Forest School
This week in Forest School, we had lots of fun exploring and creating outdoors!
The children helped to clear the path, showing teamwork and care for our outdoor space. We also had great fun exploring bubbles, watching how they moved through the air and noticing what happened when they popped. Some children enjoyed making goose grass “tea” and experimenting with natural ingredients, while others got busy in the mud kitchen, creating all sorts of muddy recipes.
Help at home by going on a nature scavenger hunt in the garden or park, looking for different colours, textures or shapes.
World Cup Writing: The Last Penalty
To help us get into the World Cup spirit, Year 5 took part in a writing workshop this week. Our goal was simple: to imagine the final penalty to win the World Cup was down to us. One chance, one opportunity. We wanted to create suspense and tension by describing the final moments before taking the penalty. The pupils enjoyed and engaged with this writing really well. When we had finished, the children used table partners to check, edit and improve their writing further. We then wrote up final pieces in books (examples below). Although the children didn’t have much time to write this piece, the pieces themselves are superb! We’re really pleased with how they read and we now understand what it might feel like to be in that situation for the players!
Here are just three examples, but well done to everyone in Year 5!
Emily M
Beau
Isla
Maths – Fractions – revising the core concepts
We’ve had a great week revisiting some core fractions concepts before we start our new Year 4 learning.
We’ve thought about wholes and parts in lots of different contexts.
See if your child can explain wholes and parts using the map of Europe:
We also considered how fractions are wholes split into equal parts and how those parts might look different but still be equal.
Finally, we thought about how if we are given a part and we know how many equal parts there are, we can work out the whole.
Help at home: challenge your child to explain parts and wholes to you using something they have at home (this could be a plant, a toy, a room.)
Some children had to think hard about how to fold a strip of paper into equal parts so this might be something you would like to explore at home. Can your child fold the paper into 2 equal parts? 4 equal parts? 6 equal parts? Is it easier to fold the paper into 4 or 6 equal parts? Why is that?
I would love to hear about how any of these investigations went.
DT
LO: I can work in 3 dimensions using tin foil and artstraws to make a sculpture.
We love getting hands on and creative in Year 6. During this session, we used the medium of straws and tin foil to create 3D models of humans. We had such a fun time creating different poses.
Help at home – can you create any 3D models at home? Maybe make a model for each person at home.
PE – Balloon Tennis
This week in PE, we’ve been developing our early tennis skills through lots of fun balloon games.
Using balloons helped us slow the game down so we could focus on important skills, including:
• hand-eye coordination by tracking and tapping the balloon
• footwork as we moved carefully to stay in position
• shot selection by thinking about where and how to hit the balloon
• fundamental movement skills such as balancing, reaching, jumping and changing direction
The children showed great perseverance as they practised keeping the balloon in the air and worked hard to improve their control.
Help at home by trying a simple balloon challenge. See how many taps you can do without letting the balloon touch the floor. You could even use different body parts to build coordination and control.
What is beautiful about the natural world?
Our new RE topic is all about how we understand and care for the world around us.
This week, we thought about what is beautiful about our natural world.
We went into our playground and used our senses to think about what we can see, hear, touch and smell.
We will be moving on to think about the creation story next week.
The bark is rough – Josh
The flowers are beautiful- Lailah
I can smell the grass -Wyatt
I can hear some birds – Blossom
Help at home: can your child use their senses to think about the nature where you live?
Robin Wood Day 3
A few additional pictures from a fantastic final morning at Robin Wood, spent on the lake canoeing and raft building. This was a particular highlight for me as we all laughed along with one another and enjoyed every moment before travelling home.
Robin Wood: complete.
Starting school: Tips to try at home
The Night Pirates
This week, we’ve started exploring The Night Pirates by Peter Harris.
Using our story map, we’ve enjoyed retelling the story with actions and expression. We’ve heard some fantastic pirate impressions and not forgetting our new pirate names.
Maths
This week, we introduced the children to Rekenreks. We continued to develop our subitising skills by using our “fast eyes” to quickly identify the number of beads shown. Rekenreks help children explore the structure of small numbers and build confidence in recognising quantities without counting.
We learnt that all of the beads should start on the right-hand side. This is known as the ‘ready position’. The children practised using the ‘pause (think), place (one finger), push (the beads)’ method. We always make sure we’re only using one finger when carefully pushing the beads.
Phonics
Now that we’ve reached the final half-term, we’ll be revisiting and consolidating all of our phonics learning in preparation for Year 1.
Have a happy and healthy weekend.
The Train Ride
We have really enjoyed reading our story this week. When we read it we noticed that the rhythm sounds like a train moving down the tracks.
In the paint we looked at the tracks on the wheels of our toy cars. Some of them had very different patterns on them some stripey, some zig zagged. We used them to create printings. This helped to develop our arm strength for writing.
We will be continuing with this book next week and will be looking at what happens when we send our trains down different types of ramps.
Have a happy and healthy weekend.