Poetry – Good Hope

This week in Year 3 we explored the powerful poem Good Hope by the famous poet Benjamin Zephaniah. The children spent time reading and discussing the poem and thinking about its important message about hope, kindness and believing in people.

We talked about what the poet means when he says “I believe” and the class shared their own ideas about what they believe in and what gives them hope in the world. The poem helped us think about how people from different religions, cultures and backgrounds can live together peacefully and treat each other with respect.

The class also enjoyed performing the poem aloud. We practised reading it with expression, clear voices and confidence. Some children performed in small groups, using actions and different voices to bring the poem to life. It was wonderful to see everyone working together and sharing the poem’s message.

We also looked closely at the illustrations in the poem and discussed what the growing hands might represent. The children had some thoughtful ideas about how hope can grow when people help each other.

Questions to ask your child at home:

• What is the poem Good Hope about?

• What does the poet say he believes in?

• Why do you think the poem repeats the words “I believe”?

• What do you believe in?

Living & Learning – I know the importance of personal hygiene, including handwashing

This week in living and learning, we’ve been thinking about how we can keep ourselves healthy by paying attention to our personal hygiene.

We’ve had some very honest conversations about handwashing, reflecting on when we should wash our hands and the times we’ve not washed our hands.  Did you know that there are parts of our hands that we are more likely to not wash well? We made a diagram to show this:

Help at home: Together, look at the guidance from the NHS about how to wash your hands. Get your child to coach you or a sibling to see how much of the guidance they can remember and apply. NHS handwashing guidance

Living and Learning

I know the importance of personla hygiene including handwashing.

This week, we’ve have been learning about germs and how to prevent spreading them.

We started off the lesson by testing our knowledge about all things germs. Did you know that the kitchen contains the most germs in the house, even more than the bathroom? Also, there are 100,000 microbes in a sneeze, which can travel up to 8 metres!

We learnt about cross contamination and how quickly germs can spread. And, although we have learnt this before, we revisited the importance of washing hands properly and with soap and warm water.

Help at home – Encourage your child to wash their hands before eating and when they come home from school. Can they remember why it is important to do so? What germ facts can the remember?

Living and Learning: Dental health

This week in class we have been learning about how to keep our teeth healthy. We began the lesson by sharing what we already knew about looking after our teeth. The children had lots of great ideas and talked about the importance of brushing our teeth daily, using toothpaste, flossing, visiting the dentist regularly and eating healthy foods to help keep our teeth strong.

We then explored how different foods contain different amounts of sugar. We discussed how some foods and drinks might seem healthy, but if we have too much of them they can still be harmful to our teeth.

We sorted foods into three categories: those with the least amount of sugar, those with the most amount of sugar, and foods that sit somewhere in the middle. This helped us think carefully about the choices we make and how they can affect our teeth.

We finished the lesson by discussing balance and moderation. The children learned that it is ok to enjoy treats such as chocolate and sweets sometimes, but it’s important to have them in moderation and to remember to brush our teeth afterwards. The class did a fantastic job sharing their ideas and thinking carefully about how they can take care of their teeth everyday!

Science – How can we look after the Earth?

This week in science, we’ve been thinking about how we can look after the Earth. We talked about why our planet is special and how everyone can help to take care of it.

To start our learning, we explored the school grounds to look for ways our school is already helping the Earth. The children did a brilliant job spotting lots of positive things we’re doing, including:

• putting litter in the bins

• recycling different materials

• planting and looking after plants around the school

  

Next, we talked about bigger ideas and the small actions we can all do every day to help care for the planet. The children came up with some fantastic suggestions:

• turning the lights off when we leave a room

• turning the tap off while we brush our teeth

• using reusable water bottles

We also compared our local area, Wetherby, with the capital city, London. The children noticed that London has many more people which means it’s often much busier and has a lot more traffic. Wetherby has fewer people and quieter roads which helps keep it calmer and cleaner. However, we talked about how this also means it’s our responsibility to help protect and look after our local area so it stays a lovely place to live.

We finished by thinking about how everyone can make a difference. Even small actions can help when we all work together to care for our Earth.

Help at home by looking out for Earth helpers. How many Earth-friendly actions can you spot this week?

World Book Day

We had the best time on Thursday celebrating World Book Day. We started the day with a book themed Stay and Learn that was a very busy session with so many of our grown ups coming.

Then we read the story How to be Lion by Ed Vere a heart warming children’s book about Leonard, a gentle lion who prefers writing poems to chasing ducks. When other lions pressure him to be “fierce,” Leonard and his duck friend, Marianne, prove that being yourself is important. It celebrates kindness and individuality. This was the book chosen by the Reading Ambassadors for the whole school to look at. We made some lions to add to a whole school display and talked about how we are all different and special.

We were also very lucky to welcome our Year 6 Buddies into our classroom to read with us. They were so enthusiastic and the children really enjoyed sharing books together. Thank you, Year 6! One of the other highlights was helping to write a whole school book together, we really enjoyed adding a fun Reception and Nursery spin to the story.

To finish our day, we visited the Reading Café, organised by our fantastic Reading Ambassadors. We enjoyed a biscuit and a cup of hot chocolate while sharing books together – the perfect end to a lovely day.

Throughout the day, there were so many opportunities to celebrate reading and our love of books. It was wonderful to see the children so excited about stories.

Help at home by continuing to celebrate our love of reading!

Philosophy Friday – What would the world be like without stories?

Philosophy is thinking deeply.

Every Friday, we start our day with some time to wonder and ponder.

We’ve a different question each week – there’s no obvious right/wrong answer and no underlying moral message. All children are given the opportunity to contribute their ideas and give reasons for their thoughts.

The children had some lovely responses.

Children won’t be happy anymore and they wouldn’t have fun things to talk about.
– Eleanor

Boring!
– Eli

Children and adults won’t learn anything.
– Scarlett

It would be hard to learn how to read.
– Savannah

It’d be really sad.
– Mia

Everyone would be grumpy.
– George

Help at home by discussing this week’s Philosophy Friday question with your child.

World Book Day

On Thursday, it was World Book Day. This was a huge success at St James, with children arriving in fantastic costumes and really showing their love for reading throughout the day.

Year 5 began by learning about our whole school book (How To Be A Lion). We uncovered the hidden messages in the book:

You can be friends with whoever you want – Honey

You don’t have to be the same as everyone else because you think that’s the right thing to do – Elara

Everyone is different and that’s ok – Kiara

The children then went on to do a variety of tasks, such as: creating their own lions to show their individuality; writing a poem about the friendship between the lion and the duck; and rewriting the book with a different, unlikely friendship between two different animals.

Then, we started our new class novel…

The Forest Of Doom!

The children have absolutely loved diving into this fighting fantasy adventure, where we are the heroes and we decide our own journey through the book (whether that be good or bad we’re yet to see). We’re going to travel into the forest once a day for our class novel time, so parents be ready to hear about the monsters we’ve faced!

Finally, we practised our poem to perform in collective worship (Railway Carriage) and enjoyed reading books in our school library.

World Book Day

We had such a fun and busy World Book Day in Year 4! Many of the children loved coming to school dressed as their favourite book characters and it was wonderful to see so many creative costumes and to hear about the books that inspired them. Throughout the day, we took part in lots of exciting World Book Day activities to celebrate our love of reading.

One of the highlights was helping to write a whole school book together. We can’t wait to hear the finished story in Collective Worship tomorrow. Everyone shared ideas and worked hard to contribute their part. The children also created some fantastic artwork and an acrostic poem inspired by the story How to Be a Lion by Ed Vere, which will be displayed in the school library.

We were also lucky to enjoy hot chocolate and stories in the library before spending time with the Year 1 class sharing stories together. It was lovely to see the children recommending their favourite books to each other and talking about the characters they love and why.

It was a brilliant day full of stories, creativity and lots of enthusiasm for reading.  What a great way to celebrate the Year of Reading!

Help at home: read the next chapter of our class novel that will be sent home with your child tomorrow.

World Book Day in Year 2

We had a fantastic World Book Day today and loved seeing all the different outfits and the children looked amazing.

In class we read How to be a Lion by Ed Vere and explored Leonard’s characteristics, thinking about what makes him such a unique character. We also took part in a whole-school story where each class wrote a page. Our class had the exciting job of writing the final page and deciding how the story would end.

In the afternoon, we enjoyed some quiet reading time with the Year 3s while having a hot chocolate and a biscuit, which was a lovely way to finish the day.