Uncategorised

Week beginning 08 March 2020

Hey everyone

We hope you’re ok and are staying happy, healthy and safe.

Don’t forget to email your class teacher if you need anything.

Here’s your home learning for this week…

Maths

Follow this sequence of maths learning which is linked to number and place value.

• Lesson 1: video, worksheet, answers
• Lesson 2: video, worksheet, answers
• Lesson 3: video, worksheet, answers
• Lesson 4: video, worksheet, answers
• Lesson 5: video, worksheet, answers
• Lesson 6: video, worksheet, answers
• Lesson 7: video, worksheet, answers
• Lesson 8: video, worksheet, answers
• Lesson 9: video, worksheet, answers
• Lesson 10: video, worksheet, answers

You don’t have to print the worksheet. Your child can write or draw their answers on paper. Your child’s learning will be most effective if you sit with them to pause the clip and check / praise / support your child as the clip moves on.

Practise times tables on Times Table Rockstars, too. If your child is in Y3, we’re concentrating on the 3 times table. If your child is in Y4, we’re concentrating on the 8 times table. Email the class teacher if you need your child’s login and password details.

(Suggested time: 30 minutes of Maths and 15 minutes of Rockstars daily)

Spelling

Look on the homework page to find this week’s spellings. They should choose some past spellings that they feel less confident with. Your child should complete one task each day.

• Day 1: Generate more words linked to the spelling pattern or ‘rule’. You could look out for the words in the book you’re reading at home, or any other text, like a website linked to our science topic of Living Things and their Habitat.
• Day 2: Practise the spellings using two of the ideas in our Super Spelling Strategies guide. (Set yourself and others at home a challenge of using some of the words when you’re speaking, too!)
• Day 3: Write separate sentences, each containing one of the spellings. (Don’t forget to show off really neat handwriting – our handwriting guide will help – and make sure you sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, exclamation mark (!) or question mark (?).
• Day 4: Repeat Task 2 or 3.
• Day 5: Get an adult at home to test you on your spellings. Practise any you spell incorrectly – you could write them out carefully until you’re sure.

(Suggested time: 15-20 minutes daily)

Reading fluency

This is the text we’re using in class this week to build up fluency skills.

In school, we generally follow this sequence:

• Day 1: Read the text aloud with your child listening. Read it clearly and slowly, pointing to each word as you read. Have a chat about any unfamiliar words.
• Day 2: Read aloud each sentence (a full short sentence or part of a longer sentence), and have your child read it back to you. Do this ‘echo reading’ for the whole text.
• Day 3: Read the text and talk about the effect of the punctuation on how you read it – pauses for full stops and expression for exclamations (!) or questions (?). Your child reads the text aloud.
• Day 4: Read together with expression (just like you practised on Day 3).
• Day 5: Your child reads independently and fluently.

(Suggested time: 15 minutes daily)

Reading comprehension

We’ll be using this ‘RIC’ text and this ‘RIC’ text in class to practise comprehension skills. RIC stands for:

• Retrieve: finding information in a text
• Interpret: using clues in the text to unlock information
• Choice: thinking about the author’s choice of words, techniques or organisation that make the text interesting and enjoyable to read

Follow these lessons from Oak National Academy. There’s a whole series of lessons, but start at Lesson 1 and work through, doing one (or maybe even two) each day. (If you’re self-isolating in your second week, stick with the series of lessons you’ve already started and aim to complete the full series.)

(Suggested time: 30 minutes daily)

Writing

Follow these lessons from Oak National Academy. There’s a whole series of lessons, but start at Lesson 1 and work through, doing one (or maybe even two) each day. (If you’re self-isolating in your second week, stick with the series of lessons you’ve already started and aim to complete the full series.)

(Suggested time: 30-40 minutes for each)

Topic

Our topic this half-term is about history.

Follow these lessons on pre-historic Britain from Oak National Academy. There are ten lessons in total, but start at the first lesson and work through, doing two or three in the week.

(Suggested time: 30-40 minutes)

Science   

Our focus this half-term is about plants.

These six lessons from Oak National Academy link closely to what we’ve been doing in class. Start at Lesson 1 and work through, doing two or three in the week. If you’ve previously completed on of these lessons, have a go at the ones you haven’t completed yet.

If Science really motivates your child, you could also use look at these lessons all about practical Science.

(Suggested time: 30-45 minutes)

PE

Don’t forget to do some daily exercise!

Do two or three of these Five Minute Moves from Joe Wicks each day – spread them across the day as if they were playtimes, maybe!

Try working through this series of 25 lessons from the Association for Physical Education – do two or three in the week.

(Suggested time: 5 minutes daily, plus 30 minutes for the longer PE lessons)

Extra stuff…

As an extra (or as an alternative, if this helps to motivate your child)…

Geography isn’t a topic-driver this half-term, but you could brush up on your locational knowledge – something that was missed when schools closed earlier this year. You could explore some online maps and try to memorise some new countries, capitals, rivers and mountain ranges. These three lessons about Europe are worth checking out.

What about some Living and Learning? While you’re away from school, you could check out these lessons on money!

We’re closed to all pupils today

We’re closed today because of the very icy conditions and the forecast that this will continue throughout the day.

Key staff for each bubble in school would struggle to get into school safely.

Please check out our Home learning page.

Today’s message – an update (Thursday 13 January 2021)

We try to alert you the day before if we become aware of weather conditions that may affect school openings, although we don’t make any decisions until the morning. Even then, though, it’s a tough call.

When we make the decision, we base it on two main factors: the current weather and the forecast.

Based on these two factors, there’s a very high likelihood that school will be closed tomorrow. This is based on the current amount of snow and the forecast for continuing sub-zero temperatures over night and throughout the day tomorrow. Travel conditions will be dangerous for you and for our staff.

Many schools in the area have already made the decision to close. Please begin to make arrangements now so that you’re prepared – as I say, it’s very likely.

The situation in school is made more challenging at the moment because we need to have different staff to support children in their different bubbles. To try to prevent the spread of coronavirus, we can’t mix children and we can’t move staff. Children in school can’t join with others and be supervised by a limited number of staff who have managed to get to school; adults can’t move to support children in another bubble. (A simple example is that if three children from one bubble are in school, we’d have a minimum of two staff to support and supervise. However, if the three children are from three different bubbles, we’d need at least double the adults.)

Don’t forget you can access home learning here on the website: go to the Learn more section and select Home learning from the drop down menu, or click on this link. (It would be best in most cases to do lessons from Thursday or Friday.)

Thank you for your understanding and support.

Pantomime time

What a busy day we have had!

“Oh, no, you haven’t!”

“Oh, yes, we have!”

This morning, in between other school work, we have been decorating our clay jar decorations, and in the afternoon we watched the pantomime about Rapunzel.

Class 3/4 want to say a BIG thank you to the PTA for enabling us to watch the panto this afternoon. Here are some of the things that we said about the show:

Daisy: Thank you so much for letting us watch the pantomime. My favourite character was the dragon and Rapunzel.

Olivia: I enjoyed it because it was super funny.

Jack: It was extremely exciting. I loved the dragon!

Ellie: I enjoyed the bit of the video when the dragon said, “My name is Geoff.”

Mia: I think it is funny when the woman drank the baby potion.

Eliza: The best bit was when the prince and Rapunzel got married.

Louie: I enjoyed it when they all sang.

Leah: Thank you for buying this amazing play – it was brilliant!

Edward: Thanks for the play and thanks for everything. It was super funny.

11 December 2020

This week, the whole school has the same Creative homework, which should be returned by Thursday 17 December.

The children are invited to respond to something from either a cultural or a spiritual perspective.

I can present a review of a book / TV show / film or something else cultural.

We’d like children to present their responses about a recent book they’ve read, film they’ve watched, piece of art they’ve looked at, piece of music they’ve listened to – anything cultural in fact.

We’re interested to read some sort of description (a summary, for example) and then your child’s opinions. This review might include pictures, an interview (your child could write a fictional script between himself/herself and the artist, for example), a letter (eg to or from a character, or perhaps even the author) – anything which might include your child’s responses!

However, your child might prefer to do the following:

I know what a faith celebration means to me.

Over the course of this term, some children in school may have celebrated a religious festival of some sort.  This might have been

• the Muslim festival of Eid ul Adha
• the Sikh and Hindu festival Diwali
• the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, coming up in December
• the Christian festival (of course, celebrated by many non-Christians) of Christmas
• and the Chinese New Year festival, coming up

There are lots of other festivals and celebrations, which you and your child together might want to reflect on.

We invite children to respond to the sentence above – they might include a recount (like a diary entry), pictures, an interview (perhaps in a script).  Your child might also choose to research a completely unknown festival, or they might even think about creating a brand new festival, one that everyone will celebrate.

Of course, there are many other ways in which children could respond. Children should be ready to celebrate their learning as part of their homework review by Thursday 18 December 2020. 

Christian Value: Friendship

This half term, our Christian Value has been friendship.

We have thought about how we can be a good friend and what we can learn from the Bible about friendship. We learned that Jesus teaches us to be a good friend to all – he told a story about how the good samaritan was a friend to someone who was supposed to be his enemy.

In our reflection areas, we had two challenges: a friendship flower and how to be a good friend.

For our friendship flower, we thought about who was a good friend or someone we were thankful for and wrote or drew a short thank you thought or prayer for them.

We took the friendship finger challenge and thought about all the things that make a good friend. We thought about how we could be a better friend.

Foundation stage have also been learning all about our Christian value of friendship. They’ve created a friendship tree and friendship stones whilst thinking about the qualities they would like in a friend.

Look out for next half term’s Christian value: perseverance.

Potion Commotion

As always, Foundation have had another fantastic week!
This week, we entered into a wonderful world of wizards and witches.
At the writing table, the children created their very own potions. Some of the children had a go at writing a list of ingredients.

In Literacy, we’ve been reading Potion Commotion by Peter Bentley. When reading the story, the children were great at listening for the rhyming words – it is a book full of rhyming words! The book is about a little witch called Betty. She ends up making a big mess when putting just about everything into her cauldron to make a potion. Betty’s potion grows and grows and spreads all over the town! 
Talk to your child about the story and see if they can remember what happened at the end.
Linking to the potion theme, we decided to be scientists and make our very own hubble and bubble potions.
We did four experiments using five ingredients: oil, water, bicarbonate soda, energy tablets and vinegar – the classroom spelt lovely!
The children observed what happened and recorded their findings.
Ronan – “It’s bubbling.”
Connor – “It’s fizzing.”
Daisy – “It looks like a tornado.”
Beau – “It’s not bubbling.”
We talked about what a chemical reaction is and that bubbling is a sign of a chemical reaction.

In phonics, we’ve learnt more  sounds: m, d and g.
Here’s a link to the Jolly Phonics songs.
The children are doing really well in phonics and love doing the drum roll before I show them the new sound – it creates a lot of excitement! Some of the children are starting to segment and blend cvc words, for example, sat, mad and pin.
The children went on a sound hunt around the classroom. They were encouraged to say the sounds when they found them.

F2 – Please remember to practise the sounds in their sound book and their words in their word passports.

In maths, we’ve continued looking at number 2. On Thursday, I dropped all of the counting bears all over the floor – silly Miss Marsden! The children had to collect two bears and put them on their ten frame. The children moved the bears around on their ten frames and checked that it still showed two. After half term, we will finalise our number 2 learning and move onto number three.
F1
The F1 children have also continued with their phase one phonics activities. On Tuesday, they had to watch carefully to different body sounds and pass it around the circle.
On Wednesday, the children went on a musical instrument hunt around the outdoor area. When a child found an instrument, they talked about its sound and compared it to the other instruments.

What else have we been up to?
We made playdough spiders.

In the sensory area, the children enjoyed melting the frozen hands!

Next half-term, we will become story tellers and look at some traditional tales. The children will come up with actions to help them retell the stories. We’ve chosen traditional tales because they usually follow a typical structure and include lots of repeated phrases.  Here’s a clue to help you guess one of the books we will be looking at…  It will help with our number three learning. 

Here are some pictures of the displays in our classroom…
Foundation Parents
A Parental Partnership presentation will be uploaded onto the class news page on Monday 2nd November.

I hope you all have a lovely half-term break!

Home-Link Challenge

01 July 2020: Home Learning

Happy Wednesday!

Today’s learning…..

Year 5 and 6 maths

Use the Topmarks website to play ‘Hit the button.’ Put your times table knowledge to the test.

Your learning for today is about multiplying mixed numbers.

Multiplying mixed numbers

SPAG: colons

Watch this video and read about colons.

Then, complete this activity. 

Living and Learning: I can make healthy choices

On Monday, we looked at healthy eating. Yesterday, we did some exercise to make our bodies healthy.

Today, we’re thinking about keeping our minds healthy.

Follow some of the links below and have a go at some activities.

Calm Zone 

Meditation

Yoga video

Our daily message (19 June 2020)

Before the end of the school year, teachers will host some Zoom meetings for children who remain at home.

Some background

The meetings will be with groups of children from the class. They’ll be a one-off chance for children to re-connect with the teacher, classmates and with learning. We think this is important for our friends still at home during lockdown, especially since we now know they won’t be returning until September, all being well.

One or two of you have been asking for teachers to deliver lessons by Zoom since the start of lockdown. We didn’t pursue this for two main reasons: safeguarding and effective teaching. (We have other reservations about Zoom to teach, too, but these are the main ones.)

We’re still not convinced Zoom (or any online video conferencing service) is an effective way to teach large groups of younger children online. It might work well for older children, but the important two-way dialogue that we have in school would be hard to re-create and sustain in a Zoom meeting.

There were some unpleasant stories at the start of lockdown that highlighted safeguarding concerns. However, Zoom has introduced improved security features. We’ve researched how best to secure the Zoom meetings; we’ve consulted colleagues who have begun to use it; and we’ve trialled it amongst ourselves. We’re now confident that Zoom can be used securely.

Next steps

The next steps are simple…

If your child is still learning at home, and you’d like your child to be part of a Zoom call with their teacher and some of their classmates, email your child’s teacher. By now, most of you will already have emailed – the teacher’s address is something like [email protected] (first name, last name and then @spherefederation).

When you email, you’ll need to provide the name that will appear in the Zoom call – the teacher won’t allow anyone into the meeting if they’re not expecting them. Ideally, the name would be the child’s first and last name, but it can be your name. (And please make sure the name is appropriate.)

The teacher will decide a date and time for this to happen – it’ll happen before the end of term. They’ll send an invitation with the log-in details back to you. We’re sorry – there can’t be much flexibility about the date and time.

How to prepare

For younger children, your child’s teacher will have a chat and read a story. For older children (Y3-Y6), the teacher will ask a couple of questions which will include questions related to home learning:

• What home learning have you felt most proud of?
• What learning have you made most progress with at home?
• What sort of learning routine are you in?

It would be great if your child has thought about these so they’re able to answer a question like that.

Some more details

• Meetings will be with groups of children from the class: no more than 10-12 children.
• The meetings are only for those who are home learning.
• Teachers will have a list of pupils and appropriate Zoom name in advance to allow people to enter.
• Two members of staff will be present throughout the Zoom.
• A parent / carer should be present at home, although you don’t need to be on screen throughout the meeting.
• Teachers will continue to make occasional phone calls home, too, but you might not get a call during the week teachers do their Zoom.
• The meeting will last about 15-30 minutes, depending on the size of the group.
• Some Zoom features will be disabled: the chat function, the record function, and the ‘re-name’ function will all be disabled.
• Participants will all be ‘mute’ on entry; teachers will manage the Zoom meeting by ‘unmuting’ children one at a time.
• Our school rules will still apply (including We respect everyone).
• Your child can be part of the Zoom but choose not to talk – no pressure!
• Teachers are aware of actions to take if a child doesn’t follow ground rules, school rules, instructions: this could include disabling video of anyone who is not following rules, for example.

11 June 2020: Home Learning

Good morning, year 3 and 4!

Maths

Today, year 3, have a look on this BBC bitesize page to learn all about fractions on a number line.

Year4, here are your answers to yesterday’s maths problem. Today, have a go at this circles problem – watch Mrs Welsby talking about it here.

Reading

For your reading task, watch this video of Mrs Welsby all about Mr Botte’s mystical shoemaker’s shop. The answers to yesterday’s learning are also in that video.

Science

Head to Oak National Academy to learn more about Plants. Throughout the lesson, you will be asked to pause the video to complete tasks (just like when we do a video lesson). Don’t forget, you can go back and listen to bits again to help you fill in the answers correctly. Have fun!