Living and Learning : Being Healthy week launch
We launched our Being Healthy themed week today with a whole school assembly. We talked about physical and mental health. We also did some mindfulness (belly breathing).
We’re looking forward to a happy and healthy week next week.
Clean Up
Clean Up
This week, our story took us on a journey all the way to Jamaica.
We discussed key words from the story: sanctuary and island.
In our writing, we retold parts or all of the story in our own words.
The book also had some great messages about looking after our environment. Linked to this, our word of the week was pollution.
Maths
This week’s focus has been on deepening our understanding of how to compare quantities. We have explored this skill in a range of ways: comparing groups of objects, comparing by looking, then by counting, creating groups with equal amounts and using our sense of magnitude, e.g., knowing 8 is a lot more than 2 but 4 is only a little but more than 2.
10 is more than 5.
4 is fewer than 5.
4 is only a little fewer than 5.
5 and 5 is equal.
I have more because 10 is more than 7.
I have fewer. 5 is fewer than 6.
You have more and I have fewer.
10 is a lot more than 5.
Phonics
Summer 2 week 3 has focused on words ending in the suffix -ed but sounding like t, id or d such as helped, floated and stormed.
Please continue to use the Little Wandle sheets, sent home with your child each week.
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 Five Little Peas.
Click below to watch Reception recite this week’s poem!
Art
Using our decorated 3d shapes and cut out 2d shapes, we created mobiles inspired by Alexander Calder.
We discussed how we can recycle some plastic, glass or paper packaging or re-use it in imaginative ways, such as our mobile.
More of our learning this week…
Reminders and Dates
Baby photos – Please send in or email (scholesf2@spherefederation.org) a baby picture of your child to support their learning. We will be discussing how they have grown and changed.
Transition Morning- Thurs 6 July Drop off and collect your child from their usual Reception classroom on this day. We will send a slip home with your child on this day, confirming which class they will be in from September.
Learning journey drop-ins- Week commencing 10 July
An opportunity to “drop into” school and share your child’s learning journal with them. We would like to welcome you into the classroom on one of the following sessions:
9.00 – 9.30 Monday 10 July
9.00 – 9.30 Tuesday 11 July
3.30 – 4.00 Thursday 13 July
Swimming
Rainbow- 5 July, 19 July
Sunshine- 12 July
Story Trail Event
As part of the Leeds City of Culture, there is a local story trail event taking place. The flyers are below and pdfs to download.
Why not take part with friends or family in this fun event?
Sharing a Shell
We’ve continued our learning on coastal habitats this week, by taking a closer look at rockpools and some of the sea creatures you may find in them.
Sharing a Shell
We’ve been reading Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson.
We looked at the characters, events and settings and matched them with real images and text in a non-fiction book.
In our writing, we retold parts or all of the story in our own words.
The book also had some great messages about sharing and how to treat others. Linked to this, our word of the week was thoughtful.
Holidays in the past
We’ve been looking at the way people enjoyed a seaside holiday in the past, specifically in Victorian times. We’ve been looking at similarities and differences with seaside holidays in present day.
Ask your child what they can remember about seaside holidays in the past.
Making a rockpool
Maths; comparison and doubles
This week, we’ve re-visited comparing quantities and identifying when there is more, fewer or an equal amount. We’ve also revisited how to find doubles and reciting them using the maths stem sentence, eg.
“4 is made from 2 plus 2; double 2 is 4”
In provision, we’ve been using Numicon to compose numbers. This encouraged us to use a range of skills: shape matching (Numicon frame), subitising (Numicon) and addition.
Froglets!
Our tadpoles have turned into froglets (or metamorphs to give them their posh, scientific name!) Some with just their back legs so far, some with all legs and still with their long tail. They’ve had to move into a taller home as they’re getting very adventurous!
Phonics
Summer 2 week 3 has focused on:
Phase 4 words ending –s /s/
Phase 4 words ending –s /z/
Phase 4 words ending –es
longer words
Please continue to use the Little Wandle sheets, sent home with your child each week.
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 the traditional rhyming song- The Big Ship Sails
Click below to watch Reception recite this week’s poem!
Help at home; packaging and pollution
As part of our continued art project, please send your child into school next week with one or two items of packaging. We would ask for these to still be solid, in their original 3d shape.
Our recycled art project links closely to our literacy focus text next week and to pollution. You could help prepare your child by having a quick chat about what the word ‘pollution’ means and about the ways we might help to keep our planet clean and healthy.
Outdoor learning come rain or shine!
More of our learning this week…
Reminders and Dates
Transition Morning- Thurs 6 July Drop off and collect your child from their usual Reception classroom on this day. We will send a slip home with your child on this day, confirming which class they will be in from September.
Learning journey drop-ins- Week commencing 10 July
An opportunity to “drop into” school and share your child’s learning journal with them. We would like to welcome you into the classroom on one of the following sessions:
9.00 – 9.30 Monday 10 July
9.00 – 9.30 Tuesday 11 July
3.30 – 4.00 Thursday 13 July
Swimming
Rainbow- 5 July, 19 July
Sunshine- 28 June, 12 July
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
Wake Up Shake Up!
We have been enjoying the sunshine in Early Years and KS1 over the past two weeks. It has been great to dance along to our favourite songs together every morning on the playground! We have been dancing to ‘Green, Green Grass’ by George Ezra recently, one of our favourites! Why not ask your child to show you their moves and learn some of our special WUSU dances?
Where in the World?
Can you believe we are in the last half term of the school year? We have lots of great things coming up in Summer 2. This half term’s theme is ‘Where in the World?’ We’ll be exploring maps to identify which country and city we live in, thinking about coastal habitats and sealife and preparing to move into year one.
As we prepare the children for their transition, you may hear them talking more about ‘getting ready’ for year one. Thank you to parents and carers who’ve already started to support with this, by encouraging children to come into school and complete their morning jobs independently.
One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab
We’ve been reading One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab by April Sayre and Jeff Sayre.
This book, which is set on a beach, has a maths link. It describes how many legs you can see when combining different animals, insects and humans!
In our writing, we’ve used images from the book and described what we can see.
The book has also inspired lots of talk around seaside locations we have visited before.
Help at home- To continue our discussions around seaside locations, it would be lovely to have some pictures up around the classroom of the children visiting a beach. Please email these over to the usual address below:
Geography- Where do we live?
In our non-fiction reading, we’ve been looking at maps of the United Kingdom. Country is our word of the week. We’ve learnt that there are many countries across the world and that our country is called England.
The children enjoyed looking at a map of the United Kingdom, locating Leeds and having a go at reading other town and city names on the map. We’ve also been creating our own maps by copying images and place names or using our imaginations. We focused on adding a coastline to show which areas are land and which are sea.
Help at home- Next week, we’ll be focusing on our city; Leeds. Please have a chat with your child about their favourite places to visit in the city, as we’ll be asking about this in class.
Maths; counting and arrangement of shapes
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be revisiting mathematical skills learnt across the year. This week, we’ve been counting collections of objects from larger sets.
We made collections of 20 and shared some great maths reasoning when talking about ways to group our objects to make it easier to see there is 20:
“we put one Numicon peg on each finger and did it twice… we did that because we know that 10 add 10 makes 20!”
“put one counter under each finger of one hand…we need 4 groups of 5”
“we made 2 groups of 10”
“we made a tower of 20 with multilink cubes because they are easier to count in a row than when they are spread out”
In provision, we’ve been using Tangram pictures to match position, orientation and arrangement of shapes.
Art; Observational drawing and Artist focus
We’ve been making observational drawings of real-life objects that have washed up on beaches.
We also began a 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.
Phonics
Summer 2 week 1 has focused on phase 4 words with long vowel sounds.
In provision, we’ve been having a go at ‘sentence substitution’; reading a sentence and replacing one word with a different word, making sure the sentence still makes sense.
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 Thunderstorm
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.
Click below to watch Reception recite this week’s poem!
Pictures of outdoor learning this week…
Reminders and Dates
Swimming
Rainbow- 7 June, 21 June, 5 July, 19 July
Sunshine- 14 June, 28 June, 12 July
My body
We have finished our topic ‘Life on Earth’ by exploring human bodies.
Using Non Fiction books, we were able to share our known facts as well as learn new ones.
In writing, we wrote our facts.
Science
This week, we have explored how to keep our teeth healthy by using eggs and different liquids we might drink.
We started by putting toothpaste on half of each egg and then putting them in milk, water, cola, and fresh orange juice. When looking at the sugar content, the children were able to make sensible predictions as to which drink might be the healthiest for our teeth.
It’s stained. (cola) Jack
On one side it’s dark and one side it’s light. (cola) Alyzah
It had too much sugar. (orange juice) Zachary
We also discussed the benefits of some of these drink for our whole body.
Milk is good for your bones and teeth. Ellie
Milk has calcium. Keira
Maths
We have continued to develop our subitising skills using familiar images and objects while introducing a new piece of equipment (Rekenrek) that allows us to explore the structure of small numbers and deepen our number sense.
Butterflies
Everyone was very excited to see the newly hatched butterflies on Monday morning. Throughout the week, the children have observed them closely and looked at the details on their wings and bodies.
On Thursday, it was time to release them outside. It was wonderful to watch them fly around our garden and even on one of the children!
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 Monkey Babies.
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.
PE; Foot-Tech Academy
A big thank you to Food-Tech Academy for the donation of new balls. We can’t wait to use them to develop our skills next half term!
Click here to see Rainbow class enjoying using the new balls.
Reminders
Sun cream – Now that it’s hot, please remember to bring in a labelled sun cream. As your child will need to independently apply their sunscreen, please practise this at home.
Swimming
Rainbow -7 June, 21 June, 5 July, 19 July
Sunshine – 14 June, 28 June, 12 July
Farmyard Hullabaloo!
Our ‘Life on Earth’ explorations have taken us to the farm this week!
Farmyard Hullabaloo
We’ve been reading Farmyard Hullabaloo– our second collection of animal poems by Giles Andreae.
We’ve continued to identify rhyme by predicting missing words and continuing rhyming strings.
In our writing, we’ve been writing facts about farm animals.
Herd is our ‘word of the week’- we learnt that ‘herd’ is used to describe a group of hooved animals.
Help at home- Ask your child if they can remember some of the rhyming words to finish these word strings or they could even create their own rhyming word string.
Maths; comparsion, number order and identifying missing numbers
In Maths, we’ve been using the staircase pattern and number tracks to compare numbers and describe how we know where to place each number in a sequence:
I know that 7 goes next, because 7 is one more than 6.
I’ve already got 10 on the track, so I know that 9 is missing. There is a space next to 10 and 9 is one less than 10.
In provision, we’ve continued to tell and create our own number stories.
PE; Foot-Tech Academy
On Monday’s training day, the early years and KS1 teaching staff had a fantastic training session with Foot-Tech Academy, where we learnt some new approaches and games that we can apply to our current PE teaching.
The children continue to thrive in their Foot-Tech sessions, through games that allow them to explore a range of movement skills and encourage them to be active and enjoy exercise. Most of all, they have so much fun and can’t wait to share what they’ve been doing.
A mini bug ball!
We’ve had some creepy crawling crazy fun, at our mini bug ball today! We enjoyed singing and dancing along to minibeast themed songs in the hall and played ‘collect the pollen’ during our outdoor PE session.
The children loved dressing up and talking about their costumes. Thank you for your support at home, getting the children ready for our bug-tastic day!
Phonics
Summer 1 week 5 has focused on root words ending in:
–ing, –ed /t/, –ed /id/ /ed/ –est. We’ve learnt the tricky words; out, today
We’ve now learnt all of the phase 4 tricky words and completed the tricky words we will learn in Reception! For the rest of the Summer term, we will review all of the tricky words we have learnt.
In provision, we’ve been reading ‘facts’ and sorting them into ‘yes’ or ‘no’ depending on whether the statements were true or false.
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 The Fox
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.
Click below to watch Rainbow Class recite this week’s poem!
More pictures of our learning this week…
Reminders and Dates
SWIMMING DATES- Summer 1 and Summer 2
Rainbow Class- 24 May, 14 June, 28 June, 12 July
Sunshine Class- 7 June, 21 June, 5 July, 19 July
Rumble in the Jungle
This week our focus book has been Rumble in the Jungle.
The book is a collection of fun animal poems. Whilst reading, the children enjoyed listening for rhyming words and noticing the patterns made with the words.
The letters are slithering like a snake.
They match the shape of a snake.
That’s how a snake moves.
Maths
In maths this week, we have continued to develop our understanding of the composition of numbers to 10. Using the rhyme ’10 Fat Sausages’, we have found different ways to represent 10.
We have also used 10 frames and dice patterns to show ‘5 and a bit’ numbers to 10.
Help at home
Use the language – First, then and now to create a number story to match the picture.
Phonics
This week we have continued to read longer words as well as compound words such as windmill, handstand and lunchbox.
We’ve learnt the tricky words; there, when, what and one.
Help at home- Please continue to work through the weekly learn at home phonics sheets. We’ll continue to send these home each Friday.
Poetry Picnic
Our poem this week was A Little Shell.
Other learning
Reminders and Dates
Monday 15 May- School Closed: Training Day
Friday 19 May – Mini Bug Ball: Please don’t go to the expense of buying anything new – creative adaptations of something you’ve already got will be fantastic. Outfits need to be suitable for school, safe and warm enough to be worn all day.
SWIMMING DATES- Summer 1
Swimming in cancelled on Wednesday 17 May. Therefore, Rainbow will swim on the final week of the half-term Wednesday 24 May.