poem is A Little House.
Phonics
Spring 1 week 2 has focused on our final sounds of phase 3: air, er
We’ve learnt the tricky words; are, sure, pure
Tricky words are words that should be read by sight
Help at Home
You can support your child with tricky words through lots of fun games and activities. Here is one you can try this week.
Musical Tricky Words
- Write the tricky words on individual pieces of paper, lay them out on the floor
- Play your child’s favourite song for them to dance around to
- When the music stops, your child should pick a word to quickly run to and stand on
- Your child reads the word they have landed on
- Remove that word and repeat until there are no words left!
Living and Learning
As part of our learning this week, we have being listening to a very catchy song about PANTS.
The NSPCC have created some fab resources for us, and you, to use when teaching our children how to keep themselves safe. Ask your child about the PANTS rule and sing along to the song!
Lunar New Year
The children have enjoyed learning about Lunar New Year and engaging in activities around the classroom and outside.
Diary Dates
Mon 3 Feb 2025- Fine Motor Control, Stay and Learn Coffee Morning
This session is all about Fine Motor Control and Writing. It’s followed by a chance to meet up with other parents/carers and your child’s class teacher.
Tue 11 Feb/Thurs 13 Feb 2025- Parent-Teacher Meetings (pre-booked appointments)
Living and learning: NSPCC – Speak Out, Stay Safe
As part of our Living and Learning lesson this week we watched a virtual assembly.
Sometimes things make us happy and sometimes they can make us sad, worried or unhappy. It’s important to understand our feelings and not keep worries to ourselves and that’s what we would like children to know. We talked about trusted adults inside and outside of school.
3,4 Class News – Reading
This week, we have been reading the picture book, ‘Escape from Pompeii’ by Christina Balit. Our skills focus has been inference – exploring character feeling. Through a hot-seating activity the children were able to take on the role of the characters in the story and answer questions asked by other children.
Help at home by trying this idea. Which questions could you ask to explore how a character is feeling or why they are acting in a certain way?
Living and Learning: I know how to seek help
In our Living and learning session this week, we watched a video from the NSPCC which explored children’s worries and discussed areas of abuse.
Teachers were impressed by how open the children were when discussing their worries in a mature manner. They had plenty of ideas about who to go to to seek help.
Help at home: discuss the term ‘trusted adult’. Discuss who you turn to in order to find a solution to a problem.
Cross country competition
This week, we were lucky enough to enter some children in a local cross country competition. This took place at St Theresa’s Primary School. We entered some year 5’s and 6’s. The children performed absolutely fantastically and definitely showed determination and resilience. Some of the children have made it through to the next round at Temple Newsam in Februrary – well done! Thank you too to the parents for transporting the children to and from the event. If we didn’t have your support, the children wouldn’t get to take part in such events.
Well done to all our runners!
Science: we are physicists
This week, we’ve been continuing on with our Science learning about light. Following on from our planning lesson, we carried out our investigation. We were answering the question ” How does the distance of the light source affect the size of the shadow?”
Each group used a torch, an opaque object and ruler to cast a shadow onto a wall. They decided they would move the light source away from the object 10cm each time and measure the size of the shadow. The children collated their results and concluded that as the light source is moved away, the shadow gets smaller. During our discussions, we also talked about the inaccuracies of come measurements as some appeared to be anomalous.
