Where in the world am I?
This week we have been discussing green spaces, including urban green space. This is linked to the vocabulary that we are learning in class. We used OS maps to look for green spaces in Leeds and then moved onto discussing green belt areas. This is an area that is protected against most forms of development in order to preserve areas of natural beauty and to protect wildlife. This is to also stop city expansion impacting on our green space. Can your child identify and urban green spaces in Leeds?
Week beginning 12 July 2021
Hi everyone
We hope you’re feeling happy and healthy at home. We miss having you in school but we want you to know that you’re still very much part of our school community. Enjoy your home learning for this week.
Maths
Follow this sequence of maths learning which is linked to fractions.
- Lesson 1: video, worksheet, answers
- Lesson 2: video, worksheet, answers
- Lesson 3: video, worksheet, answers
- Lesson 4: video, worksheet, answers
- Lesson 5: video, worksheet, answers
- Lesson 6: video, worksheet, answers
- Lesson 7: video, worksheet, answers
- Lesson 8: video, worksheet, answers
- Lesson 9: video, worksheet, answers
- Lesson 10: video, worksheet, answers
You don’t have to print the worksheet. Your child can write or draw their answers on paper. Your child’s learning will be most effective if you sit with them to pause the clip and check / praise / support your child as the clip moves on.
Practise times tables on Times Table Rockstars, too. If your child is in Y3, we’re concentrating on the 8 times table. If your child is in Y4, we’re concentrating on all times tables up to and including 12 x 12. Email the class teacher if you need your child’s login and password details.
(Suggested time: 30 minutes of Maths and 15 minutes of Rockstars daily)
Spelling
Look on the homework page to find this week’s spellings. They should choose some past spellings that they feel less confident with. Your child should complete one task each day.
- Day 1: Generate more words linked to the spelling pattern or ‘rule’. You could look out for the words in the book you’re reading at home, or any other text, like a website linked to our science topic of Living Things and their Habitat.
- Day 2: Practise the spellings using two of the ideas in our Super Spelling Strategies guide. (Set yourself and others at home a challenge of using some of the words when you’re speaking, too!)
- Day 3: Write separate sentences, each containing one of the spellings. (Don’t forget to show off really neat handwriting and make sure you sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, exclamation mark (!) or question mark (?).
- Day 4: Repeat Task 2 or 3.
- Day 5: Get an adult at home to test you on your spellings. Practise any you spell incorrectly – you could write them out carefully until you’re sure.
(Suggested time: 15-20 minutes daily)
Reading fluency
This is the text we’re using in class this week to build up fluency skills.
In school, we generally follow this sequence:
- Day 1: Read the text aloud with your child listening. Read it clearly and slowly, pointing to each word as you read. Have a chat about any unfamiliar words.
- Day 2: Read aloud each sentence (a full short sentence or part of a longer sentence), and have your child read it back to you. Do this ‘echo reading’ for the whole text.
- Day 3: Read the text and talk about the effect of the punctuation on how you read it – pauses for full stops and expression for exclamations (!) or questions (?). Your child reads the text aloud.
- Day 4: Read together with expression (just like you practised on Day 3).
- Day 5: Your child reads independently and fluently.
(Suggested time: 15 minutes daily)
Reading comprehension
We’ll be using this RIC text to practise our retrieval skills in class. This is a key part of RIC. RIC stands for:
- Retrieve: finding information in a text
- Interpret: using clues in the text to unlock information
- Choice: thinking about the author’s choice of words, techniques or organisation that make the text interesting and enjoyable to read
Follow these lessons from Oak National Academy. There’s a whole series of lessons, but start at Lesson 1 and work through, doing one (or maybe even two) each day. (If you’re self-isolating in your second week, stick with the series of lessons you’ve already started and aim to complete the full series.)
(Suggested time: 30 minutes daily)
Writing
Follow these lessons from Oak National Academy. There’s a whole series of lessons, but start at Lesson 1 and work through, doing one (or maybe even two) each day. (If you’re self-isolating in your second week, stick with the series of lessons you’ve already started and aim to complete the full series.)
(Suggested time: 30-40 minutes for each)
Topic
Our topic this half-term is about design & technology.
Follow these lessons from Oak National Academy. There’s a whole series of lessons, but start at Lesson 1 and work through, doing one (or maybe even two) each day. (If you’re self-isolating in your second week, stick with the series of lessons you’ve already started and aim to complete the full series.)
(Suggested time: 30-40 minutes)
Science
Our focus this half-term is about humans including animals.
These six lessons from Oak National Academy link closely to what we’ve been doing in class. Start at Lesson 1 and work through, doing two or three in the week. If you’ve previously completed on of these lessons, have a go at the ones you haven’t completed yet.
If Science really motivates your child, you could also use look at these lessons all about practical Science.
(Suggested time: 30-45 minutes)
PE
Don’t forget to do some daily exercise!
Do two or three of these Five Minute Moves from Joe Wicks each day – spread them across the day as if they were playtimes, maybe!
Try working through this series of 25 lessons from the Association for Physical Education – do two or three in the week.
(Suggested time: 5 minutes daily, plus 30 minutes for the longer PE lessons)
Extra stuff…
As an extra (or as an alternative, if this helps to motivate your child)…
Fancy learning about a new religion? You don’t have to be religious to learn about, and appreciate, religions from all around the world. Check out this set of lessons from Oak National Academy – you could choose to focus on one religion or dip into each set for an overview.
What about some Living and Learning? While you’re away from school, you could check out these lessons on keeping safe!
5/6 S Certificate Winners
This weeks certificate winners are…
For great learning…
Dasha – you have improved the quality of your writing this term. Your ideas are clear, your presentation has improved and your spellings have become more accurate. Well done!
For sport and physical activity…
Daniel- for demonstrating good control and skill during tennis this week. You participated well in the lesson. Well done!
For living and learning…
Charlie G – you are a great role model in my class and you always make sure you show your ‘best self.’ Well done and thank you.
Well done everyone!
We’re going on a bear hunt.
This week our focus has been on the fabulous book ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt‘ by Michael Rosen.
It is a family classic and such a brilliant book to help our youngsters with their own story telling and writing. We have planned and begun writing our own versions of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.’ In Rainbow and Sunshine class our mini authors will take you on a unicorn hunt, fish hunt, dinosaur hunt, rabbit hunt, pony hunt, wolf hunt and many more hunts!
Here are some photographs of our own bear hunt around school.
Home-link Challenge
Can you go on your own hunt around your garden, house or a special place? Please take a photograph or two and send them to our email address. Children really enjoy sharing their photographs on our huge interactive boards. Photographs always spark amazing conversations.
Advance notice for your diaries:
On Friday 23 July we will be having a Rainbow and Sunshine party! We ask that all children come to school in brightly coloured clothes to reflect our theme. (No school uniform required). Please could we kindly ask parents/carers to provide their child with a party type snack on this date. We don’t really want the last day to happen but we’ll certainly make it a day to remember!
It’s coming home?
We sure hope that on Monday we will be in a party mood. Enjoy your weekend. Come on England!
Super Scientists!
This half-term, in our science lessons, we’re studying biology. We’ll be learning all about animals (including humans) with a specific focus on teeth and eating.
Help at home by regularly asking your child what they’ve learnt in their science lessons recently. When discussing their learning, encourage your child to use the correct scientific vocabulary. The below table shows you what words we’ll be using alongside the definition we’ll be using in class.
| canine | A pointy tooth used for gripping food. |
| incisor | A flat, sharp-edged tooth in the front of the mouth that’s used for cutting and tearing food. |
| molar | A tooth used for grinding food at the back of the mouth. |
| enamel | The hard covering of the tooth. |
| digestion | The process of breaking down food. |
| energy | Used to help us move, grow and repair our body. |
| stomach | A bag of muscle used in the first part of digestion. |
| oesophagus | The scientific name for the food pipe. |
Oh baby, baby!
Thank-you so much for sending in your child’s baby photograph/s. We have ALL thoroughly enjoyed looking at them and talking about how we have changed since we were born. There have been so many changes and stages of development that are still ongoing for our amazing 4 and 5 year olds. We are really proud of how much Reception children have learnt in the past school year!
There is still time to send your child’s photograph into school if you haven’t already done so.
Just for fun, and because the children have enjoyed guessing who the baby photos are, we have made a ‘Who’s Who?’ baby montage of the adults in Reception. Can you match the adults to their baby photo? Answers are at the bottom of the post.
The weather has been glorious (finally) and of course we have been making the most of the outdoor area with a little less mud. Take a look at what we have been up to…
To name just a few, we have: explored tall grass on the large school field; pressed flowers that we picked; found rare mini-beasts; thrown a javelin; dressed babies; made ice-creams; found ways to make 16 using sticks; looked at dead bees and shown a seal bone to the class.
Enjoy your weekend. We look forward to our learning journey next week.
1-Miss Parling, 2- Mrs Wilkins, 3-Mrs Allen-Kelly, 4-Miss Logan, 5- Miss Booth 6-Mrs Myers.
5/6 S Certificate Celebration
This weeks certificate winners are…
For great learning…
Abi – you showed enthusiasm and resourcefulness in Design Technology this week. You discussed your ideas well with others.
For sport and physical activity…
James – you have worked hard to improve your rounders skills this week. Well done for persevering.
For living and learning…
Lleyton – You contributed well during the body image lesson and you showed a really responsible and mature attitude. Thank you.
Well done everyone!
Designing ‘Egg’xperts!
Year 5 and 6 have begun our final topic of the year – design and technology! Our mission is to design, create and test a small buggy, fit for saving our good friend, Eggy.
This week, the children have been heavily engaged in analysing some existing products, to help generate ideas for our own designs next week.
Here are some examples of our work:
Living and Learning: I know what a drug is
Our Living and Learning statement for the last two week has been about Drug and Alcohol education. Schools must now cover drug and alcohol education as part of statutory Health Education.
In these session, pupils build age-appropriate foundational skills and underpinning knowledge including:
- Safety rules at home for medicines and household products, including what medicines and vaccinations are and how they help to keep people healthy
- The risks and effects of using tobacco, alcohol and other drugs
- Managing pressure and influences including that from peers and the media
- How to seek help and support for themselves or others in relation to health and/or substances
Our discussions in class were mature and sensible.
Here is what the children said:
Drugs are there to prevent illnesses and some drugs can be harmful. Doctors advise patients to take prescribed drugs to make them feel better. Paracetamol is a drug which helps to relieve pain.
Children use Calpol and it is not a drug.
You shouldn’t take anyone else’s medicine.
Pupils reflected on their learning in the lesson.
• What has this lesson made them think about?
• What has it made them think about their health now?
• What has it made them think about their health for the future?
Computing programmers
We’re loving our current topic: computing.
We’ve been learning about staying safe online and we’ve been taking on the role of programmers. After some ‘offline’ learning, where we recapped what algorithms are (ask you child what an algorithm is), we’ve been using Scratch Jr to practise our programming skills.
So far, we’ve programmed our Sprite (Wondering what a sprite is? Ask your child to explain this to you – they should know.) to kick a football into a net and we’ve used repetition to create an underwater animation with several sprites programmed to complete different tasks.
Ask your child how they’re finding this topic. What are they enjoying? When have they been challenged? Why is this learning relevant to them?
We’ll be getting more and more confident using some programming vocabulary over the next few weeks. Help at home by using these words with your child, or testing them, or simply asking them about what they mean…
