Wonderful writing!
This half term, our class novel is Kensuke’s Kingdom, written by Michael Morpurgo. This week, we have been writing from the perspective of a character; using figurative language to describe and create atmosphere.
What wonderful writing!
All classes in school have a class novel on the go. Y5,6 are enjoying the modern classic, Kensuke’s Kingdom this half-term.
This morning, our older children in Y5,6 have been writing a diary entry from a character’s perspective.
Have a read of this great writing – well done, Mya!
…Mya’s not finished the diary yet. If your child is in Y5,6, have a chat with how the diary entry could continue!
Church Experience
Today, we visited St James’ Church to participate in Harvest activities.
Living and Learning
We’ve been thinking about what it means to be resourceful and resilient this week. We set ourselves some goals that we would like to achieve by the end of the year (or maybe sooner) by being resourceful and resilient. We’re aiming high!
Year 1 and 2 Super Stars!
In Year 1 and 2, we have a marble jar that we try to fill as a class. We can earn marbles for lining up quietly, following instructions and working together as a team.
We were very excited to have filled our marble jar today so we voted on our treat – democracy in action! The children chose to have extra playtime where they were allowed to have the equipment out, play football and play on the slide.
Here are some pictures of us enjoying our treat.
Living and Learning: I am resourceful and I am resilient.
In our Living and Learning session, we talked about being resourceful and resilient.
Willow told us it would be resourceful to use a dictionary or to search for the word on the internet if you were reading and didn’t know what a word meant. Mikey said that if you needed a glue stick and didn’t have one you could use sticky tape or double-sided tape. Ellie pointed out that if you didn’t have any pink paint you could mix red and white. Leah said that if you are reading and you can’t read a word you can use your phonics to help you.
We then thought about resilience. We talked about how you might feel if you were learning something new. Emilija said you might be anxious because you might not know what to do. Daisy said that if you can’t do something straight away, you need to think about it. Mikey told us that he struggled to learn to count to 100 but he kept practising and felt happy when he could do it. We listened to the saying:
“Try to keep going, try to keep smiling, even when things get bad.
Try to keep going, try to keep smiling, then you won’t feel so sad.”
Where in the world?
For the past three weeks, we have had a mini topic of “Where in the world?”.
The children have been learning all about the world around them: which town they live in, which country their town is in and the names and locations of the continents and oceans.
They have enjoyed listening to a song about the continents to help learn their names and a song about the oceans, too. Today, we put all of that knowledge together and labelled both the continents and the oceans.
This lesson linked in with our homework – “I know some Where in the World facts”. Here are some facts that we knew.
- Eliza – ‘I learnt how to say hello in Spanish “Ola”.’
- Ellie – ‘I learnt the 5 oceans – the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian, the Southern and the Artic.’
- Jack – ‘I learnt how to say good afternoon in different languages – Buenas tardes (Spanish) boa tarde (Portuguese) bonne après-midi (French) guten nachmittag (German).’
- Daisy and Emilija – ‘We learnt the names of the different continents – Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, Antarctica, North America and South America.’
Living and Learning: I take a safe risk. I take responsibility for my own learning
There were some excellent contributions this week during our ‘Living and Learning’ session. We explored both this week’s ‘Rs for learning’ with maturity and insight.
Firstly we asked, what do the statements actually mean? One group concluded that taking a ‘safe risk’ is ‘when you do something that might be a bit scary but you’ve thought about the worst that can happen and it’s not that bad-like putting your hand up even when you’re not sure it’s the right answer.’
When we strive to get better at something we often have to come out of our comfort zone and challenge ourselves. We talked about how we can better prepare ourselves for taking ‘safe risks’ by making sure we’re ready to learn and by knowing the specific areas we need to work on.
Being in charge of and responsible for our own learning led on brilliantly from last week’s discussion about being ready to learn. We talked about the word ‘independent’ and how it is up to us (not an adult at home) to make sure we have the things we need for school!
Everyone agreed children have a right to a good education. We thought about how our ‘rights’ link to our responsibilities. As Lily commented, “It’s my responsibility to make sure I’ve got my reading book and PE kit”.
We used the trigger statement ‘It’s my responsibility to…’ and wrote our responses on post-it notes. We then came to the front of class (taking a ‘safe risk’ if we were slightly nervous) and shared our ideas.
- “It’s my responsibility not to lose my reading book so I can get better at reading.” Jessica
- “I take responsibility for my learning, for pride and presentation in my work.” Emily
- “We have a right to the equipment on the table so it’s my responsibility to look after school equipment.” Amber
Several people noticed how the 8 Rs often link together, meaning we need to remember the discussions we have had in previous sessions.
I’m looking forward to another lively discussion next week. Well done, Year 3/4.
Grid references
We’ve been mixing up our maths and topic work by using 4 and 6 figure grid references to locate places quickly in an atlas.
Baking Bread
Today, we’ve been busy baking bread.
- “It tasted delicious and it had a very soft texture.”
- “Mine was a bit salty, I think I added too much!”
- “I gave it a 7/10. It needed less salt.”
