Class Novel
Year 3 are determined to finish our last class novel of the year by a well-loved classroom author, Onjali Rauf. Here’s the book, protected always by our loved Latin mouse – Minimus!
The Letter with the Golden Stamp puts us in the shoes of Audrey – a young girl with a lot to carry on her shoulders. Her mum is ill and it’s Audrey’s job to take care of her, and her two siblings, whilst keeping it all a big secret. But that’s not all. There’s a suspicious house across the street that might be spying on Audrey and her family.
At the moment in our novel, Audrey is trying to communicate with the stranger across the street. She’s received a scruffy note asking Audrey and friends to wash the dirty car outside the house for £2! Audrey is also busy trying to make sure her family have enough to eat, and shop keeper Mrs Davies and Mo the postman are helping her out.
Help at home:
Audrey is currently doing something that is wrong (shoplifting), but she’s doing it for a caring reason. Talk to your child about whether her choice is ever ok, even in Audrey’s circumstances. Could Audrey go about her problems in another way? Who could she ask for help? Who could we ask for help in and out of school if we need it?
RE – Daniel and the Lions’ Den
In RE, we’re learning about messages.
Christians believe that God sends them messages through prophets. Stories in the Bible tell of prophets – inspired teachers who spread the word of God.
This week, we’ve read the story of Daniel and the Lions’ Den. The story teaches Christians about the importance of faith in God and that God will protect those who trust him.
The children enjoyed acting out the story and reflected maturely on the important of trust.
Help at home by discussing faith and trust with your child. What does trust look and feel like?
Living and Learning – I understand there are different types of families
Today, we explored how all families are unique in their own special ways.
We read The Great Big Book of Families by Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith. After the story, we talked about an important question: Are all families the same?
We discovered that families can be very different:
Some people live with their grandparents instead of their mums.
Some families have pets.
Families celebrate different holidays and traditions.
Some families speak different languages at home.
Even though our families may look and live differently, we learned that what really matters is how much we care for one another.
We also shared ways we show love and care to our own families:
“I take care of my little sister by pushing her on the swing.”
“I cuddle my cats.”
“I give my sister her milk.”
“I play with my dog at my uncle’s house.”
“I make things for my dad and sister.”
It was a lovely reminder that every family is special and caring for each other is what makes a family strong.
Living and Learning – Relationships
To start this half term, our Living and Learning focus has been relationships. We’ve learnt about 3 key areas:
- respecting differences between people
- understanding that we all have different needs
- understanding that there are different types of families
Respecting differences
In this session, we explored the differences between boys and girls.
Sometimes, stories, TV and people say that ‘boys do this’ and ‘boys do that’. The children were able to demonstrate their knowledge that boys and girls can do the same tasks and enjoy the same things.
We also learnt about the PANTS rule. The key points are:
- pants are private
- always remember your body belongs to you
- no means no
- talk about secrets that upset you
- speak up – someone can help
Help at home by discussing the PANTS rule with your child. Explore the resources on the NSPCC website (along with lots of other helpful advice and support).
Different Needs
We all have different needs and we all need different types of care. We discussed the needs that people might have at different stages of their life and who might care for them. We explored different kinds of care:
- fulfilling basic needs
- playing
- loving
- medical
- listening
- physical
- emotional
- social
The children showed fantastic maturity and impressed me with their sensitivity when discussing people’s needs.
Help at home by discussing different needs with your child. You could use this stem sentence to help: I care for ______ by ______.
Different families
We started this session by sharing who was in our families. That was enough to realise quite how different families can look!
There are lots of different ways to be a family. Family is special no matter what it looks like. The important thing is that people in families care about each other.
We discussed how children can seek support when they’re worried about members of their family. Help at home by discussing trusted adults with your child. Where can they seek support at school and at home?
Going for Gold!
Well done to Year 4 for working hard all year to learn their times tables ready for the MTC check which we completed last week. We celebrated with our long awaited Gold Party. We can’t wait to share the results with you in our end of year reports.
Steel Drums
Following our learning about the West Indies Carnival, we thoroughly enjoyed a visit from ArtForms to learn how to play the steel drums.
Jam Sandwiches
We’ve been looking at sequencing and have been trying to use the words ‘first’, ‘next’, ‘then’ and ‘finally.’
We made jam sandwiches and then put the pictures in order to show others how to make a jam sandwich.
- First we washed our hands.
“Nice and clean”
2. Next we got the bread.
“Second I got the bread!”
3. Then we spread the jam.
“Then we spread it with a knife.”
4. Finally, we ate it.
“It’s yummy.”
‘I like it. It’s super tasty.”
Help at home: Lots of children could talk about making a sandwich at home or with their grandparents. With your support, could they make another sandwich thinking about our instructions?
Reading
As the weather has been so nice, we have been taking some of our learning outside. Today, we took time to enjoy our class novel under the shade of a tree on our school field – we are so lucky to have such fantastic outdoor space available to us.
Our class novel, Letters from the Lighthouse by Emma Carroll, compliments our WWII topic learning from Summer term 1.
Reading is such a crucial part of a child’s education and increasing the amount we read will positively impact on our writing and maths skills. We focus a lot on reading at school but reading away from school is just as important; here is what our school reading policy says about home reading:
All children are expected to read at home each day. When children are a little older, this might be reading independently sometimes, but it should be with an adult on a regular basis.
To give our children the best chance of becoming readers at home, we ensure that reading at home is celebrated.
We provide children with opportunities to read a variety of rich texts in school and at home, but children should be encouraged to discover books and other texts with family members and by themselves, too. We like the Book Trust website as a book-finder tool – you can find age-appropriate books that match the reader’s interests. We also suggest Love Reading 4 Kids and Books for Topics. Looking at books that have won awards is also a good idea; for example, Carnegie, Costa, Blue Peter, Waterstones, UKLA and Klaus Flugge.
Help at home – please make time for reading at home. Encourage your child to borrow books from school. Visit Wetherby library. Talk to them about our class novel.
Forest School Fun!
This week the children had their first session at forest school, they learned the rules for forest school and explored the different areas. They also had the chance to look for bugs, something they are very good at and love to do!
They are definitely looking forward to their next session week.
Forest School Fun
Our Early Years classes thoroughly enjoyed their first Forest School session on Friday.
First, we met our instructor, Sarah, and Spike – the hedgehog! We learnt how to keep safe during Forest School and did brilliantly at remembering the forest safety rules.
Our morning consisted of mini-beast making, relaxing with friends in hammocks, getting busy in the mud kitchen, swinging on bars, and forest storytelling.
We can’t wait for more fun-filled weeks ahead!
What did your child enjoy most about Forest School?
We’d love to know so we can pass on the feedback!
