Virtual Tour: Leeds City Museum
As part of our history topic, we’ve been learning about ancient Egypt. At the moment, we’re unable to go on a school trip, so we took a virtual tour around Leeds City Museum instead. We saw a real-life mummy and found out all about mummification.
It was made more interactive by Miss Beatson asking some children to put their hand in a bag which had something wet and soggy inside to represent the organs; to hook wool out a box to represent pulling the brains out of a nose; and smell spices which were used to scent the body during mummification.
We followed up the virtual tour by writing a set of instructions: How to mummify a body!
Balancing act
This week in PE, we’ve been exploring different balances with a partner and using a bench. We had to make sure we could hold our balances for three seconds. Some were harder than others!
Timestables rockstars
As a school, we buy into Times Tables Rockstars. This is a fun way for your child to practise their times tables. We use it, at least weekly, in-class but it would be really good if you could use it at home, too.
Each child has got their own login – if you’re not sure of their login/password then please email and I can send another one home.
At the end of year 4, they will take part in a times tables test. They will answer a range of times tables questions and need to score full marks to pass. They will have 5 seconds per questions to answer. Looking below, Year 4 are on their way to answering their 10 times tables and 11 times tables.
It would be great if, even for just 5 minutes a day, they practised their times tables. If you need any help logging in or have trouble accessing it, please let me know. Send an email to Mrs Rowlet at [email protected]
Nursery Rhyme Week
We’ve had so much fun this week celebrating Nursery Rhyme Week.
Take a look at all the things we’ve been doing…
Singing Five Little Ducks and Five Little Monkeys with our friends.
We sang twinkle, twinkle when painting Starry Night pictures in the style of Vincent Van Gough’s famous paint.
At the sensory table, we made cups of tea and sang I’m a Little Teapot.
At the playdough table, we sang Pat-a-Cake and pretended we were bakers.
We used ‘cement’ and wooden blocks to build a wall for Humpty Dumpty.
Literacy
Our focus story this week was Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. It is a fantastic book with simple rhyming text. It also has engaging illustrations encouraging children to look at the book carefully to find the next fairy tale and nursery rhyme character. Some of the characters we found in the book were Mother Hubbard, Cinderella and Tom Thumb.
We went on a ‘ I Spy’ hunt looking for illustrations from the book which were dotted around the outdoor area. We had lots of fun remembering the characters names and using the language from the story.
The F2 children also went on a hunt around the classroom for other nursery rhyme characters. They picked a character to draw and wrote a sentence describing where the character was in the classroom. E.g. I spy Incy Wincy Spider on the wall. This writing activity also linked nicely to the prepositional learning we did last week in maths.
Maths
In maths, we continued learning about the number 3. We learnt all about ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd). To help us learn about this, we played racing games and handed out medals to our friends.
We also played the ‘Three Billy Goats’ game. The children made three goats out of cubes. The little Billy Goat was one cube tall, the medium-sized Billy Goat was two cubes tall and the biggest Billy Goat was three cubes tall. They then took turns to roll the dice (1-3). The children were encouraged to subitise* the dots on the dice and work out which Billy Goat needed to cross the bridge.
F1 Group Time
This week, the children drew their own versions of some famous nursery rhyme characters. At the start of every group time, we ask the children to find their name in the middle of the circle – they are getting very quick at recognising their names!
Odd Socks Day
It was lovely to see almost all of Foundation in odd socks on Monday!
Home-Link Challenge
Next week, our focus story is The Three Billy Goats Gruff. We will be talking about size and learning all about measuring. To help your child get a head start, have a go at these challenges at home.
* The ability to instantaneously recognise the number of objects in a small group without the need to count them.
Finally…
Thank you to all the parents who do the home-link challenges with their children at home. It is always lovely to receive so many emails of amazing home learning!
PS – I have seen so many Christmas decorations up already and I’m sure some of your will have already put yours up! Send me pictures – I love CHRISTMAS!!
Nursery Rhyme Day
What a fun day we’ve had! You all looked fantastic dressed up as nursery rhyme characters.
We had a mini talent show. Check out how confident and amazing Foundation are at singing nursery rhymes!
Incy Wincy
Little Bo Beep
Five Little Monkeys
Baa Baa Black Sheep
Another Little Bo Beep
We also had an original song called Flower Garden.
Healthy eating assemblies
The whole federation joined together to take part in an assembly about healthy eating last week. It was very exciting to see the other classes in the other schools! We had these booked in for Health Week last summer, which had to be cancelled.
The Leeds Health and Wellbeing Team delivered the assembly where we learnt all sorts of interesting things about keeping healthy and finished off with an interactive quiz.
Foundation Parents
Reminders!
- All F2 children need to make sure they bring their reading record and book into school everyday.
- PE is every Wednesday. Your child should be wearing a white t-shirt, navy shorts or tracksuit bottoms and pumps or trainers.
- On Friday, your child can come to school dressed as a nursery rhyme character. Please remember that we enjoy getting messy in Foundation so make sure your child still comes to school in suitable clothing and footwear.
Thank you!
Living and Learning: Odd Socks Day
Well done to everyone who came to school in odd socks today. It was a great way to start Anti-bullying Week! We talked about what the odd socks represented and the importance of respecting differences and treating everybody equally. We watched an assembly to show what Odd Socks Day is about. Click here to watch it.
Phonics Home Learning
To support children’s phonics learning, we use a variety of online resources on a weekly basis.
One of the main phonics websites we use is Phonics Play.
The website is really simple to use and has lots of fun games for each of the phonics phases. Before playing the games, you can select which letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes) you want your child to focus on.
If you are unsure on which sounds to select, just look in your child’s book bag or sound book – they bring home new phonemes each week.
The login details are Sphere (user name) and Spher3 (password).
Other useful resources…
We also use the Jolly Phonics Songs when introducing a new phoneme. At home, you could listen and sing-a-long to them when tidying up or making tea.
The BBC Bitesize website has lots of phase 2 videos. These are short clips focussed on the phonemes taught in phase 2. Again, these can be watched at home to help boost your child’s phonics skills.
Phonics Bloom – another website full of simple, fun and exciting phonics games.
F1 Parents
Phase 1 concentrates on developing children’s speaking and listening skills. It supports tuning into different sounds and gets them ready to begin oral blending and segmenting skills. Phonics Play and Phonics Bloom have lots of phase 1 games. Please play these games at home.
FANTASTIC FOUNDATION
Here are some highlights of another fantastic week in Foundation:
PE
On Wednesday, the children made safe risks when climbing and travelling on the big apparatus – Mrs Small was very impressed! They showed great determination and perseverance especially when climbing the ladder.
Living and Learning
Speaking of perseverance, it’s our Christian value for this half-term. Last Friday, Foundation made some perseverance stars in their Living and Learning session. They drew a picture of something they’d like to get better at. We discussed how we could achieve our perseverance stars.
Literacy
On Monday and Tuesday, F2 were authors and planned their own versions of the Three Little Pigs. The children changed the title, the characters, the materials and the ending. Check out their amazing planning!
Remembrance
On Wednesday, it was Remembrance Day. To celebrate the day, we made a poppy wreath. You might have seen it on our window next to the classroom door. The children also made poppies at the playdough table. Throughout the week, the children have shared their own knowledge and understanding about Remembrance Day.
Some more highlights of this week…
In Foundation, we love to observe children doing child-initiated writing. Here’s some great examples!
“I’m drawing my family. Now I need to draw my daddy.”
“I’m drawing the brick house.”
“I’m drawing the straw house.”
“I’m drawing the stick house.”
This week, the maths challenge involved counting and recognising numerals to 10. The children used 1:1 correspondence when counting their cubes to match each of the numbers. For the star challenge, they had to put(add) two towers together to find the total.
F1 Group Time
On Monday, they designed new houses for the three pigs.
On Tuesday, the children continued with their phase one phonics learning. They were asked to listen to the different percussion instruments and match the sounds with some animal puppets. E.g. Castanet sounds like a horse trotting.
Home-Link Challenge
Next week, is Nursery Rhyme week. Your child will have brought home some nursery rhymes. To help us great ready for next week’s learning, please practise these at home.
Nursery rhymes boost vocabulary and language development. They also support children’s literacy and early numeracy skills.