Retrieval practise in reading: The Spider and the Fly
With national poetry day coming up next week (02.10.25), Year 5 have been reading The Spider and the Fly by Mary Howitt. To summarise, this poem reveals a cunning spider’s evil plan to lure the fly into his trap by using flattering words. The fly at first is very wary of the spider, but, in time, the spider’s kind words are too enticing for the fly to ignore. The fly enters the spider’s trap and does not meet a happy end.
When reading aloud, the children have blown me away with their fantastic oracy skills, such as tonal variation and voice projection when pretending to be the spider and the fly. In our most recent retrieval lesson, children were tasked with drawing the spider’s parlour based on facts in the text. The accuracy of their illustrations and annotations was brilliant and the children managed to include everything!
Here are some brilliant examples:
Help at home:
Practise reading aloud with your child and focus on different ways to use voices. With national poetry day just around the corner, perhaps use a poem to read together?
Living and Learning: I know that rights come with responsibilities
This week, our Living and Learning statement is I know that rights come with responsibilities.
In Year 3, we have been learning that rights are the things that everyone deserves (like being safe, cared for and listened to) and responsibilities are the things we should do to make sure we and others can enjoy those rights (like following rules, showing respect and helping others).
The children discussed examples of rights they have at school, such as the right to learn, play and feel safe. The responsibilities that go with them, such as listening carefully, taking care of equipment and being kind.
Help at Home: Talk to your child about their rights and responsibilities at home. For example, they might have the right to play with toys but the responsibility to tidy them away afterwards. Sharing examples together will help to strengthen their understanding.
Tens And Ones
Our maths learning has been all about multiples of 10. We’ve been practising counting in 10s and adding 10 more and finding 10 less. Although adding multiples of 10 sounds tricky, if we know that 3 = 4 = 7, then 30 + 40 = 70.
We started to think about tens and ones. We’ve been making 2- digit number using Base 10 to represent the tens and ones.
We then looked at groups of objects and thought about how we could figure out the amount by grouping the tens and counting the left over ones.
Help at home: Choose a 2 digit number with your child and see if they can make or draw the number. You can find virtual Base 10 online if needed.
Wake Up Shake Up
This week we’ve been getting active with our brand new Wake Up Shake Up dance. Every morning, Year 3 have been joining in with big smiles, great moves and lots of energy.
It’s a brilliant way to start the day and it wakes up our bodies and our brains, ready for learning. We’re already getting really good at the moves, and some of us are even adding our own style!.
Next week, we’re excited to be teaching the rest of the school our new dance. The song is all about having a bad hair day so, no excuses if your hair’s a little wild, it just means you’re performance ready!
Help at home: Practise the dance at home
Ground Control to Major Tom!
This week in Music, Year 3 have been learning all about ballads. A ballad is a song that tells a story.
We listened to Space Oddity by David Bowie and thought about the story it was telling. Then, we created our own storyboards to show what we imagined was happening in the song. Our storyboards were amazing, full of creativity and brilliant ideas!
We also loved watching our very own ‘Major Tom’ in space, astronaut Chris Hadfield, as he sang Space Oddity on the International Space Station. (Apologies in advance if you don’t hear the end of it at home, we were very impressed!)
Help at home: Watch the video and discuss the story of Major Tom.
Science – grouping animals
We’ve really enjoyed talking about some of our favourite animals in science. The children blew me away with their knowledge about amphibians, reptiles, mammals, birds and fish.
We enjoyed thinking about how many different ways we could group animals by using different criteria. Other popular choices included: can fly/can’t fly, lives in the water/lives on land/can live in both and pet/not a pet. I can tell we are going to love this topic so if you do any extra learning at home please let me know so we can share this learning in class and reward the children for their efforts!
Help at home – BBC bitesize has lots of great material on the topic of classifying animals. This is a good page to start from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zfsqtcw
My Family
We’ve talked about how all families are different and special and made pictures of our families using pebbles.
Poetry Basket
Each week we will be learning a new poem. This week our poem was called Breezy Weather.
Breezy weather. Freezy weather.
When the leaves fall, we all fall together.
Breezy weather. Freezy weather.
When the wind blows, we huddle together.
Next week we will be reading our first focus story ” The Three Little Pigs”. We will be using story props to retell the story.
Reminders and Notices
PE– Is on Monday please send your child to school wearing their PE kit and trainers they can fasten themselves.
Sharing Books– Sharing books were sent home this week. Please can these be returned on Wednesday for the children to pick a new one.
Family Photo-please can I remind you to send in a photo of your child with their family so we can add them to our class display. You can send in a copy of your photo or email it to:
stjameseyfs@spherefederation.org
Have a happy and healthy weekend
Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Rippon, Miss. Feldman, Mrs Linton, Mrs Cairnes and Mrs Small
Library Day Update
Hi,
I just wanted to let everyone know that our new library time will be on Tuesdays.
If your child would like a swap their library book, please ensure they have it packed before Tuesdays.
Living and Learning: I use good manners
This week’s Living and Learning was all about using our manners.
Good manners are the thoughtful words and actions we use to show kindness and respect to others.
We discussed what we already do to show good manners such as smiling and saying please and thank you.
We discussed how our manners make our school a nicer place and help everyone to learn.
The children shared lots of fantastic suggestions for showing good manners, such as:
It’s rude to interrupt someone unless it is an emergency- Frankie
I always smile at other people- Zubie
I look at people when they are speaking to me – Austin
Help at home: Chat about times when you have used good manners.
The Great Big Book of Families
We’ve had a busy week using our focus book The Great Big Book of Families by Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith.
We’ve talked about how all families are different and special and made pictures of our families using pebbles.
Our word of the week was family the children have really enjoyed using this during their learning.
“My family live in a house, we have 5 people and daddy is the only boy.”
“My family has lots of people in it.”
Poetry Picnic
Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week our poem was called Breezy Weather.
Breezy weather. Freezy weather.
When the leaves fall, we all fall together.
Breezy weather. Freezy weather.
When the wind blows, we huddle together.
Phonics
This week, we have learnt the phonemes (the sounds a letter makes) i,n,m and d.
During our phonics learning, we listened carefully to the initial sound in a word and sorted objects by the sounds they begin with.
Help at home: Look out for a ‘learn at home’ sheet which recaps the phonics learning from the week. Please look at this with your child and complete the activities.
Reading practice
Reading daily at home is an essential part of your child’s reading journey. If you have any issues logging onto Collins eBooks, please let me know. Please make sure your write in your child’s reading record and return it every Thursday.
Maths
This week, we’ve focussed on perceptual subitising (recognising the number of objects without counting) up to 3. We’ve been learning how to use our fast eyes when looking at small sets of objects.
Reminders and Notices
PE– Is on Monday please send your child to school wearing their PE kit and trainers they can fasten themselves.
Sharing Books– Sharing books were sent home this week. Please can these be returned on Wednesday for the children to pick a new one.
Family Photo-please can I remind you to send in a photo of your child with their family so we can add them to our class display. You can send in a copy of your photo or email it to:
stjameseyfs@spherefederation.org
Have a happy and healthy weekend
Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Rippon, Miss. Feldman, Mrs Linton, Mrs Cairnes and Mrs Small