This week....

This week we have continued to be like Curious Clara. We found out that sometimes our magnets clicked together and then at other times they pushed away from each other. Mmmmm curious!

We discovered that a every magnet has both a north and a south pole. When you place the north pole of one magnet near the south pole of another magnet, they are attracted to one another. When you place like poles of two magnets near each other (north to north or south to south), they will repel each other. We have learnt learnt two new words. Click here to watch Maddie tell us about magnets.

We have also been talking about recycling, which materials can be used again and which bin to put them in. Click here to to go on a recycling hunt at home with Maddie and Buster. The children have even been upcycling, also known as creative reuse. They have transformed boxes, and unwanted bits and bobs into new objects with artistic value. I suspect you have received some items at home this week

Click here to listen to a story about a little girl and her dog who set out to make ‘The Most Magnificent Thing’. But after much hard work, the end result is not what the girl had in mind. Frustrated, she quits. Her dog suggests a long walk, and as they walk, it slowly becomes clear what the girl needs to do to succeed.

Worship

This week we have reflected on all the things we have thanked God for this half term: for making us all special and unique with individual talents; we have thanked Him for our bodies, our ability to run, hop, skip, swim and play football. But, we also recognise that we must look after our bodies by making healthy choices.

We have started to learn a new song to sign this week. It’s rather tricky but we are getting there. Click here to listen.

Key Person blog

What a lovely week it has been at nursery! We started the week by learning how to care for our planet Earth, to keep it clean and green. We were all Kiki Chameleons being creative when using recycled materials to build junk models! After listening to the story ‘Somebody Swallowed Stanley’ we talked about how upsetting it is to hear that a discarded plastic bag could end up in the ocean and be a danger to animals. The children were brilliant at suggesting ways to not litter...can they remember any of their ideas? Tee and Mo have a great song about how we can help , (even as little people), to look after our wonderful world. Click here to listen. Or try their game here.

Keeping with the reuse and recycle theme...we made a super rubbish lorry outside! This then led to the making of a chalked road and roundabout, along with road signs and traffic lights! This has been great fun!

We also had challenges this week to make number lines with the pebbles. What number came next? What number is missing from the line? Hmm, we had to think and work out the problem, concentrating like Cooper Crab! Another challenge was to fit lots of stacking boxes back inside one big box. This was really tricky and got us all using our brains.

Not only have our brains been busy this week, so have our bodies! Our fundamental movement skills are developing really, really well and we are showing great resilience. You can tell we have been practising a lot because we are getting better and better. Maybe you could ask the children to show you their hopping or throwing skills?

Have a lovely half term!

Michelle, Colette, Frances, Justine

One of our maths activities this week has been to count the beats on a drum. Jacqui from the kitchen has saved lots of big tins for us to use as drums…thanks Jacqui.

Click here to play a similar game at home.

We have made an ‘how do you feel today’ corner, with help from The Colour Monster’. We have filled jars full of the colours that represent our emotions. We left one jar empty so that we can put coloured poms poms in to show our feelings in colour. If you have forgotten the story click here to listen.

If we need a quiet moment we have erected a quiet tent with the softest rug and cushions, perfect for reflection.

Click here for Moody Monsters game.

It has been such a busy, fun and exciting half term and the children have learnt so much, but, they are all tired. Try and have a good rest next week (if that’s possible) because when we return we have one last week to recap learning about Space and then the children have asked to explore the world of mythical creatures; fairies, dragons. boggarts, and much much more!!! We can’t wait!!!

Please take care during the holidays and make some lovely family memories, that will last forever. We will see everyone bright eyed and bushy tailed on the 21st February.

Barbara

Year 4 blog Friday 11th February. "We keep moving forward, opening new doors and doing new things; because we are curious and this leads us down new paths. (Walt Disney)

We have reached the halfway point of Year 4 and we can honestly say what a joy it is to see the children making such progress and being so interested to learn. Despite their tiredness this week, they have shown what they have learned so well and faced every challenge with a determination which is admirable.

RE

This half term has been all about Jesus as a Teacher. We learned this week about the Parable of the Sower and how Jesus is teaching us about being responsive to the Word of God. We talked about how difficult it is to follow God’s message sometimes, especially when the worries and trials of life can divert us. The children in Year 4 however, often notice the good in each other and ask me to award children points to each other!

Class council

Each class has been tasked with suggesting an item of playground equipment for our outside area. All children today have been voting for their winning class. Here is Year 4’s pitch:

This week in English, we have written a story - a bit each day, focusing on all our skills we have learned so far in writing. These were very entertaining and children strived to make them so - choosing similes carefully and choosing vocabulary to impact on the reader.

In maths, we have continued our Perimeter work and we have been solving lots of problems to apply this. After half term our focus will be on Multiplication and Division.

Tuesday was Online Safety Day. Our focus this time was on SPAM email and we learned about phishing, viruses and identity theft. Children today face such a challenging online world. We are in constant discussion together about how to keep safe. We talked about clicking on attachments and opening email when you do not know who it is from. Children took part in a SPAM email simulation - it was interesting to see if they would reply or report it to teacher! We discussed what the aim of SPAM emails, mAlware and Computer viruses can be and how to keep as safe as possible. The number one rule is ‘Tell a Grown up!”

We have also continued our learning about Volcanoes this week with children completing an explanation text about the process of eruption. We have also looked at our planet’s structure and how this impacts on volcanoes and earthquakes. We made our earth out of different layers and then ATE it!

Let’s Celebrate!

This week, our certificate winners are as follows:

A Lizzie Ladybird certificate goes to Charlie for listening to and acting upon every bit of advice give. You always strive to meet the learning objectives of a lesson Charlie and you want to know how you can improve. You are also so kind to others.

A Sadie Spider certificate goes to Rosa for being so perseverant and wanting to do well. Despite having a lot of after school commitments this week, you have absolutely gone for it with your learning and always ask for advice. You are such a hard worker.

Music stars this week were Ruby-Lilly and Daisy.

Swimming stars were Betsy, Owen, Georgia, Iris

Notices

SWIMMING CONTINUES ON THE FIRST MONDAY BACK - prompt at 8.30am

Also from Thursday 10th March, we will be going swimming twice a week. This will be the same time on a Thursday morning - 8.30am. Then sessions will end at Easter.

WORLD BOOK DAY: World book day is on Thursday 3rd March and we will be celebrating its 25th anniversary! For this day, we would like to invite the children to dress up as their favourite book characters!

PARENT APPOINTMENTS - These are now live! Please sign up for an online meeting with me to discuss your child’s progress and targets.

Have a restful half term,

Mrs Lyons, Mrs Mather and Miss Woodrow.

Year 3 11.2.22 'Treat your password like your toothbrush. Don't let anybody else use it and get a new one every six months'

We can’t believe that we have reached the end of the first Spring term, these last few weeks seem to have flown by! How time flies when you’re having fun and of course learning as deeply as Year 3 are. On Tuesday We kicked off our Online-Safety learning. This is such a crucial part of the curriculum as the children are becoming more computer literate and are using online platforms more and more, it is so important that we explore the positives and sometimes negatives of this usage, as well as given them the tools to explore these in a safe way. This week (as you may have guessed from the title), we have been discussing the need for passwords, why we have them and what we can do to protect ourselves. They have also been introduced to blogging, looking at how written responses can often be misunderstood and then we created our own rules when communicating online: making sure she are always kind, respectful and appropriate, always making sure we are clear in what we write. We even created our own class blog, where we shared our thoughts of how we use the internet and how we should behave online. This blog remains open on purple mash, but the comments have to be approved by the teacher. For their homework, we have asked them to add more of their thoughts to this blog. This would be a great opportunity to share and discuss this area further as their parents, making sure they fully understand the need for appropriate behaviour online.

Year 3 Learning this week …

In English this week we have been continuing with our new unit of ‘The Green Children’, we have been looking at story openings of many books and using our inference skills to match with the pictures. We have also explored some new vocabulary that will be find in the text we are reading after half term, we have had lots of fun finding synonyms, clapping the syllables and making up actions for our verbs.

In Maths have approached another new strategy that we can apply when subtracting numbers. The children have worked extremely hard to master these, they have required us to be real Sadie Spiders and Isabella Insects!

Let’s Celebrate!

A suggestion had been made in one of our class council meetings that the children are able to chose the certificates at the end of each half term, and so we have done just that! We thought carefully about what qualities we look out for when awarding a certificate and then the children kept this in mind when making their decisions.

It was heart warming reading their suggestions and why they had chosen that particular child.

We have counted up the votes and our two certificates this week go to:

ELSIE for being. “A kind learning partner,” “For concentrating carefully during every lesson” and “for believing in herself and going for her targets.”

FAYE for being… “always being kind and focused” and “because you are just so kind and you are always focused. You put your hand up every time.”

Notices…

• Upon reflection and much discussion, as a community, we have decided that Holy Communion will now take place in Year 4 not Year 3. This has happened the last two years and we feel the children at this age are much more ready and have a much deeper understanding of this spiritual journey and commitment to their faith.

• Don’t forget to book on to our open afternoon on Wednesday 16th March to look at your child’s learning. You book this through the form found on the last week’s blog on the discovery page.

• World book day is on Thursday 3rd March and we will be celebrating its 25th anniversary! For this day, we would like to invite the children to dress up as their favourite book characters!

• Parents meetings will be available to book via the newsletter on the discovery page. These meetings will be held on Wednesday 9th March and Wednesday 23rd March from 2:30pm - 5:30pm.

And finally…

This week each class has been set a task to think of something we would love to see in our outside playground. We have then created a video and each class has voted for their favourite idea. We cannot wait to see which idea has been chosen - we would love them all! Here is our video, led by our two class councilors Liam and Ella.

Year 3 Remote Learning WB Monday 7th February

This week we are continuing with our read and respond stage of our Green children unit and pre-teaching some of the vocabulary found in the text we will be reading next week …

English

Tuesday’s lessons:

Wednesday’s lessons:

Thursday’s lesson:

After IXL English strands W1 and W2 on conjunctions, please complete the following worksheet:

Friday’s lesson:

Complete the IXL English strand DD.1 on synonyms, the complete the following maps on two verbs you choose from the list from Wednesday’s lesson.

Maths:

Please follow the link below to see all of the lesson videos, you should watch in the following order:

Tuesday: Multiplication equal groups

Wednesday: using arrays

Thursday: multiply by 4

Friday: ‘The 4 times table’

Worksheets to go with the Maths lesson:

Tuesday’s Computing Lesson:

Year 3 Home Learning 4.02.22

Spelling:

This weeks spelling strategy is: Jumble Words

Using plastic magnetic letter shapes, or individual letters written onto card or paper, first spell out the word, then scramble the letters into the pile and let your child assemble the word again. As they gain confidence, you can start with the word jumbled, and even have them assemble words from a letter pile.

This week we have focused on adding the suffix -ian

1. music - musician

2. magic - magician

3. electric - electrician

4. optic - optician

5. politic - politician

6. technic - technician

Maths:

This week the children have worked so hard on their bridging when subtracting. They have been learning the following strategy in school and need that extra reinforcement at home. We started using counters so they could visually see the two parts being taken away, so if you feel they still need this help then please feel free to use these raisons, grapes or even chocolate (good incentive!) are good substitutes.

Here are some examples to help:

In your home learning books please use this strategy to calculate the following:

14 - 6 =

15 - 9 =

13 - 8 =

15 - 7 =

12 - 8 =

RE

This week we have continued to learn all about reconciliation. We want you to spend some time this week discussing times when you have had to ask for forgiveness and when you have had to forgive: How did you feel? How did you feel after saying sorry? How did the other person feel? How did they feel afterwards? What lessons did you learn.

In your homework book we would like you to share one of these memories, including some of the questions above… What happened? How did you feel? How did you other person feel? How was the problem resolved? How did you and your friend feel after? What lessons have you learnt?

Remember, not to include names instead you could write ‘friend’.

Year 4 blog Friday 4th February. "Follow Me, follow me, leave your friends and family."

Spring is sprung! The snowdrops are out and the children in Year 4 are growing too! In RE this week, we have reflected on the first disciples and what a challenge it must have been to leave everything and follow Jesus. This led us to doing some work about the joys of following Jesus in life but also the great challenges too.

RHE

We have been thinking about how as we grow, similarities and differences arise between us and that is OK. By living and working together and accepting our differences, we create community. Children also reflected on how we can have self confidence in our own qualities because we are loved by God.

In other news! We have been learning many grammar skills this week to enhance our writing skills. We tackled the tricky apostrophe for possession and we also learned all about similes and metaphors. We liked Charlie’s metaphor “A tsunami of girls have just rushed through the door!” Children are spotting homophones everywhere and asking questions about words, such as, “Is that a homophone or a homonym?” We have been busy cementing our skills of persuasion, writing two persuasive letters, one as Brer Fox and one as Brer Rabbit. They are very funny - I look forward to you being able to read them.

We have also been learning about the different features of a volcano in Geography and retrieving all we have learned about states of matter in Science. Children were given statements such as ‘Steam is water is gas form,’ and ‘Water only evaporates when it is boiled,’ true or false. Their depth of knowledge about this topic is fantastic.

In maths we have been getting a full grasp of the concept of Perimeter and how to calculate it. We have also been working out the 4x tables together and practising in class. We have been looking for those all important patterns such as if 3x4=12 then 6x4 must be double this. The 8x table will come next because it is double the 4x table! Thank you for supporting this knowledge and understanding at home with the booklets - children were really confident in their 3x tables this week.

Let’s Celebrate!

This week, our certificate winners are as follows:

A Kiki Chameleon certificate goes to Evan for taking such care and consideration in all your work. You try so very hard and always ask for advice on word choices and other things.

A Cooper Crab certificate goes to Aviya for giving 100% focus to everything she does. You manage your distractions and you are a real role model in our class.

Music stars this week were Christian and Anncia

Swimming stars were Millie, Dominic, Lily-Mae and Evan

French stars were Millie and Emilia

Notices

SWIMMING ARRIVAL - prompt at 8.30am

Please could I ask that all children are only dropped off at the gate at St. Patrick’s Road on a Monday morning to save us opening both gates early at 8.30. Thanks. The coach drivers are struggling with the traffic lights at St Thomas’s so we need to set off as near to half past eight as possible!

Enjoy the snowdrops this weekend!

God bless,

Mrs Lyons, Mrs Mather and Miss Woodrow.