Living and Learning – Mental wellbeing
The theme for Living and Learning in school this half-term has been mental wellbeing.
This week’s focus has been ‘feeling good and being me’ and in Year 3,4 we’ve thought about giving and receiving compliments. The children were quick to affirm each other with some lovely comments! We also talked about how we can give compliments to others beyond the classroom.
Help at home with this week’s focus by encouraging your child to list some positive attributes they see in themself.
Science
We are continuing to be chemists this half term and we have carried out some great experiments so far. This week, the children planned out an investigation into which ingredients make the best glue. They could choose between baking powder, flour, cornflour, sugar and salt. They could create any combination and mix it with 5ml of water. They mixed their glue and then stuck two pieces of paper together and hung them on a line to dry. When we were convinced they were dry, we had a competition to see which glue was the strongest. This involved a very tense period of time in which they pegged pegs onto the paper until it broke. I think we created a new world record as one group managed to peg on 86 pegs! Who knew that we were so good at making glue!?
Help at home: use the link to investigate the history of glue with your child. There is some gory stuff, so beware!
Topic – computing
Over this half term, KS1 have been learning to use the program Scratch Jr. We have been learning to create and debug algorithms, create sequences using commands and use this to put together a quiz.
We know how to choose Sprites (characters) and backgrounds.
We know how to get our Sprites to speak and how to change what they say.
We also know how to get our Sprites to move and how to sequence our commands correctly.
This week we finished our quizzes. Have have had so much fun using Scratch Jr and learning how it works!
Help at home by downloading Scratch Jr or another coding app or program – ScratchJr – Home
Living and Learning: strong emotions
In our Living and Learning sessions we have been talking about our feelings, and in particular, strong emotions. We all have felt angry, sad and happy at some point. We identified emotions on other people’s faces and talked about how emotions can feel overwhelming but will pass over time.
Help at home by identifying and discussing different emotions that you might be feeling.
Red Nose Day
A huge thank you to everyone that donated money last Friday for Comic Relief. The Junior Leadership Team stood at the gate and shook their buckets and collected any donations. You are such a generous bunch of people and we managed to raise £337.97. Thank you again for your support.
Romeo, Romeo!
3, 4 classes have had a busy week of rehearsals. You may have over heard your child singing a catchy tune or two. We teachers have certainly been singing around our homes and in school. Everything is exciting and a little nerve wracking as we work towards our production of ‘Shakespeare Rocks’. This week, your child should have brought home a request for their costume. We have thought carefully about the costume choices and are committed to a no fuss approach for parents/carers. If you are struggling for ideas or are a little unsure then please catch one of us at the beginning or end of the school day. Please also encourage your child to learn their lines by heart. We are really looking forward to you watching your child/ren shine!
Sssshhhhhhh it may be Mothers’ Day this Sunday and 3, 4 B adults may have a bespoke water colour surprise heading their way!
Oliver’s Vegetables
This week, children enjoyed drawing and painting daffodils to create a Mother’s Day card. Before children drew them, we talked about the shape and colour of the stem and the petals on the flower. They were all really proud of their pictures and couldn’t wait to take them home; we hope you liked them.
To continue with our ‘growing’ themed learning, during group time this week, we talked about fruit and vegetables and how to eat healthily. We listened to lots of stories about vegetables, including ‘Oliver’s Vegetables’, ‘The Runaway Pea‘ and ‘Colin and Lee, Carrot and Pea’.
In the Sensory area, we explored lots of different vegetables. We enjoyed popping sugar snap peas open and chopping a cauliflower into pieces. We also had great fun peeling layers off some brussel sprouts, which was a super fiddly finger challenge, as well!
Next week, we’re going to talk about how we keep our bodies healthy. One of the things we’ll discuss is how to look after our teeth. When your child is brushing their teeth, talk to them about the importance of good oral hygiene. When do they brush their teeth and how often? How do they brush their teeth? What do they use? Have they ever visited the dentist? What happened?
Jack and the Beanstalk
It has been another fun-filled week in reception!
Jack and the Beanstalk
This week, we’ve been reading the traditional story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’.
We discussed how this story has been retold many times and some versions of the story are different. Just by looking at two front covers, we could spot similarities and differences.
The story I heard had a musical instrument.
They both have Jack on the front.
He has the chicken in that one.
Word of the week
Every week, we look at a new adventurous word. We call this our ‘word of the week’. This week, our word of the week was ‘gigantic’ – linked to the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. The children have enjoyed using the word during role plays and in their writing.
Can you spot our word in any of the writing below?
Observational drawing
This week, we have focused on drawing daffodils using oil pastels.
Planting a (magic) bean
After listening to the story, the children all agreed that we should plant our own bean.
We then wrote instructions to explain to others how they could plant a bean too!
Maths
In Maths, we’ve been exploring the composition of numbers by investigating the numbers within 7 e.g. seeing that 7 can be made of 5 and 2.
We have also used our magic bean machine to combine two numbers.
Phonics
This week, we have continued to read longer words with the chunking method.
We have also begun to read root words that make up compound words and discussing how the two root words create a new word with a new meaning.
Can your child show you the chunking method to read these words?
fantastic helmet zooming winking
Read these root words, then combine to make a compound word.
roof top farm yard car park
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 Spring Wind.
We talk about how a poem sometimes has rhyming words and sometimes doesn’t. Can your child tell you the rhyming words in this week’s poem? We also talk about how a poem can have a fast rhythm or a slow rhythm.
Reminders and Dates
Reception’s Class Assembly- 24.03.23 3pm
You are invited to our class assembly, where we’d love to share our learning with you.
Easter Disco – 3.30 -4.30 24.03.23
The Friends of Scholes have arranged the Easter Disco after school. Parents are not required to attend. The price (£3.50) includes a drink and a bag of sweets. If you would like your child to attend the disco, payment must be made on the Gateway app.
Reception trip to The Railway Museum, York- 30.03.23
Please drop-off and collect your child at the usual times. School can provide a packed lunch but if you’d prefer your child to bring their own, this is also fine. Every child will need a suitable backpack that they are able to carry themselves throughout the day.
Bikeability
Year 5 have been working hard over the last couple of weeks to improve their cycling skills in school. They began on the playground working on being able to stop safely, going around obstacles and learning hand signals. When they were ready, they were let lose on the roads of Scholes. On the road they were learning to get on and off a bike safely, checking it was safe to stop and set off, and being aware of parked vehicles. They battled poor weather – freezing temperatures and torrential rain – but they thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
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English – verbs
This week in Year 2 we are learning about verbs. Our school defines a verb as ‘a doing or a being word’. Today, Year 2 went out onto the playground for a lesson about verbs. We imagined that we were getting up on a morning and getting ready for school. This involved acting out lots and lots of verbs. We slept, we yawned, we stretched and then we brushed our teeth!
The children loved doing their learning on the playground and said that it would help them to remember what type of word class a verb is.
When we returned to the classroom, we recapped some of the verbs we had learnt. We also wrote some of the verbs in the past and present tense.
Help at home by discussing verbs as you do tasks at home.