Mastering Number for Key Stage 2 – Multiplication sessions
Year 4 have been working hard this week to represent maths stories using gestures, pictures and expressions.
Help at home: Challenge your child to teach you how to use the gestures and pictures we use in our Mastering Number sessions.
Year 4’s Book Club
This week’s book club in Year 4 has been a busy one! There was much excitement exploring Mrs Poole’s recommended reads and the “Mystery books” were snapped up within minutes. We are looking forward to some new titles entering our shelves with some of our budding authors creating their own books for other children to borrow.
Help at home: Sharing a book with your child is the best way to develop reading fluency and a love of reading. Do let us know what you have reading using the Reading Records and if you need help finding a book to get lost in do come and see me at drop off / pick up for a recommendation.
Our new sensory space; The Den
Over the summer, Mrs Freeman has been busy creating a sensory themed room in school.
The Den is a safe space which aims to provide any child with the individualised sensory input they need to self-regulate so they can be better prepared for learning and interacting with others.
The Den offers a safe space for relaxation, exploration, independence, and social sessions. The resources in The Den can be used to stimulate, soothe, entertain and distract, depending on the child’s requirements.
We would like to say thank you to the school PTA for the contributions towards resources for this room.
We hope users of The Den benefit from the stimulating visual and tactile activities.
Philosophy Friday: Class rewards
Year 4 have really enjoyed making our class reward system this week. They made the rules, chose the prizes and designed the recording system. We used our debating skills in our Philosophy Friday session to consider what we should do if we won two prizes from the Golden Ticket draw.
After listening to the arguments presented by our classmates, we recorded our final opinion and positioned ourselves on a scale to represent our thoughts. You can see there was quite a wide variety of opinions!
Staying safe week
The RNLI – staying safe around water
As part of our staying safe week, we have had a visit from Alan from The RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution).
He gave a brief introduction to the work that The RNLI carry out. In the last 200 years, they have helped to save over 146,000 people from drowning! The RNLI is a registered charity that is able to run through voluntary contributions – it costs £188 million to run the service each year!
Alan spoke to us about how to keep safe when around water (coasts, rivers, canals, swimming pools, baths, paddling pools in the garden).
It only takes a little bit of water to get into trouble.
Willow Y4
Useful advice to stay safe:
- At the beach, swim between the yellow and red flags.
- Stop and think before you enter the water – can you spot any dangers?
- Stay together
- Float on your back like a starfish, with your ears in the water.
- Call 999/112
The children have each been given a Water Smart leaflet to reinforce the important messages they have learnt today.
Help at home – Read and complete the Water Smart leaflet at home. What do the different coloured flags mean? What number should we call if we see someone in danger in the water? What is the best way to float?
Staying safe week
First Aid – staying safe
Our children have learnt about how to deliver CPR to someone who may be unconscious and not breathing.
We learnt:
- to check to see if the person will wake up;
- to shake and ask if they are ok;
- to check if they are breathing;
- to shout for help/call 999;
If the casualty is not breathing then we start CPR – 30 compressions: 2 breaths.
We would continue CPR until help arrives, we can’t go on any further or the casualty wakes up.
The children also learnt about stings and burns and what to do should we experience either on these.
Help at home – ask your child what to do should a bee sting them. How long should we cool a burn? How do we cool a burn? Is there anything we can put on a burn?
Staying safe week
d:side – staying safe online.
Today, we had a visit from Dave from d:side.
Dave talked to us about how to stay safe online. Firstly, he discussed posting things online and how it is important that we think carefully before we share. He taught us that once we have posted something online, it is there forever and can’t be deleted. This may lead to problems for us now and maybe in the future. We know we must tell a trusted adult if we are unsure about what to post.
This is called our digital footprint.
Tommy-Lee Y4
If you share, do it with care.
Share smart, share safe, share kind.
d:Side Dave
Dave went on to talk to us about social media. Most of the social media platforms have a guidance age-rating of 13, whereas WhatsApp has a guidance age-rating of 16. He recommended that we make our social media private and use safe sites, such as YouTube Kids.
Some things are age appropriate, some things are age inappropriate.
Shae Y3
Finally, Dave spoke to us about gaming and why games have a particular age rating. He introduced the PEGI (Pan-European Game Information) age rating system.
He explained that games such as Roblox and Minecraft are age rating 7 and why games such as Fortnite (age rating 12) and Call of Duty (age rating 16) have higher age rating and are not appropriate for younger children.
Help at home – How is your child keeping themselves safe online? Are accounts private? What date of birth is assigned to the account? Are we checking with an adult before we post something online?
Staying Safe Week
The Dogs Trust – staying safe with dogs.
Today, Mrs Hill from the Dogs Trust joined us to talk to us about how to stay safe around dogs.
We learnt three important rules when approaching a dog:
- Ask the owner for permission to stroke the dog.
- With your hands by your side, ask the dog if they are happy to be stroked.
- Calmly approach the dog and stroke gently from the side.
Mrs Hill taught us how to stay safe if a dog comes towards us:
- Cross our arms across our chest.
- Look the other way.
- Lift our arms higher if we feel that the dog may jump up to our face.
We then worked as ‘Doggie Detectives’. We thought about how dogs might feel in a variety of different scenarios and how to make the situation best for the dog and the people involved.
There are lots of children in our class who either have a dog(s) or see dogs regularly around our community. We learnt so much that we can’t wait to share with people back home.
Help at home – Ask your child about important rules when approaching a dog or if a dog approaches them. How can we keep ourselves safe? What actions can we avoid to keep a dog calm? What do The Dogs Trust do?
Living and Learning
Body image
In Year 3 and 4 this week, we have thought about our bodies and about how they might change. Changes in our body can occur through a variety of reasons, some things we can influence and some things we can’t.
The children wrote down their thoughts and we had some in depth discussions about their ideas. The children were very mature and spoke with respect whilst building on each other’s ideas.
We then focussed on ourselves and wrote down three things that we are good at. We shared our strengths and found that others had the same strengths too. Children understood that even though we are all different in many ways, we can all share similar attributes.
Help at home – Ask your child what they are good at. Can you make opportunities to do something they are good at? How will we change over time? Are there any changes we can/can’t influence? How do you feel about that?
Maths
Identifying angles
We have had a fantastic maths lesson this morning, searching for and identifying angles. We found right angles, acute angles and obtuse angles. The children were fantastic when using the correct names for each angle and could clearly tell me how they know what type of angle it was.
Help at home – can you find any right angles, acute angles or obtuse angles at home or in your garden. How do you know it is a right angle? How do you know it is an acute angle? How do you know it is an obtuse angle? Can you draw them and put them in order of size? How many quarter turns make a right angle?