We love Read Write Inc!

7th February 2020R Smith

The children are really enjoying their Read Write Inc lessons…so much that they’re teaching themselves!

The children learn to read and write a new letter every day.  They practise saying the sound and saying words that start with the sound of the day.  Then they try to work out the words our friend Fred Frog tells them – which is tricky because Fred only speaks in frog talk!

After group time the children then practise writing the letter of the day before practising their word reading skills with the magnetic letters.

Inspired by Frozen

7th February 2020R Smith

Lots of the children have been excited by the new Frozen film.  We explored some pictures from the film and from real life frozen landscapes to investigate ‘cold’, ‘winter’, ‘frozen’ colours.

The children really impressed us at what they noticed, especially when they started to notice the shades of colours in the pictures.

We used our new knowledge to create our own large scale ‘frozen’ process art.

We worked in steps. building up the layers, colours, shade and embellishments.  The children worked collaboratively to produce their art work, that would hang proudly in any art gallery.

Master builders

7th February 2020R Smith

The children in Class 1 and 2 just love to build.

In the past few weeks the children have got ever more creative.  The staff just love to watch the children working together, sharing ideas and using the materials in interesting and new ways.  Take a look at some of our most recent creations.

Number bonds to 5

7th February 2020R Smith

Class 1 and 2 and been exploring how to make number bonds within 5 this past few weeks.

We have played games – throwing bean bags in to hoops and creating number sentences.

We have begin to explore the part-whole method to help us recall our number facts.

We have used numicon to explore different ways of joining numbers together to make our number bonds.

Learning Challenge – Why should people with a religious faith care about the environment?

7th February 2020R Smith

Year 6 have been learning about our wonderful World during RE lessons by answering the question, ‘Why should people with a religious faith care about the environment?’ We researched the creation stories from Christianity and Hinduism and understood the importance our world is to our lives. We were interested to find out about the Reduce Reuse Recycle campaign and made a logo out of recyclable materials. We watched a short clip showcasing our wonderful world, which made us fully appreciate all the amazing things that we have on our earth. We studied the artist Andy Goldsworthy as his art specialises in using natural materials from our wonderful world. We designed images in his style.

For more information on Andy Goldsworthy you can visit –https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Goldsworthy

Maths – multiplication and division

7th February 2020R Smith

This half term we have been looking at Multiplication and Division. We have looked at different ways to multiply two-digit and three-digit numbers by a one-digit number. We have looked at different methods in order so solve calculations and problems. We have used pictorial, concrete and abstract methods to support the children’s learning. Resources were used to support such as arrays, using base 10 and place value grids. The children are encouraged once they have been taught a range of methods to use a method that suits them.

Take a look at our fantastic work!

Chinese New Year

7th February 2020R Smith

Class 1 and 2 had great fun this term learning about Chinese New Year.

We learnt about the traditions around the celebration and talked about how there were similarities to our recent Christmas celebrations.  We noticed that families prepared for Chinese New Year by cleaning and decorating their homes.  The children were given gifts of money and new clothes.

We learnt that the lucky colours for Chinese New Year were red, gold and yellow.  We used this knowledge to create our own dragon.

We had great fun performing our own dragon dance and scaring away any bad luck that was lingering in our school!

We learnt that Chinese writing looks different to how we are learning how to write and we all had a really great try at writing rat – the animal this year is named after.

We loved having the opportunity to prepare and eat our own Chinese stir fry.  Everyone helped to cut and slice the vegetables.  All of us tasted the stir fry, some us thought it was so delicious we had two helpings!

Leaning Challenge: Ancient Egypt

7th February 2020R Smith

This half term we have been looking at key questions to deepen our understanding of the history of Ancient Egypt. Questions: How can we recreate the wonders of Ancient Egypt? How can you recreate the wonder of the pyramids?

During history, we have been discussing the role of an archaeologist. We found out that an Archaeology is the study of things that people made, used, and left behind. The goal of archaeology is to understand what people of the past were like and how they lived. Scientists who study archaeology are called archaeologists. After discussing this existing job, we asked the children what an archeologist would look for in Ancient Egypt. This created some great discussions and predictions. The children were then put into groups, chose one person to be an archeologist and the rest of the group had to guide them to find the hidden wonders of Egypt. They worked well as a team and discussed their findings. This lead to further learning as the children then had to research their findings and feed back to the whole class. In our findings, we found, Cleopatra, Sphinx, Pyramids of Giza and Tutankhamun.

 

 

Character descriptions

7th February 2020R Smith

This half term the children have been reading ‘The Time-travelling cat and the Egyptian Goddess’. So far, we have thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and getting to know the characters. The children have been extending their vocabulary with the new exciting words from the book. They have produced several amazing pieces of work (character descriptions and letter writing). The children have been enjoying learning all about the Ancient Egyptians, it has really helped to broaden their understanding of historical concepts and develop their literacy skills, just look at the differences between the first (cold write) and second (final piece) pictures below.