Exploring Habitats at Lotherton Hall!

This week, Year One had a fantastic trip to Lotherton Hall to learn about animals and their habitats. Guided by the educational specialists, we explored different habitats and the animals that call them home.

We compared the skulls of a herbivore and a carnivore, noticing how their teeth are perfectly suited to their diets. The children were fascinated to learn that penguins have sharp tongues to help them grip slippery fish!

This was a great start to our new Science unit about animals!

Help at Home:

• Explore your garden or local park and talk about the animals and their habitats.
• Read books about animals and how they survive in the wild.
• Watch nature documentaries together

Reading: It’s so important!

We hope that you’re enjoying reading your child’s library book with them. We call this a ‘love of reading’ book – to do just that, encourage a love of reading for your child! Reading to and with your child can have a huge positive impact on your child’s education.

This research is a powerful message of the impact you can have when reading to/with your child:

At school, your child reads a physical book four times a week – with a focus on teaching phonics skills. This is then sent home as an eBook. The purpose of the eBook at home is to celebrate your child’s success (in phonics skills). Your child should be able to read most of this book confidently and really feel like a reader.

We’ve chosen to use eBooks at home for many benefits. Allocating eBooks frees up about two hours of teacher or TA time changing books – now spent teaching reading!

Here’s some information on how to access eBooks but if you’re having any problems please speak to your child’s class teacher.

Happy reading!

Lost and Found

Our story this week has been Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers and the weather has certainly helped us learn about cold climates.

In the story, a boy finds a penguin at his door and goes on an adventure to try to find his home, as he thought he was lost. Just like the boy, we explored and learnt about where penguins live and extended our vocabulary by learning a new word: iceberg. We used the globe to find Antarctica and enjoyed finding other interesting places.

“I have found my name Savannah!”

“When I’m big I’m going to go to Tokyo with my dad, I want to see the tall buildings!”

Phonics

We have begun learning our Phase 3 sounds. This week, we have learnt four new digraphs/trigraphs ai,ee,igh,oa.

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’s poem is called Let’s Put on Our Mittens.

Let’s put on our mittens,
and button up our coats.
Wrap our scarves snuggly around our throats.
Pull on our shoes and fasten the straps.
And tie on tightly our warm woollen hats.
Open the door, and out we go.
Out, into the soft and feathery snow.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Maths – super subitising!

This week we have been practising our subitising skills. This means, we have been looking and saying how many objects we can see – without counting one by one.

Notices

Stay and Learn – Tuesday 14 January 2.20pm – 3pm

Our Stay and Learn sessions are a chance to find out more about your child’s journey through Reception. You can observe some teaching and learning, and pick up some tips to support your child at home. This session is all about Phonics (phase 3).

Living and Learning – I know what a drug is and that some drugs can be harmful

This week in living and learning we have been discussing how medicines and household products can help us, what the risks are of using them and how we can reduce these risks.

Year 4 were unanimous in their appreciation of medicine as something which can help you “to get better” but noted the risks:

• that if you take too much of it you may become more ill
• that you could choke on a tablet
• you might be allergic to it.

Their top tips to minimise these risks are:

• keep it in a high drawer
• if you use a syringe look at the back of the box to see how much you need
• be slow when you take it
• always do it with your grown up
• ask the doctor if you are not sure

Help at home: discuss with your child how you store and access medicine at home to keep them safe.  Can you work with your child to do a ‘safety audit’ around the house to find any risks associated with medicine or household products that could be mitigated?

Maths – Multiplying 3 numbers

On Thursday and Friday, Year 4 explored how to multiply three single digit numbers efficiently.  We started with a maths story …

The children used the picture to help them to visualise the maths story and then recorded their method for calculating how many counters there were altogether.

As a team, we shared our different methods and discussed which ones were the most efficient.

Our oracy target this half-term is all about using others in the group.  The class worked collaboratively to ensure that they explained their method.  When other learners didn’t understand, they rephrased their explanation and used clear descriptions to help their peers visualise their method. I was really proud of how the children were brave and used our Christian Value of honesty to tell their peers when they didn’t understand their method.  The children showed compassion to each other by being patient and explaining in a different way to make sure that we could all move forward together.

Having discussed and picked apart the different methods, we realised that the pictures helped us to do part of the calculation in our head but if we wanted to be able to calculate with bigger numbers or evaluate maths stories without a picture, it would be useful to find a method we could apply consistently. This lead us to investigate whether it mattered what order you multiply factors if there are more than two factors.

Great teamwork Year 4! What amazing mathematicians and collaborative learners you are!

Persuasive Text: Clean Up!

This week, Year 1 enjoyed reading Clean Up! by Nathan Bryon, which starts our unit on persuasive writing. The children explored the problem of litter on the beach and how it affects animals. They discussed Rocket’s feelings and how she persuaded others to help clean up. Inspired by Rocket, we began writing about the problem and over the next couple of weeks, the children will try to convince others to help fix it with their own writing.

Help at Home: Talk with your child about keeping our environment clean. Encourage them to spot litter during walks and discuss how we can protect wildlife. Together, we can all be heroes like Rocket!

Learning About the Life Cycle of a Plant!

This week, Year 1 explored the fascinating life cycle of plants! We learned what plants need to grow: sunlight, water and healthy soil. The children planted their own spider plants for the classroom, which we’ll care for and monitor weekly. Later this term, we’ll review and discuss how the plants have changed over time. The plant we are monitoring currently stands at 10cm tall!

Help at Home: Encourage your child to observe plants at home, water them, and talk about their growth.

Living and Learning – I know what a drug is

Our Living and Learning statement this week is:

“A drug is a substance that changes the way the body or mind works.”

The children began by sharing what they already know about medicines.

Not all medicines help your health.

Medicines help you to recover when you are ill. To recover is to get better.

Drugs can change your attitude. They can make you angry and some drugs are illegal.

Some drugs can make your body stronger – some people use them to cheat in sports.

Some people need to get medicine every day.

We get medicine from the doctor.

You keep drugs safe by keeping them somewhere children can’t reach.

You can try and help yourself by eating healthily and exercising before taking medicine.

I was so impressed by the children’s previous knowledge of medicine!

Helping someone to feel better

We spent some time thinking about times when we were ill or felt unwell and the things that helped us to feel better.

• rest
• water
• medicine from the doctor
• warm drink
• eating healthy food
• plasters

There are lots of different types of medicine and they’re all useful for different things. Some of them go in the body and others on the body. Some can be bought at the shop by a responsible adult; others have to come from the doctor.

Who can help?

We thought about the people who can help us to stay healthy and well. The children demonstrated fantastic knowledge of people in their communities who can help.

• parents and family
• carers
• doctors
• trusted adults at school
• police
• paramedics
• air ambulance
• mountain rescue
• yourself – keep safe and protect yourself

If you feel unwell, it is important to talk to a trusted adult at home or school. Only a trusted adult should give you medicines.

Help at home by discussing the safety measures you have in place around medicine at home. Invite your child to demonstrate their learning by having a go at this task:

Yoga

This half-term,  yoga and dance are our physical education units.

The children have made a fantastic start to yoga. We’ve learnt breathing techniques to help empty our minds and improve focus. Yoga is all about feeling relaxed and being in a calm state of mind, so we make sure our sessions are quiet and controlled.

The children have been practising yoga poses and transitioning between poses with flow and ease. Below are some examples of our learning so far.

The children have reflected on these sessions, stating they feel really calm, happy and ready for the rest of the day.

Help at home: Talk through the poses learnt with the children so far and practise them together. Make sure you have a calming environment, so that children can really empty their minds and feel peaceful and calm.

Living and Learning: I know what a drug is

Happy new year. We’ve had a great two days to start the Spring term, the children have come into school ready to learn. For the next two weeks are Living and Learning statement is I know what a drug is. A drug is a substance that changes the way the mind or body work.

Today, we talked about how there are different types of medicines which are used in different ways and for lots of different reasons. For example:

• some medicines help someone to get better from illness or injuries, such as antiseptic cream on a graze
• some medicines and other products protect the body, such as vaccinations which protect people against diseases (vaccinations might include injections or drops to swallow), sun cream protecting the skin from burning, or mosquito spray protecting against bites
• some medicines help people keep healthy and well and may need to be used every day or over a long period of time

The children were all very keen to share what they know about medicine.

We read some different scenarios and discussed what to do to help us to feel better if we felt this way. There a are a few examples below:

“When you have belly ache, don’t eat anything because it might get worse. You could drink some water,” said Thomas.

“If you have a cold you can use a tissue to catch the germs,” said Niyah.

“Sleeping can help you get better if you have cold,” said George.

“If you feel tired you should go to bed,” said Deacon.

Help at home: Can you think of at least five people who help others to stay healthy and well, discuss their roles and the kinds of things they do.