Class News

Smells and tastes

Posted on Thursday 06 December 2018 by Mr Mills

After finishing our work on diaries based on our class novel ‘Friend or Foe’, we’ve been enjoying a poem called ‘Smells’ by Christopher Morley. In it, he talks about all of the smells which he loves, freshly ground coffee and campfire embers to name just two.

So we could write our own version, we sampled lots of different fruits with distinctive smells: apples, oranges and melons. We recorded a huge amount of vocabulary that could be made into expanded noun phrases and then played around with the words to fit into the style of poem we were writing.

And of course we got to eat the fruit afterwards!

Living and Learning: I respect myself and others

Posted on Thursday 06 December 2018 by Mr Roundtree

In our Living and learning session, we talked about respecting ourselves and others.
Some of the things the children said about things we can do to respect others were:
Willow: ‘Listen to others.’
Jack: ‘If you wanted to show respect, you could be ready for learning at the right time.’
Brooklyn: ‘I was respectful when my friend fell over and I helped him.’
Mikey added that it would be disrespectful to laugh if somebody hurt themselves.
Ava: ‘If somebody’s talking you need to wait. You talk when they stop talking.’
Eliza: ‘If somebody needs help, help them.’ We discussed this and decided it would be disrespectful to laugh at somebody or make them feel bad about not being able to do something. We should be encouraging and offer them help if we can.
Ellie – ‘Say please and thank you.’
Mikey – ‘Telling the truth.’
We also talked about respecting ourselves by making healthy choices and looking after our bodies and by having good thoughts about ourselves and making good choices.

Cricketing superstars!

Posted on Wednesday 05 December 2018 by Mr Roundtree

Year 1 and 2 have had an experience of cricket: they enjoyed a cricket workshop from Chance to Shine.

The children learnt new skills from their coach including how to catch and how to hit a ball using a cricket bat.

Here are some pictures of our workshop in action.

Christmas ADVENT-ures!

Posted on Saturday 01 December 2018 by Mrs Allen-Kelly

As the countdown begins, the next few weeks in Foundation will be Winter and Christmas topic-tastic!

The children have already been excitedly talking about the festive season and this has steered our learning toward some spontaneous discussion and activities. We have a new seasonal window filled with beautiful snowflakes. After exploring lots of vocabulary and sharing ideas, the children have written their ‘Winter’ words on them.

See if you can spot our ‘Kindness Advent Calendar’ in the classroom which the children have also collaboratively worked on this week. Each day, we’ll reveal a picture or kind message to our friends.

F2 have been learning about 3D shape names and their properties. The children have been using the 3D shapes in their construction to extend their learning.

We’ve been looking at small value coins and using our knowledge of combining numbers to create total amounts.  This activity will be continued into next week, when the ‘Focus table’ has its very own Post Office Shop.

Next week, our focus book will be The Jolly Christmas Postman. This amazing adventure takes the children on a journey to visit familiar nursery rhyme and traditional tale characters.

Home-Link Challenge: 

On Friday, we sent home our Monday News ‘Talk Time’ sheets. Please complete these with your child and bring to school on Monday morning. This includes both F1 and F2 children. Thank you.

Phonics:

Next week, we’re having our Funky Phonics Stay and Play after school on Wednesday 05 December. Phonics is so important: it’s the basis of skills our children need for reading and writing. We can help with important questions you may have.

Frequently asked questions include:

  • How is each phoneme sounded aloud?
  • Where is my child at in their reading/ writing and how can I best support this at home?
  • What activities can we do at home to make phonics fun?
  • What will my child be expected to be able to do at the end of Foundation Stage?

Although we are able to answer your questions at any time, the Stay and Play will be a good opportunity to see a variety of activities we use in action, as well as covering the above questions.

We hope to see many of you there.

Living and Learning: I know who I am.

Posted on Saturday 01 December 2018 by Mrs Ellison

Our Living and Learning theme this week is ‘I know who I am’.

To begin, we spent time thinking about all the things that make us who we are. We discussed how we are all special and unique. By using talk partners, we found out the similarities we have with our classmates and the things that make us different, be it our beliefs, skills or preferences.

Leading on from our previous sessions, lots of us were quick to point out how important it is to respect other people’s views and opinions. We designed our own ‘I am special stars’, with designs and words to reflect our personalities. We were surprised by how challenging it can sometimes be to say positive things about ourselves and the things we are proud of!

30 November 2018

Posted on Friday 30 November 2018 by Mr Roundtree

This week’s homework is practice makes perfect and is due on Thursday 06 December. You will find an activity for the children to complete in their homework book.

Year 1:

We’ve been working on our subtraction skills (using a number line) and finding the difference between two numbers. Here are two clips to help explain finding the difference:  Video 1  Video 2

Year 2:

We’ve been learning different methods to work out addition and subtraction calculations. We’ve learnt to use tens and ones (a rod of ten for each ten and cubes for the ones), drawing it pictorially (draw a stick for ten and a dot for one) or by using the column method. Have a look at our calculation videos which show some of the methods we use.

Living and Learning: I know who I am

Posted on Thursday 29 November 2018 by Mr Roundtree

This week our Living and Learning statement is ‘I know who I am’.

We talked about everyone being part of St James’ school and Year 1/2 class. We also talked about the other groups we belong to – for example, we live in Leeds which is in England.

We talked about some of us being born in different places and having links to other places. We also talked about clubs outside of school and teams that we support. The children made posters to show who they are.

Living and Learning

Posted on Thursday 29 November 2018 by Miss Beatson

This week, our Living and Learning statement is ‘I know who I am’. In Year 5/6, we have been thinking about people who influence us and if they are positive and negative influences. We discussed how influences on TV and online can influence what we think about ourselves, our self-esteem and body image. We all agreed it is important to be proud of who we are and what we do if we are being influenced in a negative way.

We completed a ‘diamond nine’ activity where we thought about who has the most positive influence on us, all the way down to who has the least positive influence on us.

Power

Posted on Thursday 29 November 2018 by Mr Mills

Our new mini- topic named ‘Power’ has begun this week. During this topic we will be learning mainly about forces and magnetism. So we began by looking at friction.

We choose different surfaces to test out: hessian, plastic, sandpaper. Then, we rolled a small car down a slope across the surfaces and measured how far the car rolled.

We then graphed our results to find out which surface produced the most friction. It was really important that we measured accurately and kept all the other variables such as the length of the slope the same.

Stay tuned for more investigations!

Digging up the past

Posted on Saturday 24 November 2018 by Mr Mills

This week, we became archaeologists for the day and excavated some interesting artefacts. We spoke about how we know a lot about the past from objects that have been found and they can tell us a lot about how people lived and what their daily lives were like.

So that we didn’t break or damage the artefacts, we had to use brushes to delicately unearth  the objects. We also used a co-ordinate grid system to record where each artefact was found.  The artefacts were a little strange, so we had to use our detective skills to figure out what they were what they were possibly used for.