Author: Miss Beatson

Class Novel

In years 5 and 6, we are thoroughly enjoying our class novel: The forest of doom.

We have battled and escaped many creatures in the forest and we have written non-chronological reports about our own Fighting Fantasy creatures.

In order to battle, we had to roll two dice to create a stamina, skill and luck score. Fortunately, our stamina score was high and it has helped us throughout our adventures.

In PE, we have been working on our own stamina! We hope to see our stamina improve over the next half term by practising the same skills each week.

In Art, we have developed our drawing skills to create our own creature, which we are going to build into a sculpture using Modroc.

We’ve looked at well-known sculptures and shown our own appreciation of art by researching, discussing and writing about them.

Staying Safe week

We’ve had a great start to our ‘Staying Safe’ week at St James’!

Yesterday, we had a visitor from the road safety team who told us how to stay safe when crossing roads and how to ride our bikes and scooters safely.

Today, we had some visitors from the NSPCC, who told us how we can keep ourselves safe and what we can do if we don’t feel safe. The children were very good at making the Childline phone number with their hands! The children have been given some parent leaflets to take home about online safety, which have been created by the NSPCC.

We’ve also had a fluffy visitor in school- a cuddly, ‘pretend’ dog from the Dogs Trust. The visitors told us how the charity helps dogs to be re-homed. Their key message was how we can stay safe around dogs and the body language a dog might show if it was unhappy.

We are looking forward to many more workshops and visitors throughout the week to help us stay safe. Look on the class news pages for more information about what each class are getting up to.

 

25 January 2019

A reminder of the spelling activity grid.

1.    Spot the Word

Look to see if you can spot smaller words inside the spelling word eg; friend, vegetable.

 2.    Speed Write

Choose some words from the spelling list. How many times can you write the same word in one minute?

 3.    Rainbow Words

Break a word down into syllables and write each part in a different colour eg; im / poss / i / ble
4.    Mnemonic

Write a mnemonic to remember the spelling: the first letter of each word in the sentence spells the word eg; because: big elephants can’t always use small exits.

 5.    Backwards Words

Write out the spelling word forwards and then backwards eg; communicate / etacinummoc

 6.    Silly Sentences

Write silly sentences with a spelling word in each. Underline the spelling word.
7.    Connect the Dots

Write the spelling words using dots, then connect the dots by tracing over them with a coloured pencil.

 8.    Spelling Tennis

Play with somebody at home and evidence it in your homework book.

One person starts with the first letter of the word; the other person says the next letter. The last person to add a letter, wins!

 9.    Musical Words

Make up a little thyme, rap or song to remember words or rules for spellings eg; Mrs D, Mrs I, Mrs F,F,I, Mrs C, Mrs U, Mrs L, T, Y- difficulty.

25 January 2019

This week’s spelling list

Complete a spelling activity from the spelling grid.

 Suffix ‘shun’ : tion, sion, ssion
protection persuasion
competition infusion
occupation confession
accommodation expression
explosion mission
occasion discussion

Living and Learning

Our Living and Learning theme this week: I know what a drug is.

In Years 5/6, we have been discussing different influences which could make us want to smoke or drink. We sorted images from various forms of media to recognise what a positive influence looks like and what a negative influence looks like.

We realised it isn’t just media that can influence us. After group discussion and an organising activity, we all agreed that friends could possibly be the biggest influence on the decisions we make.

We thought about why somebody would want to avoid smoking or drinking alcohol. Some of the suggestions were religion, health, money, against the law, and not wanting to get into trouble with parents.

We came up with different ways people could respond if they wanted to avoid smoking.

“It’s not good for me, I’m trying to be healthy.”

“I don’t like the taste or smell of smoke.”

“It’s against my personal belief.”

Then, we shared our thoughts by doing a conscience alley.

Real Friends

Last week, years 5 and 6 watched a thought-provoking and powerful performance called Real Friends. The drama explored two very serious issues: hate crime and mate crime. It was performed by an organisation called Leeds People First. People First is about putting the individual first rather than the condition, “people with disabilities” rather than disabled people. The class had to think about how they would change a situation through role-play to help stop such crimes.

“My favourite part was at the beginning when the actors were all wearing masks and holding up signs. It caught my attention.”

“I really liked listening to Olivia’s story about the hard times she experienced throughout school because of her autism. It was based on a real-life situation.”