World Book Day
We’ve had a fantastic World Book Day in Year 1 and there was such a lovely buzz around the classroom all day!
To start the morning, we welcomed our adults into the classroom to share our favourite books. It was so lovely to have so many people join us and it really helped create a special, celebratory atmosphere. Thank you to everyone who came along – we loved sharing stories with you.
Next, we showed off our fantastic costumes! The children enjoyed talking about who they’d dressed up as, why they’d chosen their character and what they love about their favourite books. We saw so many brilliant ideas.
One of the highlights of the day was our crayon hunt around school. Lots of adults around school had dressed up as crayons of different colours, inspired by The Day the Crayons Quit. The children had to search the school to find every colour. It was lots of fun and the children were very determined to track them all down!
Later in the morning, we joined a live story time and drawalong with Alice Hemming, the author of The Flower Thief. The children loved following along and learning how to draw Squirrel.
In the afternoon, we got creative. First, we drew our favourite book covers and talked about what makes a book exciting to look at.
Then we created some artwork inspired by How to Be a Lion by Ed Vere. We used chalk pastels which were a bit tricky at first, but the children showed fantastic perseverance and kept trying even when it was challenging.
We were also very lucky to welcome Year 4 into our classroom to read with us. They were so enthusiastic and the children really enjoyed sharing books together. Thank you, Year 4!
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!
RE
Year 5 and 6 have been learning how to find readings in the Bible. We learnt that the Bible is made up of many different books (66 in total) and is divided into two main parts: the Old Testament (stories from before Jesus was born) and the New Testament (the life of Jesus and the early church).
We used the contents page at the front (Old Testament) or the end (New Testament) of the Bible to find the page for that specific book. Then, to find a certain section of that book we use the chapters (big numbers) and verses (small numbers).
I was very impressed with how quickly children learnt this new skill.
Help at home – why not have a practice at home? Can your child remember how to find various Bible readings.
Cross Country Finals!
On Tuesday, two of our Key Stage 2 children represented Leeds at the West Yorkshire cross country final at Temple Newsam in the glorious sunshine.
We are very proud of our runners who raced in tough, competitive conditions, with the best runners from across West Yorkshire. They both put in 100% effort and were a great support for each other. The children should feel proud of competing at this level.
Our two runners managed to finish in 56th (out of 141) and 22nd place (out of 151) – a fantastic achievement for both.
Thank you to parents who helped with transport and supported at the event.
Reception parent/carer survey
If you’re a parent of a child in Reception, please complete this short survey.
At St James’ Primary, we’re always trying to keep getting better and better. Your views help us to do that. The survey will only take a few minutes to complete and you’ve got until Wednesday 18 March to complete. (If you’d like us to follow-up any of your responses with you, we can only do this if you leave your name.)
We can’t guarantee to meet the needs and wants of every parent / carer, but we do assure you that we consider all the points raised and aim to act on specific points that are raised by many, or a useful idea raised by just a few.
Previously, based on your feedback, for example, we alternated the days Stay and Learns were held – to give all parents an opportunity to attend.
Thank you for taking the time to complete the survey. We’re looking forward to reading your views.
Topic – Computing
Year 5 began our new topic last week – computing. We started by looking at our new vocabulary and talking about how confident we felt about each word. We then began to learn about search engines and how they work. The children were introduced to the idea that search engines use web crawlers to locate webpages with relevant information on. They then store these in an index, which is a huge database. When you search something online, it searches the index for relevant webpages and an algorithm ranks them in order of relevance. Who knew all this went on in the background when you quickly search on the internet for something?! We were surprised to hear this long process happens in less than 1.2 seconds (from pressing ‘enter’ to seeing the results)!
Here is the vocabulary we are using this term.
Help at home:
Can you help your child learn the vocabulary? Maybe play a game of Pictionary.
Reading: Oracy (Railway Carriage)
In reading this week, the children are learning about, and performing, the poem ‘Railway Carriage’ by Robert Louis Stevenson written in 1885.
We recapped our oracy targets from this year and identified which ones would be relevant when performing a poem aloud to peers.
Help at home: Can your child learn this poem off by heart?
Word Book Day
We’re very excited to be celebrating World Book Day on Thursday in school!
If your child would like to, they can come to school dressed as their favourite book character or in something book-related. Please don’t feel any pressure to go out and buy a costume.
Throughout the day, we’ll be taking part in a range of challenges inspired by different books. One of our creative activities will be making a milk bottle Elmer. To help with this activity, we would really appreciate it if you could send your child in with an empty milk bottle (rinsed out, please!).
Love of Reading Stay & Learn
We also have a love of reading stay and learn in class on Thursday 9.00am-9.30am, you are more than welcome to join us for this session. This is a wonderful opportunity for you to watch one of our daily Poetry Basket sessions and share and enjoy lots of stories with your child.
We look forward to celebrating our love of books together!
Reading – Class Novel
To say we are enjoying our new class novel, The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell, is an understatement!
This half term we are trying a new way of reading our class novel. As we listen to the book being read, we are documenting (through words or pictures) what we learn about the characters and the details of the plot.
I hope you enjoy sharing the next chapter of the book together this weekend (photocopies provided with homework sheets.) Please let me know if this is something you enjoy doing and we can make it a regular thing!
Reviews for Wolf Wilder from some highly respected authors
A gorgeous flight of imagination set in a snowy Russian fantasy world, this has both the beauty and the fierce, funny and uncompromising storytelling style that sets Katherine Rundell’s books apart. The Wolf Wilder is a Fabergé egg of a novel – rich, bright and perfect ― Robin Stevens
A triumph! Exciting, moving, highly original, fierce, completely convincing ― Philip Pullman
The Wolf Wilder has everything: it’s a truly compelling read; it’s beautifully written; it’s totally original and yet has the familiar feel of an established classic ― Jacqueline Wilson
Help at home: Watch the ‘Introduction to the Wolf Wilder’ video on Authorfy https://authorfy.com/masterclasses/katherinerundell/ From our reading this week, can your child remember the names of the wolves that refuse to be re-wilded? From what they have read so far, do they agree or disagree with the reviews from Stevens, Pullman and Wilson?
Computing
In Year 6, we’ve really enjoyed the first week of our new computing topic. As part of this week, we’ve learnt about how search engines work. We found this video useful:
We were happy to discover that school filtering blocks content deemed inappropriate: this is done to keep us safe online whilst at school.
We have also been learning about logical reasoning.
Logical reasoning means thinking step by step to figure something out. Computers use logical reasoning by following instructions to make decisions and solve problems.
The children then used logical reasoning to solve sudokus. They were able to look carefully at the clues, eliminate what cannot be correct, and choose the only answer that makes sense. We knew this was NOT a guessing game. We were able to prove why each number belongs in a particular place.
Help at home – try solving sudokus together at home. Can your child explain why a number should go in a certain place?
Fun in the Mud at Forest School
This week, the children enjoyed a wonderfully muddy first Forest School session! They explored the space with great curiosity, searching for signs of spring and noticing changes in the natural environment. The children also took part in games, working together and building confidence. These experiences encouraged them to slow down and develop a sense of awe, wonder, and respect for the world around them.
