Maths: Year 6 arithmetic checks
Children in year 6 have gone home today with their first arithmetic check. These checks will happen most weeks throughout the year. Each week, in class, we focus on two or three specfic questions. This should result in their checks being two or three marks higher each week. This is a marathon rather than a sprint. Don’t expect 40/40 in the first few weeks.
This week we’re focusing on three areas for development:
- lining up the digits
- multiplying by 10, 100 and 1000
- dividing by 10, 100 and 1000
Support your child at home by practising similar questions to the ones in the arithmetic booklet.
Line up the digits e.g. 3.521 + 2.1 = 5.621 rather than 3.541. Top tip: the decimal place stays in the same place (because he’s rather lazy).
Multiply by 10, 100, 1000 – Ask your chidren to show you how to “move all the digits to the left to the left.” What does it mean by “Show the jumps?”
As with all learning, little and often is the key to success.
Reading: Book Club
Year 6 children in Mr Lindsay’s reading group have been showing off their drawing skills in this week’s reading activity. Children recreated scences from their reading book with fantastic results.
Thank you for supporting your child at home. All children had signed reading records and talked with enthusiasm about their chosen books. Reading for 15 minutes each night with your child has a dramatic impact on on their learning across the curriculum.
This week’s reading activity is a comic strip. In addition to this, children should find out a bit about the author of their book:
- How many books have they written?
- What inspires them to write?
- Do they have any common themes in their books?
The week that was
It’s been a very busy week in Class 5/6A. Let’s look back on what the pupils have been getting up to …
This week has really seen our pupils demonstrate their 8Rs of Learning across all subjects. Monday saw our pupils ready to tackle our new Maths topic of Place Value for numbers up to 1 million. They demonstrated their resourcefulness and resilience through use of Place Value charts and counters to complete their work this week. In Writing, we were risk takers in scripting a short dialogue to perform in front of our classmates to show the moral dilemma Lil would face in opening her grandfather’s package, from our class novel Secrets of a Sun King. The pupils were fantastic and showcased some very thought-provoking dilemmas.
Our Topic work focused on the innovations seen within the Stone Age, and the pupils then took responsibility for their own learning in creating posters and presentations to show facts which they had found themselves about the Bronze Age. Our Living and Learning session allowed us to remember our school and class rules, reflect on the good choices we make and create our own Classroom Charter for learning.
Finally, our certificate winners for this week are…
For great learning…
Sam Webb– consistently working hard in all lessons and demonstrating a real positive attitude. I was particularly impressed by your recognition of different sentence starters.
For sport and physical activity…
Freya– A real team player. You took part enthusiastically in our P.E lessons this week; showing real determination and respect to your teammates.
For living and learning…
Arthur– You contributed fantastically to our discussion on the 8Rs of Learning and helped create some great rules for our Classroom Charter.
Have a great weekend!
Settling into Nursery
It was lovely to welcome everybody to Nursery for our ‘stay and play’ sessions and we couldn’t believe how much our older children have grown over the holidays!
During our first week, we’ve been busy helping children to settle into their new environment. We’re really lucky to have so much space to play in at Nursery, but it can take children a little bit of time to familiarise themselves with where everything is. We’ve also been working hard to get to know everybody’s names and find out where everyone enjoys playing.
There were lots of happy faces as children waved good-bye to parents and carers for their first session alone at Nursery (with just a few wobbles!). Try not to worry too much if your child has a little wobble or struggles to say goodbye in the morning. We often find that a quick hug, a big smile and waving good bye works best and children usually settle very quickly once you’ve gone. We will always give you a call if your child continues to be upset, so if you don’t hear from us, you can presume that your child is happy and busy playing!
As you can see in the photographs, children are already very busy and engrossed in play!
We’ll continue the really important process of helping children to ‘settle in’ over the next few weeks so that everyone feels safe, secure and happy in Nursery. Please speak to a member of the Nursery team if you have any questions.
Reminders
- Please collect your child promptly at the end of their session. It can be very upsetting if you’re the last child to be collected when others have already gone home.
- Make sure your child has a water bottle every day and that their NAME is clearly marked on it.
Welcome to Reception- week 2
Reception have had another fantastic week of settling into the classroom and getting to know eachother. We’re doing so well at remembering our morning routines and classroom rules, such as ‘3,2,1,stop’
We’ve particularly enjoyed outdoor explorations, planting some flowers and finding vegetables that have grown in our garden planters. We have some real nature lovers in Reception, who have been carefully handling worms, wood lice and spiders and sharing facts about them.
We’ve been using our artistic skills to paint and draw self-portraits and have been having a go at writing our name every day.
We also started our phonics lessons this week. The children have shown great listening and were proud to learn their first four sounds (s,a,t,p) We’ve been having a go at writing them too!
In music, the children made their very own marching band with Mrs Myers and had so much fun marching around the classrooms and outdoor area.
Take a peek at even more learning from this week:
Learn at home phonics sheet…
Today, your child has come home with a ‘learn at home’ phonics sheet. The sheets link to our current learning in phonics and will be sent home each Friday. Please support your child by practising their new sounds and reading skills at home.
Home link…
Next week, we’ll be talking about our families and using the book The Great Big Book of Families by Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith, as our talking point. To help the children in our discussions, please send in a photograph of your child with their family. You can send the photos to the Reception email address.
Reminders…
- PE lessons start on Wednesday. Don’t forget to come to school in PE kits on Wednesday and Friday. If you’re in Sunshine Class, you’ll also need your swimming kit on Wednesday. Thank you.
Living and Learning: Rights and responsibilites
We have been learning that we have the right to learn but a responsibility to be great learners. Here is a list of top tips we came up with to be great learners:
- be in class on time
- be prepared for all lessons
- take good care of school property
- complete spelling, reading and talk time homework
- be ready
- respect ourselves and others
- listen and react well
- doing our best – every day!
We’re very proud of the effort the children are putting in to their learning this week.
Here’s a run down of our great learning:
Maths: Place Value – tens and ones, hundreds and thousands.
Writing: Must-dos and handwriting (capital letters, full stops and conjunctions)
Spelling: ay, a-e, eigh, ai sound (favourite, great, straight, wait, everyday, famous)
Topic: Ancient Greeks (we read Theseus and the Minotaur for our myth)
Science: Living things and their habitats
PE: accurate passing and moving into a space.
Living and Learning: how to be a good learner – why not ask your child their 8Rs for learning?
Here are a few pictures of our Wake Up Shake Up today where the children put lots of effort into their funky dance moves.
2C Settling in!
Well done to my class for settling so perfectly into their new classroom environment. We all know how to follow our school rules and remind one another of the importance of these rules daily. This term, we will continue to get to know each other, settle into our routines and continue our learning journey.
All of our children read every day at school and it is so important that the children also read at home.
Well done 2C!
Remembering the Queen through art
All the year 1 and 2 children too part in some collaborative art today. We did some finger painting using red, white and blue, on a silhouette of Queen Elizabeth II. We are going to create similar images using King Charles III too.
PE: volleyball
5,6B have been warming up their volleyball skills. They worked in pairs to learn and develop some basic serves and passes. They enjoyed being able to ‘bump’ the ball to their partner and then progressed further to an overhand serve. They had to think about the position of their feet, hands and the ball in order to project the ball accurately. The end of the sessions saw us trying our hand at some actual games of volleyball. The children set up a small court and created a point system to see who won. We will keep working on these skills over the next few weeks.
Living and Learning : Our school rules
Since we returned after the summer, we have been busy establishing our classroom routines and the school rules.
Talk to your child about our school rules and what they mean. They should be able to give you some examples of them in action!
