Author: Mr Roundtree

Week beginning 07 December 2020

Maths

This week’s maths learning is linked to measurement and addition and subtraction.

Year 3 children use these resources:

Year 4 children use these resources:

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 3 times table. If your child is in Y4, we’re concentrating on the 8 times table. 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

Day 1: We’ll be using this ‘RIC’ text in class to practise comprehension skills. 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

Day 2: Agree with your child three words from any text they’ve read which they’re less familiar with. Your child should find out what they mean (eg by checking an online dictionary or simply discuss with you) and how to use them in sentences (both when speaking and when writing). Challenge your child to write a sentence with each word in, or to drop the words into conversations at home.

Day 3: Read this article from First News, a newspaper for children, and complete the activity.

Day 4: Read your fluency or RIC text again. Next, do one of the following:

  • Your child could list at least ten facts they’ve read in the text. (If it’s a fiction text (a story), then the facts would be based on the story, like ‘Harry Potter picked up his broomstick’, rather than actual facts from the real world.)
  • Your child could create questions and answers for what they’ve read. (For example, it could be a TV or radio interview based on what they’ve read.)
  • Your child could create their own ‘RIC’ questions.
  • Your child could draw and label a character or setting that they’ve read about.

Day 5: Book Club. Once a week, we have a relaxing lesson where we sit and read quietly, often with an adult. At home, we’d like you to read your favourite book or text, too. If possible, discuss the book with an adult, talking about some or all of the sections of this sheet.

(Suggested time: 30 minutes daily)

 

Writing

Follow these lessons on non-chronological reports 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 history – all about Ancient Greece.

Follow these lessons on pre-historic Britain from Oak National Academy. There are ten lessons in total, but start at the first lesson and work through, doing two or three in the week.

(Suggested time: 30-40 minutes)

 

Science   

Our focus this half-term is sound.

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)…

Geography isn’t a topic-driver this half-term, but you could brush up on your locational knowledge – something that was missed when schools closed earlier this year. You could explore some online maps and try to memorise some new countries, capitals, rivers and mountain ranges. These three lessons about Europe are worth checking out.

What about some Living and Learning? While you’re away from school, you could check out these lessons on money!

 

 

Wonderful writers!

These past few weeks, we have been learning all about writing a setting description. We learnt all about using interesting adjectives, writing expanded noun phrases and using prepositional phrases. Year 3 and 4 have written some fantastic setting descriptions. They have transported the reader to Ancient Greece with the language and vocab they have used.

 

Here are just three (and it was hard to just pick three as there were many many pieces that were amazing!) of our setting descriptions. If you click on the child’s name you can see the original with their purple pen (editing after writing) and the highlights where they have spotted their fantastic vocab.

 

Jacob

This was it. I was here to eat good food because at my town, it barely has any. As I looked around, I saw large mountains, some massive temples and people sitting in small houses. I could always hear people shouting and moaning at each other and fire burning. I could smell delicious food and the burning fire all day. I felt really embarrassed because I was really new and didn’t know anyone. I was the only one who didn’t know how to fight too. 57 beautiful houses covered the town, it was like a maze. One mountain was so big it went above the clouds and the largest temple wasn’t even inside the clouds! Some people were trying to break through the mountain. It probably isn’t possible though.

 

Leah

This was it. I was here to save a child who was being enslaved by the harsh King and has been there for many, many years. As I looked around, I saw an immense temple stood on top of the gigantic hill. Lots of colossal mountains were falling apart. I could smell fish from the market and all I can hear is the King shouting at his slaves whilst the wild animals fought with each other. I looked up at the spectacular, bright blue sky while the harsh wind blew in my face relentlessly. I felt inquisitive mostly because I really wanted to know what’s going on with Athens. Finally, I found her! I found the child! At night, I took her home, Back to her parents. She lived happily ever again and hopefully, I get to go on another adventure like this again.

 

Jack

This was it. I was here to defeat the eagle. As I looked around, I saw that the eagle was hungry. I took out my bow and then the eagle attacked! I was frightened but I persevered and did it. The eagle screeched loudly. The eagle was too powerful. I took out my golden sword. I took a shot and then another. It was finally dead. I went in the mountain and then a bat flew out. I carried on till I found the king eagle! He took a shot and I fell out but I survived the fall. But a tornado came. I ran away just in time. I put a sign down so nobody came round in the next day. I came back to defeat the tornado. The tornado broke the top of the mountain. I had changed my mind until I found special boots. I put them on then I thought I thought it could get rid of the tornado. I jumped in the tornado then I span around. I killed in the tornado in one shot.

04 December 2020

This week, we’ve been practising adding ed or ing to the end of words to change their tense. Because the English language is really tricky, there’s lots of ways to do this. Complete the table that shows you some different ways to do this (one has been done for you. Then, use some of our ‘super spelling strategies’ form this week’s post (go to the St James’ website, learn more, spelling, Year 3 & 4).  There’s more than usual but when you can spell the root word you just need to apply the rule to spell it correctly.

rule root word -ed -ing
Just add ed / ing help helped helping
laugh    
    calling
Double up and add ed / ing   begged  
shrug    
    rubbing
Drop the e and add ed / ing smile    
  surprised surprising
notice    

Children should practise in preparation for a test on Thursday 10  December 2020.

04 December 2020

This week, the whole school has the same Creative homework: I can illustrate different emotions.

This homework, which links to our living and learning statement, is an opportunity for children to show that they can recognise, and show, different emotions. As humans, we display a huge-range of emotions. Sometimes, it’s obvious how we’re feeling. Sometimes, it’s trickier for us to show, or recognise, an emotion. This statement allows us to spend time thinking about the different emotions we experience and how we can recognise these accurately in ourselves and others.

Children could respond creatively to this in a range of ways:

  • create a piece of art that shows a range of emotions
  • take pictures of themselves (or others) displaying different emotions
  • write a short-story in which a character shows lots of emotions
  • devise a poem, song or rap about emotions
  • create a comic strip to illustrate different emotions

Of course, there are many other ways in which children could respond. Children should be ready to celebrate their learning as part of their homework review by Thursday 10 December 2020. 

 

Times tables/Number facts:

 Complete the attached timetables challenge. (For an extra copy, head to here. Year 3 are completing the 3 times table. Year 4 are completing the 6 times table)

When it comes to times tables, speed and accuracy are important – the more your child practises, the more likely they are to remember the trickier tables facts. Times Table Rock Stars is a fun and challenging programme designed to help children master times tables. Children have already enjoyed practising at school. Now, let’s continue our rock star careers at home…

Children are also able to log onto NumBots (play.numbots.com) using the same login/password. This is a great game to practice their key number facts which is essential to their maths learning.

 

Our weekly message (04 December 2020)

I’m writing this week’s message after being on morning gate duty and it’s just started snowing – hopefully, my fingers will thaw out soon so I can press the right keys. If you do spot some typos, you’ll know why…

For some children and families, this time of year will be very difficult, especially for those who have experienced trauma or bereavement. Young Minds has created another Wellbeing Advent Calendar. It’s intended for use in schools, but it might help support you and your family throughout December. Each day, try a different 5 minute activity to help boost wellbeing and look after your child’s mental health. Today’s is a nice conversation starter: share something that has really cheered you up when you were feeling down.

Talking of conversation starters, this resource for parents and carers might help. Starting a conversation can be difficult, especially if you’re worried that your child is having a hard time. It doesn’t matter what topic the conversation starts with – it’s about the opportunity it gives you both to talk about feelings and to provide comfort.

Next, a message from Leeds City Council…

Sal Tariq, the Director of Children and Families, and Councillor Jonathan Pryor, Executive Member for Learning, Skills and Employment, have written a joint letter for parents and carers. (It came too late to include in last week’s message.) Read the full letter here, but these two paragraphs stand out as matching our own thoughts:

The overwhelming majority of parents have been extremely understanding of the challenges that schools have encountered and have co-operated fully with the school’s range of measures put in place to provide a covid-safe environment for the children, staff and parents.

We are grateful to parents, for example, for wearing face coverings when requested to by the school and for not sending their child to school when they, or a member of the family, have been requested to self-isolate.

Finally, today, just a quick repeat of a message we sent earlier in the week…

It’s common for children to catch colds and have coughs around this time. Normally, we’d still encourage children to come to school with a mild cough or cold, but not this year. If your child starts coughing, we really need you to keep your child at home and get a test for Covid. The results will quite likely be negative, meaning your child can quickly return to school. However, there’s always that slim chance your child might test positive. That would mean the whole class having to self-isolate for 14 days – that’s just not worth the risk. Please keep your child home if they’ve got any any hint of the three main symptoms of Covid.

 

Have a happy and healthy and warm weekend!

Living and Learning: Friendship is important!

This week our Living and Learning statement is “I recognise friends and family are important.” Here’s what Y3/4 think about friendship.

Friendship is important because…

you’re not alone.
if you didn’t have friends you would be alone.
if you have a friend they can cheer you up.
if you don’t have a friend you won’t have fun.
so that you are not lonely for your entire life.
you might get left out if you didn’t have friends.
so everyone will be included.
so that they can take care of you.
if you are an only child you can play with someone.
you will have people to play with.
you are loved.

We also looked at which values we think are more or less  important within friendships.

 

Week beginning 30 November 2020

Maths

This week’s maths learning is linked to multiplication.

Year 3 children use these resources:

Year 4 children use these resources:

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 3 times table. If your child is in Y4, we’re concentrating on the 8 times table. 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

Day 1: We’ll be using this ‘RIC’ text in class to practise comprehension skills. 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

Day 2: Agree with your child three words from any text they’ve read which they’re less familiar with. Your child should find out what they mean (eg by checking an online dictionary or simply discuss with you) and how to use them in sentences (both when speaking and when writing). Challenge your child to write a sentence with each word in, or to drop the words into conversations at home.

Day 3: Read this article from First News, a newspaper for children, and complete the activity.

Day 4: Read your fluency or RIC text again. Next, do one of the following:

  • Your child could list at least ten facts they’ve read in the text. (If it’s a fiction text (a story), then the facts would be based on the story, like ‘Harry Potter picked up his broomstick’, rather than actual facts from the real world.)
  • Your child could create questions and answers for what they’ve read. (For example, it could be a TV or radio interview based on what they’ve read.)
  • Your child could create their own ‘RIC’ questions.
  • Your child could draw and label a character or setting that they’ve read about.

Day 5: Book Club. Once a week, we have a relaxing lesson where we sit and read quietly, often with an adult. At home, we’d like you to read your favourite book or text, too. If possible, discuss the book with an adult, talking about some or all of the sections of this sheet.

(Suggested time: 30 minutes daily)

 

Writing

Activity 1: This lesson about identifying the features of a report links to some of the learning that we’ve been doing in class recently.

Activity 2:

Children should write six sentences about a picture or photograph you choose. Your child should remember capital letters, finger spaces, joined up letters (use our handwriting guide to help, paying particular attention to tall letters and letters that go beneath the line), and a full stop, exclamation mark (!) or question mark (?) to end the sentence. Encourage interesting words to make their writing more interesting.

 (Suggested time: 30 minutes daily)

 

Topic

This week’s topic learning is all about our history topic: Ancient Greece. This video lesson from Oak National Academy links to some of the learning we’ve been doing in class recently.

(Suggested time: 30-45 minutes)

 

Science   

We’re continuing our learning about sound (physics). This week, we’re learning all about what sound is.

Have a go at this Oak National Academy video.

(Suggested time: 30-45 minutes)

 

RE

How do Hindus express their faith today?

In this lesson at Oak National Academy, we are going to be learning Holi, which is an ancient festival that Hindus still celebrate today.

(Suggested time: 30-45 minutes)

27 November 2020

We’ve been learning about some common homophones: words that sound the same but mean different things and are spelt in different ways. This is a helpful guide from BBC teach that children, and adults, can use to remind themselves of what homophones are – the link is available on the spelling page of our website (go to the St James’ website, learn more, spelling, Year 3 & 4).

there                                     their                                      they’re                                  here

hear                                      wear                                     where                                    we’re

To keep it fun, practise these spellings in different ways, check out the ‘super spelling strategies’ on this week’s spelling post (go to the Scholes website, learn more, spelling, Year 3 & 4). Children should practise in preparation for a test on Thursday 26  November 2020.

Fancy a challenge? Use these words in sentences. Or, create silly sentences using as many of them as you can – can you use them all?

Also, if you haven’t checked out our class news page recently, please do. Teachers post regularly to update adults at home about our learning in school (go to the St James’ website, learn more, class news, Year 3 & 4).

 

27 November 2020

This week, we have a whole school homework. It is due on Thursday 04 December. Send your completed homework to Stjamesy3y4@spherefederation.org

Practice Makes Perfect: I know the key vocabulary from our history topic.

chronology empire democracy
government legacy bias
influence citizen oligarchy

This week, practise using our vocab from our Ancient Greeks topic. Make sure you understand all of the words and are able to use them in a sentence. There are some ideas below to help you do so.

Times tables/Number facts:

 Complete the timetables challenge.

When it comes to times tables, speed and accuracy are important – the more your child practises, the more likely they are to remember the trickier tables facts. Times Table Rock Stars is a fun and challenging programme designed to help children master times tables. Children have already enjoyed practising at school. Now, let’s continue our rock star careers at home…

Logging in to Times Tables Rock Stars:

  • Type ttrockstars.com into your web browser.
  • On the website, click the following: Login > School > Student
  • Enter our school’s postcode and our school’s name will show up below. Click on it.
  • Enter the username and password that has been provided (with their homework books).
  • More information on Times Table Rock Stars can be found here.

Children are also able to log onto NumBots (play.numbots.com) using the same login/password. This is a great game to practice their key number facts which is essential to their maths learning.

 

Our weekly message (27 November 2020)

It’s a bit of a letdown to be coming out of the national lockdown restriction only to enter Tier 3 restrictions. The government plans to review the tiers every two weeks – hopefully we can move to Tier 2 soon. Now, let’s think about Christmas for a moment…

As we approach Christmas, we’re asking you to be ultra-cautious. Any bubble burst from 12 December onwards would generate a need to self-isolate over the festive period – none of us wants this.

Asymptomatic transmission is something we can do little about, but we can reduce the chances of this happening by ensuring you keep your child at home if anyone in your household is waiting for the results of a Covid test.

Also, please keep your child at home if anyone in your household has the classic symptoms:

  • a high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)
  • a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or three or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)
  • a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste – this means you’ve noticed you cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal

We’re doing all we can at school to keep everyone safe. You’ll be pleased to know the rest of this week’s message contains no more covid-gloom…

We love reading!

Reading is always a top priority in our school. Our library is well-stocked and we’ve a good bank of class novels and other reading resources. However, following the period of school closures, we’ve been wanting to maximise reading opportunities for our children in Key Stage 2 (Years 3-6). One way to do this to to have a good stock of  books that are easy to ‘dip into’ – non-fiction ‘lists and facts’ books and poetry books. We’ve made a large investment in this – about £200 for each class. The books arrived this week and our children have loved them so far:

  • ‘I like the new books because they’re interesting. I’ve enjoyed looking at the book about numbers, computers and coding because it has lots of fun facts.’ (Year 5 pupil at St James’)
  • ‘The books are engrossing, fascinating and we’re learning quite a lot from them.’ (three Year 6 pupils at Scholes)
  • ‘When I have 5 or 10 minutes, I’ll be able to find out so many things. I know lots about dinosaurs but now I can learn more things about them.’ (Year 4 pupil at Moortown)
  • ‘The children are fighting over them!’ (Y5,6 teacher, who assures us this isn’t literally!)

Our parent workshops

This week, we’ve hosted two more workshops to help you support your child at home: one for Reading (mainly for parents/carers of older children) and one for Phonics (aimed at those of you with children in Foundation 2/Reception and Year 1 mainly). Both were well-attended, the phonics one especially so. Here are a few comments from people who’ve attended the workshops so far…

  • ‘Thank you for these sessions – really appreciate the support with home learning.’
  • ‘Thank you very much, very informative and useful!
’
  • ‘
Thank you very much for this! I will definitely refer back to this slide show to help at home!
’
Talking of the slide show – here it is. We do plan to record a version with a teacher talking through the slides – coming soon.

Have you a child starting school in September? Or perhaps you know someone who has?

If so, it’s important for you to know the school application process is open until 15 January 2021. You need to apply, even if you’ve a child at school already (and make sure you include sibling information on your application).

Read more information about schools, previous years’ allocation data, catchment maps and links to school admissions.

If you’ve any questions about the admissions process, please contact the Admissions Team at Leeds City Council on 0113 222 4414 or by email: startingprimary@leeds.gov.uk

Twenty’s plenty

This blog from the Safer Roads Leeds team is an interesting one. The speed limit outside both Moortown Primary and St James’ CE Primary is 20mph – Scholes (Elmet) Primary still has a limit of 30mph, sadly. Here’s a few reasons why twenty’s plenty:

  • It’s safer. If you do hit someone with your car, you’re less likely to kill them or inflict life-changing injuries and trauma.
  • You can be the most experienced, careful, focused driver in the world but unexpected things happen. At 30mph, if you have to do an emergency stop, you will still travel around six car lengths before you come to a halt. At 20mph, that stopping distance is halved; if you do hit someone, they’re more likely to live.
  • Vehicles travelling at lower speeds change the whole feel of a neighbourhood. Research shows people are far more willing to walk and to let their children walk and cycle.
  • At speeds of more than about 20mph, research shows that children trying to cross a road can’t accurately judge how fast a car is coming; they can’t tell that a distant car might be approaching far too fast for them to cross.
  • 20mph zones have almost no impact on overall journey times, so it’s a win-win.