Geography: St James’ does Magna!
We recently took our geography learning to Magna in Sheffield. It was a great way to kick start our Natural Disasters topic and got us all excited to find out more about the world around us.
From the epic singing all the way there on the coach to the fire room, water pavillion and volcano making and erupting – Magna had it all!
Check out how we got on…
Living and Learning: I know that some drugs can be harmful.
Years 5 and 6 have taken part in some fantastic discussions this week about our living and learning statement: I know that some drugs can be harmful.
We looked more specifically on managing risks in social situations, and how media influence can blur our opinions on drugs, alcohol and smoking.
Firstly, we discussed where we might see or hear about drugs in the media. Here’s what we came up with:
- TV adverts
- radio adverts
- posters
- shop flyers and signs
- advertising on items, for example birthday cards
- TV programmes and soaps
- newspapers and magazines
We then looked further into some examples (below) and reflected on what the mixed messages were.
Here were some responses from the children:
“The picture in the middle suggests that relaxing, fun and partying all happen because of alcohol.” Harley
“The last one makes me think that men might not feel good if they don’t want to drink beer.” Kara
“The colours in the word ‘vape’ make it seem appealing, but the black and white smoke suggests that it’s not good for our bodies.” Jacob
These three pictures hold mixed messages about drugs and alcohol, which can be difficult to see without talking about them.
Towards the end of the week, we combined this learning with our current writing skill (direct speech) to create a short conversation between two people. We had to goals for this learning: to punctuate our direct speech correctly; to react appropriately/safely in a tricky social situation.
Here’s an example of how someone in our class would react to a situation they were uncomfortable in.
Welcome back!
Happy New Year!
We have welcomed returning children into nursery over the past two weeks, but we’ve also had some new faces appear! So a warm welcome to our new nursery children, we can’t wait to get to know you all.
Here is what we’ve been getting up to so far!
We used puppets to retell the story of Little Red Riding Hood
‘ the wolf dresses up as grandma and tries to eat them’ – Beau
‘ they walk in the forest to grannies house’- Deacon
We explored ice- the children used different tools to try and break down the ice
‘ its melting because its warm in the classroom’- Gracie
‘ its like glass’ – Child
Our focus number this week was one, we looked around the classroom to see how many we could find
‘ I’ve got one tiger’ – Austin
‘I’ve found one object Miss Ward’- Cora
We also enjoyed a lovely story time session with Mrs Payne in the library, this weeks book was all about polar bears.
Polite Reminders
- If your child has a pair of wellies that you would like to leave at school this would be really useful. Due to the continuous rain the playground has become quite muddy and we are encouraging the children to change into their wellies.
Week 2 – animal fact books
We have had great fun exploring ice and learning more about different animals this week. We used different cutting tools to create ice sculptures and discovered that the more we held the ice pieces the smaller they became.
We created igloos in our construction area using different building materials and snowflake designs on pegboards. “It is tricky to make the band go around the peg. My fingers are working hard” Aurelia.
We love reading in Reception. We enjoy exploring different books. This week we learnt more about fiction and non-fiction books. We sorted books from our reading corner into two piles and then used the contents page to help us find specific information.
We can’t wait to see everyone in our classroom for our phonics lesson on Monday 16 January. Please come to the office for 9am and then we can start learning together.
Geography: creative geographers!
Check out what some of the Year 4s got up to at home to get into our geography topic: Natural Disasters…
It’s great to see the children getting stuck into their learning and getting creative! Great stuff, Year 4!
Living and Learning – drug education
This week, we have been learning about medicines and how it is important to tell a trusted adult if we feel unwell so that they can help us to get the help we need to feel healthy and well again. We talked about how we should only use medicines with the help of a trusted adult.
The children worked in groups to read scenarios and suggest what will help the characters to feel better.
After, we thought of people who help us to stay healthy and well and how they do this.
“The doctors and nurses. They might take our temperature and ask us how we are feeling and sometimes they give us medicine”.
“Our grown ups, they might give us a cuddle to make us feel better”.
Challenge: Can you name one thing that can help someone feel better?
Super maths stars!
Year 1 are maths superstars!
In September, we completed a maths challenge to see how many numbers the children could write up to 100. Today, we re-completed that challenge.
Every child in the class has made progress! Well done, Year 1.
Here are a few examples to show you the progress that they have made.
Help at home: keep practicing reading and writing numbers and log in to Numbots to practice their number fluency skills.
Living and Learning: I know what a drug is
Our current Living and Learning is all about staying safe and we start the new year with drug education.
- I know what a drug is.
- I know that some drugs are harmful.
This week, we focus on the reasons why we use household products and medicines and the importance of using them safely. The children explored a range of medicine labels and instructions and assessed some potential hazards and risks.
In today’s lesson, we looked at empty medicine packaging with partners. The aim was to find the all the information someone would need before taking the medicine, and how they were labelled.
Help at home by talking to your child about medicines – they’re helpful drugs, but only when used by the right people in the right way. Older children can develop this understanding in terms of other drugs like alcohol – talk about age restrictions and drinking in moderation.
Science: Physics (Earth and Space)
This half-term, Years 5 and 6 are going to learn as physicists, as we are learning about Earth and Space.
Our goal is to learn as much as possible around the following areas:
Planets and the Sun
- What are the planets in our Solar System?
- Can we order them from closest to furthest away from the Sun?
- How long does it take each planet to orbit the Sun – why is this?
- Can we give some knowledge about each planet?
- Are the sizes of the planets/distances between the planets the same?
- How many stars are in our Solar System?
Earth and the Moon
- How does the Earth move in relation to the Sun and the Moon?
- How and why do we experience day-time and night-time?
- Where do months come from? Why are they this long?
- What is the moon and why can we only see it during night-time?
- How do time-zones in different countries link to the movement of the Earth?
Famous physicians/theories
- Who was Nicolaus Copernicus and what theory did he believe about our Solar System?
- How did Galileo Galilei support the same theory?
- Why did people previously believe the Earth was flat? How was this disproven?
- Which is the correct, scientifically proven model of our Solar System: the geocentric or the heliocentric model?
Help at Home
Below is our vocabulary for this half-term. Take time to read and aid understanding of each concept with your child.
Welcome back!
Hello!
I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas break and are looking forward to an amazing 2023. I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you for all of our lovely Christmas cards and gifts.
This week our focus book has been Lost and Found. We have used this to think about the weather in different places around the world and how different animals live in different places. Whilst outside we discovered some signs of Winter. We discussed how we thought the ice got there and what would need to happen for it to change into water.
As we read through our story we decided that we would like to make some of our own penguins. We used a range of different materials to create different parts of the penguins.
The more we read about the penguin in the story the more we wanted to learn. Harry asked “how tall is a penguin in real life?” we decided to find out and create our own real life sized penguins. We created an Emperor, Rockhopper and Macaroni penguin. Can you believe an Emperor penguin can be 115cm tall! We then used our real life sized penguins to find out if we were taller or shorter than the different penguins.
On Monday 16 January 9- 9:30 we will be holding our next stay and play session. This time we will be focusing on phase 3 phonics.
Things you could do to help with learning at home:
- letter formation
- blending sounds
- talking about things in the local environment.
Mrs Payne