Autumn 1
Spellings to be tested Friday 16th October
This week’s spelling rule is:
Drop the y for an i
When a word ends in y, we often change the y to an i before adding a suffix.
Remember:
y → i before adding the suffix
Examples:
carry → carried
worry → worried
copy → copied
Can you spot where the y has changed to an i?
Spellings to practice that use this rule:
- happily
- happier
- happiest
- easily
- easier
- carried
- worried
- copied
- tried
- cried
Help at home: Encourage your child to say each word aloud, identify the root word and explain how the spelling changed when the suffix was added. Challenge them to think of other words that follow the same spelling rule.
Living and Learning: Understanding protected characteristics
This week, Year 3 explored the statement: “I understand some characteristics are protected by law.”
We learned about identity, protected characteristics and why it is important to show respect towards ourselves and others. The children discovered that there are nine protected characteristics protected by the Equality Act 2010.
We discussed the meaning of discrimination, which is when someone is treated unfairly because of their identity. The children thought about why discrimination is wrong and why it is important that everyone is treated with kindness, fairness and respect.
We also discussed how we can be positive peer educators and demonstrate respect towards people whose identities, experiences or characteristics may be different from our own.
As a class, we created our own commitment to respecting everyone’s unique identities:
“Treat everyone and everything the same way we would like to be treated.”
The children also completed personal reflections about how they can show respect towards others and what they should do if they see or hear someone being treated unfairly.
Help at home: Ask your child to explain what they learned about protected characteristics and discrimination. Talk about why it is important to treat everyone with kindness, fairness and respect and encourage your child to think about how they can help others feel included, valued and welcomed.
Living and learning – protected characteristics
This week, Year 4 have continued learning about protected characteristics and why they are so important.
Protected characteristics are parts of a person’s identity such as their age, disability, race, religion or sex that are protected by law.
We discovered that the law helps protect people from being treated unfairly because of who they are. We discussed examples of when people might need to be protected and how everyone deserves to be treated with compassion and respect. We thought about what we could do if we felt like we were being treated unfairly or if we saw someone else being treated unfairly.
Help at home: If you would like to discuss protected characteristics with your child at home, this website would be a great way to facilitate discussions and further reflections https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z8yjdp3#zqjgr2p
Harvest Festival
Year 2 visited church this week to celebrate Harvest Festival. The children proudly shared a harvest poem with actions that they had been practising in class. During the service, they learnt about the importance of celebrating harvest, giving thanks for what we have and remembering those who are less fortunate. The children also brought in food donations to support the food banks in Wetherby and Seacroft, showing kindness and generosity towards those in our local community. We are very proud of their thoughtful contributions!
Autumn 1: Week 6
This week, we’ve been using our story map to retell the story We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. We made sure we used lots of story language from the book and added some actions.
Phonics
This week our phonemes were ck, e, u, r and the tricky word I. Next week, we’ll be learning the final four phonemes for this half-term: h, b, f and l.
Help at home: Please use the ‘Learning at home’ sheet to regularly practise all of the letters and tricky words.
Harvest Festival
On Wednesday we joined the whole school celebrate Harvest Festival in church. We walked with our buddies and enjoyed chatting to them as we walked, when we got to church we placed our Harvest offerings on the alter and enjoyed all the songs.
Finally, a few photos from our independent learning this week.
Next week our focus story will be Supertato by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet.
Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Kendrew, Mrs Linton, Mrs Spearman and Miss Dean.
Maths – Whole and Parts
This week in maths, we’ve been learning about wholes and parts.
We started by looking at a whole group of objects and understanding that the whole means everything in the group. We practised counting objects carefully to find out how many there were altogether.
Next, we explored how we could identify a smaller part of the whole group. We used rings to circle some of the objects and talked about how the objects inside the ring were still part of the whole group.
We practised using stem sentences to explain our thinking:
- There are ___ in the whole group.
- There are ___ in this part of the group.
We also challenged ourselves to think more deeply about parts and wholes. We investigated the smallest and largest possible parts we could make and explored how we could choose different parts from the same whole group.
Throughout our learning, we’ve been explaining our answers using ‘How do you know?’ questions. This has helped us to develop our mathematical reasoning and use accurate vocabulary.
Help at home by gathering a small group of objects. Ask your child to count the whole group before drawing a ring around a smaller part. Can they explain how many objects are in the whole and how many are in their chosen part?
Ancient Egypt
Building on with our topic, Ancient Egypt, Year 6 have been preparing to write a report based on this fascinating time in history. We have been learning how to take jottings and notes when researching and ensuring our notes are concise, quick and personal to us.
The children have done really well with this task although it can sometimes be tempting to just copy down what we read. This is a life skill which many of us use later on in life.
Children will be beginning their non-chronological reports next week.
In addition, one of our pupils has been away and produced some lovely work based on our Egyptian topic. Kiara has written a lovely prayer in hieroglyphics on her very own ancient scroll. Such a fantastic piece of work and displaying her enjoyment of the subject.
Help at home – If your child feels like they would like to share some learning or work they have done at home, please encourage them to bring it in and share.
RE – Creation or Science: conflicting or complementary?
To support our learning and understanding of our RE topic: Creation or Science, we have been learning about different peoples’ views. Many of these people are scientists who believe strongly in God.
To connect further with other beliefs, we invited Reverend Peat into school to answer some questions we had. We had such an informative chat and we were able to take time to reflect on our own understanding whilst connecting with Reverend Peat’s beliefs.
It was a very enlightening morning and one where we were all able to contribute. One thing that became clear is that we can’t possibly always know the answers, in this case the answer to who created the earth? By answering questions, we found that this led to further questions. This curiosity is so important in all of our learning. It was lovely to see the children engage in the discussion and be curious about our topic.
As part of our RE learning, we have an RE ‘big book’. Here are some pictures reflecting today’s learning:
Autumn 1: Week 5
On Monday, we introduced our new focus text for the next two weeks. It’s one of our favourite stories – We’re going on a Bear Hunt.
The children loved listening to Michael Rosen re-telling the story. If you’d like to join in with the story together at home, here’s a link to the video.
(This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.)
Phonics
This week, we’ve been working really hard on our oral blending skills. We’re also learning how to use our letter knowledge to say the sounds and blend them together to read words.
Help at home: Please use the ‘Learning at home’ sheet to regularly practise all of the letters and tricky words. Little and often works best!
This week’s letters:
What is a Tricky Word? Tricky words are words that children learn to read by sight because they don’t always follow the usual phonics rules. Learning these words helps children become more confident and fluent readers.
Reminders!
- Library books and reading records need to be returned every Thursday.
- New library books and reading records are sent home every Friday.
- eBooks are assigned every Friday. To celebrate your child’s reading skills, please listen to your child read their eBook daily.
Finally, here’s a snapshot of some of our fantastic independent learning this week.
Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Kendrew, Mrs Linton, Mrs Spearman and Miss Dean.