Maths – Flexible Partitioning
In our ongoing maths quest to master place value, we’ve been partitioning flexibly…
Sounds fancy, but what does it mean?
The children have been learning the component parts of numbers and the value of their digits. For example:
75 is made up of 7 tens and 5 ones.
The value of the 7 is 70.
The value of the 5 is 5.
70 plus 5 is equal to 75
70 + 5 = 75
We’ve been exploring the different ways that numbers can be partitioned. For example:
60 + 15 = 75
54 + 21 = 75
23 + 52 = 75
Help at home by exploring flexible partitioning. Use these stem sentences to help secure understanding of number.
The number is ___.
___ is made up of __ tens and __ ones.
The value of the __ is __.
The value of the __ is __.
How else can the number be partitioned?
Writing in Year 4 this week
This week, we have been developing our knowledge and skills in using certain types of words to make our writing more exciting. Can you spot them on our working wall?
Adverbs
We started the week applying our knowledge of adverbs. We wrote sentences about a soldier from Ancient Greece who returned to Athens from a war.
Using an adverb makes our writing more exciting because it gives us more information about the verb. Some of us wanted an extra challenge so we used the adverb at the start of the sentence and followed the adverb with a comma.
Prepositions
Having mastered adverbs, we moved on to identifying prepositions.
For a challenge, we tried some SATs style questions to show off how confident we felt about finding prepositions in sentences.
Being able to confidently identify prepositions set us up to compose our own sentences using prepositions. For those of us wanting a further challenge, we included adverbs to help the reader picture the scene.
Next week, we will be planning and drafting our recount. I can’t wait to see how these sentences develop into a descriptive recount! Watch this space for copies of the finished pieces!
Help at home
Play a game of adverb charades – Mime performing an action, such as skipping, in the style of an adverb. The rest of the players must then try to guess the adverb.
Example – while skipping with a big smile and swinging my arms, I could be miming the adverb ‘excitedly’.
Bonus points for any unusual adverbs!
The Everywhere Bear
This week we have had great fun with our focus book The Everywhere Bear by Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb.
In the story the Everywhere Bear goes on lots of adventures with the children and a huge journey when he gets lost! We added actions to help us to remember the ten different place he went, this helped us to remember and say them all. Great work reception!
Our word of the week has been journey the children have really enjoyed using this during their learning. We also created maps to show some of the journey’s we go on.
“On my journey to school I go past the Bob shop.”
“I found a conker on my journey today.”
Poetry Picnic
This week our poem was 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.
The classroom Challenges this week have been
- to write a message to the Everywhere Bear.
- to cut along the lines.
- to join two materials together.
- to make a map of a journey.
- To use the investigation station to explore the garden.
- to use the images to say what you can see and how you can see it.
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.
Next week our focus book is We’re Going On a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury.
Reminders and Notices
Stay and learn session
This is an opportunity for you to come into school to find out about the Early Years Curriculum and watch your child learning in school.
Phonics Phase 2 and coffee morning – 09.10.24 9am-10am
PE– Is on Monday please send your child to school wearing their PE kit and trainers they can fasten themselves.
Sharing Books– Please can these be returned on Thursday 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 in a copy of your photo or email it to:
stjameseyfs@spherefederation.org
Have a happy and healthy weekend and please don’t forget to email any pictures from home to stjames@spherefederation.org thank you as always for your support.
Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Rippon and Miss. Feldman and Mr. Smith.
Our learning journey this week
PE
Year 3 have been learning lots of new skills in our current sport – hockey.
We have been talking a lot about the fundamental movement skills children learn in schools, from reception right up to the end of high school. The simple skills we learn in reception are constantly used and built upon, allowing our bodies to perform more complex skills. Here are the fundamental movement skills below:
This is a slap pass. Our hands should be together, nice and high on the stick.
Here is a drag pass. We need to be nice and low to the ground and drag the stick to make contact with the ball. This will allow us more power.
Here, we are practising dribbling with close control.
In hockey, we are only allowed to use the flat side of the stick. Therefore, we have to use our guider hand to turn the stick.
It’s important to learn techniques to stop the ball, as we are not allowed to use our feet in hockey.
Help at home:
Have a conversation with your child about these skills in school. Which ones are important when playing hockey? Do we use these skills in other areas of our lives? Does everyone know how to kick a ball like a professional, or is it a skill that needs regular practise and progression?
Writing
We are preparing ourselves for our first piece of writing – a recount walking through Athens in Ancient Greece! The children have been working hard on using verbs and adverbs to make our writing sound better. As a class, we’ve managed to create a huge bank of vocabulary ready to magpie into our writing next week! Here are some sentences made by the children with the adverbs in bold.
Ferociously, the statues protected the colossal temple. – Freddie
Eagles soared elegantly above the majestic temple. – Max
Dark clouds quickly suffocated the sky – whole class
Forest Schools Fun
This week, year 5/6 had more fun in our woodlands area with the forest schools team .
We used the resources to made rope swings, a mud kitchen and even a wishing well!
It was fantastic hearing the children articulate what they had enjoyed about the session so well.
We will be focusing on more construction and developing the mud kitchen area in the weeks to come.
Help at home: Ask your child what they enjoyed about forest schools. Can they get any inspiration from the nature around you?
Castles and Cannonballs in PE!
This term in PE, Year 1 have been working hard on developing their construction, teamwork, and bowling skills! We’ve had so much fun building castles out of cones in teams. The children showed fantastic collaboration as they carefully planned and built their castles, making sure they were sturdy and creative.
Once the castles were complete, it was time for some excitement – knocking them down with “cannonballs”! Using dodgeballs, the children practiced their aiming and bowling skills, focusing on throwing with power and accuracy. They absolutely loved the challenge of taking down the castles and cheering on their teammates.
Through this activity, Year 1 have not only improved their physical skills, but also learned the importance of communication and teamwork. It’s been wonderful to see how well they’ve supported each other and celebrated each other’s successes!
Who are you?
We’ve had a lovely few weeks settling back into Nursery. As we have made new friends we started to talk about out families and who is important to us.
We became artists and captured our families on paper. Each child chose a colour to represent each person within their family.
In the early years, your child’s main way of learning and developing is through play. Building these realtionships between family and Nursery helps your child learn key life skills, like communicating, thinking, solving problems, moving and being with other children and grown-ups.
Spending time playing together sends your child a simple message – you’re important to me. This message helps your child learn about who they are and where they fit in the world and we foster this within Nursery!
Help at Home:
As the weather is beginnng to change, so is our environment. This is the perfect time go out for a family walk and see what you can find!
Please bring in all your lovely Autumnal treasures so we can add them to our tuff tray next week.
Have a happy and healthy weekend!
Miss Ward and Miss Harvey
The importance of attendance
What did you do today? ‘We just played’…is the answer many parents of Reception children get. But here’s just a few of the things your child would miss if they’re absent for five consecutive days.
Phonics: Children learn four new graphemes and three tricky words each week.
Reading: Children practise reading books that closely match their phonics, plus loads of stories are read aloud and celebrated. We visit the school library once a week to choose a book to take home.
Poetry picnic: There’s a poetry session every day –another valuable activity which helps children learn to read.
Writing: We write every day using the graphemes that we’ve learned.
Handwriting: Children learn how to form letters correctly, otherwise joining letters will be difficult in Key Stage 1.
Maths: We’ve four maths sessions a week, setting the foundations for children to be successful in using and applying numbers in the future.
Alongside all of this, children learn Science, Music and other subjects. Even more importantly, children learn to concentrate in a large group, to share resources, take turns when speaking, answer in full sentences, regulate our feelings and prepare ourselves for future learning.
There’s a lot happening when ‘we just play’!
KS1 Dictation for writing
All the children have made a great start to their writing journeys this year. We have been really pleased with their enthusiasm.
In Key Stage One, we use dictation as a tool to help children with their writing. During dictation, the teachers will either have sentences already in mind or they will discuss and decide on a sentence with the children. Dictation allows children to watch as an adult models using different writing skills effectively. Together we practise letter formation, spacing between words, spelling, where and when to use punctuation such as capital letters and full stops. Teachers also model how to listen to sounds in words and write the corresponding letters.
Here are some examples of our writing:
Help at home: You could think of some simple sentences to write with your child at home. These could be about anything at all from writing about what you did at the weekend or a sentence about a film or a program you have watched on the telly.
Ask them about the process and how they do it school. I’m sure they’d be happy to share with you how skilful they are at counting the words in the sentence and using their Phoneme Fingers to listen for sounds in words. You could also include some tricky words or some of your child’s spelling words.
KS1 Maths-Numbots time!
All children in Year 1 have been given an account and login for Numbots (on the back of their reading records). This is an interactive tool that school heavily invests in for your child. It is an engaging platform to help your child learn the foundations of maths.
Numbots is all about every child achieving the ‘triple win’ of understanding, recall and fluency in mental addition and subtraction, so that they move from counting to calculating.-Numbots Innovators.
We have seen the amazing impact that Numbots can have on a child’s knowledge and confidence in Maths. Numbots is part of the weekly homework for Year 1 children. Please can we ask that you make this tool a part of your weekly family routine. Once children have logged on a few times, they’re hooked and really enjoy ‘playing’!
We have class leader boards that tell us the amount of time, amount of correct answers etc for each child.
(For Your Information: Once children have completed the Numbots levels they can then move on to TTRockstars which is based on multiplication and division.)
If you are experiencing an difficulties with logging on, please chat to your child’s teacher.
Help at home: Help your child log on to their Numbots account. Guide them to navigate the devise being used and let them impress you!