Living and Learning
This week in our Living and Learning topic, KS1 have been learning about different types of families.
Our statement this week has been ‘I understand there are different types of families.’
We started off by discussing words that we associate with families. A few that the children came up with were: care, love and sharing.
We also discussed who might be in our families and that not every family looks the same.
We read ‘The Great Big Big Book of Families’ by Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith – which celebrates the diversity of families and illustrates that families come in all shapes and sizes.
All our families are very different but the important thing is that people in families care about each other.
Reading : fiction or non-fiction
Year 2 have been looking at fiction and non-fiction books, finding similarities and differences.
We found that a title, introduction, sub-headings, real photos or diagrams, a contents page and an index page were all common in non-fiction (information) books.
Help at home by comparing or pointing our whether you are reading a fiction or non-fiction book at story time.
Year 1 – Phonics
Last week, the year 1 children completed their phonics screen assessment. This is where the children are asked to read a variety of real and fake words in order to check their phonic knowledge.
We know that we are nearing the end of the last half term, however we want to continue to highlight the importance of regularly reading both to and with your child at home. We feel strongly that this regular reading practise should continue to be a high priority at home both throughout this half term and over the summer holidays. We would like the children to start year 2 being fluent readers of books at their phonic level.
If you are unsure of their ebook login please ask your child’s teacher.
Help at home: read with your child and to your child regularly every week.
Maths – partitioning
During the last few weeks, we have been looking at partitioning two digit numbers.
The year one children have been looking at partitioning numbers greater than 50 into tens and ones, representing this in a variety of ways.
The year two children have been parttioning numbers in other ways.
Help at home: Choose a two digit number and support your child with partitioning it.
Design and Technology
Children in year 5/6 have been designing their own cart to hold an egg. They have used tinkercad to to draw a computer aided design. After discussing the term dimensions, they considered what size their group’s cart should be. Also, they suggested other household items that might be good to use as an air bag or crumple zone.
At home, discuss which household items could be used to include safety features on the cart.
Design Technology – stability and strength
We have be learning about freestanding objects and how they are made stable and strong.
We found that shapes with a wide, flat base and a low height were the most stable. We also found that a cylinder was the strongest shape.
Help at home by having a go at these tests and looking and what shapes are used to make strong, stable objects in your home.
Wetherby taster day
Year 5 enjoyed a fantastic day experiencing what it would be like to be a high school student at Wetherby High School. It has been a really busy day, meeting new teachers and learning new things.
The children got the chance to take part in some lessons ranging from english and maths to design technology and french. The teachers did a great job of inspiring learning whilst also allowing the children to show off their existing knowledge.
One of the biggest highlights of the day was the food! We loved eating in the canteen and being offered some delicious cooking.
What a fantastic day!
Construction, role play & dancing!
We’ve been watching the tadpoles in our tank very closely and this week, we spotted some back legs! Next, we’re hoping to see the front legs grow.
Outside, children have enjoyed lots of role play games; the car wash and garage has been especially popular.
Here are a few other photos to show our learning this week – ranging from working out the best way to join two boxes together to building a vehicle using crates and learning to control a remote-controlled vehicle.
Have you seen our pictures on the Early Years tea towel? If you’d like to support school and help raise funds, they’re £5 each. Check your emails for more details.
The Seaside
This week, we have explored differences and similarities between cities and the seaside.
Literacy
In our writing, we reflected on our own experiences of visiting a seaside.
Maths
We have focused on deepening our understanding of numbers to 10, including the composition of each number.
Phonics
This week, we have continued to focus on phase 4 words with long vowel sounds.
In provision, we’ve been reading words and matching them to the correct picture.
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 I Have a Little Frog.
Art; Observational drawing and Artist focus
We followed an art tutorial to support us to draw a crab.
We also continued our project based on our focus artist; Alexander Calder. We’ve been cutting shapes from card, which will be used over the next few weeks to make mobile sculptures based on Calder’s work.
Check out our other learning…
Reminders and Dates
Swimming
Rainbow- 21 June, 5 July, 19 July
Sunshine- 28 June, 12 July
Living and Learning – everybody needs to be cared for!
This week in KS1 we have been looking at how everyone needs to be cared for. Everyone has the right to be cared for and in school, we all make sure we care for one another.
The session started off with a discussion about the life cycle of a human and the biological differences between male and female. We know that just like other mammals, it is the woman that carries the baby and produces young offspring. Throughout a person’s life, their needs change and therefore so does the type of care they need.
We know that different people need different types of care. For example, babies need more care from adults because they are not yet independent whereas adults are much more likely to be able to care for themselves and know their basic needs.
We also talked about the different types of needs we might have:
- playing
- loving
- medical
- listening
- physical
- emotional
- social
We finished our session by discussing how we can care for members of our classes. We used the sentence stem ‘I care for _____ by ______.’ The children came up with some wonderful responses.
‘I care for xxxxx by asking if they want to play with me at playtime and letting them join in.’