Wake Up Shake Up
This week we’ve been getting active with our brand new Wake Up Shake Up dance. Every morning, Year 3 have been joining in with big smiles, great moves and lots of energy.
It’s a brilliant way to start the day and it wakes up our bodies and our brains, ready for learning. We’re already getting really good at the moves, and some of us are even adding our own style!.
Next week, we’re excited to be teaching the rest of the school our new dance. The song is all about having a bad hair day so, no excuses if your hair’s a little wild, it just means you’re performance ready!
Help at home: Practise the dance at home
Ground Control to Major Tom!
This week in Music, Year 3 have been learning all about ballads. A ballad is a song that tells a story.
We listened to Space Oddity by David Bowie and thought about the story it was telling. Then, we created our own storyboards to show what we imagined was happening in the song. Our storyboards were amazing, full of creativity and brilliant ideas!
We also loved watching our very own ‘Major Tom’ in space, astronaut Chris Hadfield, as he sang Space Oddity on the International Space Station. (Apologies in advance if you don’t hear the end of it at home, we were very impressed!)
Help at home: Watch the video and discuss the story of Major Tom.
The Great Big Book of Families
We’ve had a busy week using our focus book The Great Big Book of Families by Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith.
We’ve talked about how all families are different and special and made pictures of our families using pebbles.
Our word of the week was family the children have really enjoyed using this during their learning.
“My family live in a house, we have 5 people and daddy is the only boy.”
“My family has lots of people in it.”
Poetry Picnic
Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week our poem was called Breezy Weather.
Breezy weather. Freezy weather.
When the leaves fall, we all fall together.
Breezy weather. Freezy weather.
When the wind blows, we huddle together.
Phonics
This week, we have learnt the phonemes (the sounds a letter makes) i,n,m and d.
During our phonics learning, we listened carefully to the initial sound in a word and sorted objects by the sounds they begin with.
Help at home: Look out for a ‘learn at home’ sheet which recaps the phonics learning from the week. Please look at this with your child and complete the activities.
Reading practice
Reading daily at home is an essential part of your child’s reading journey. If you have any issues logging onto Collins eBooks, please let me know. Please make sure your write in your child’s reading record and return it every Thursday.
Maths
This week, we’ve focussed on perceptual subitising (recognising the number of objects without counting) up to 3. We’ve been learning how to use our fast eyes when looking at small sets of objects.
Reminders and Notices
PE– Is on Monday please send your child to school wearing their PE kit and trainers they can fasten themselves.
Sharing Books– Sharing books were sent home this week. Please can these be returned on Wednesday for the children to pick a new one.
Family Photo-please can I remind you to send in a photo of your child with their family so we can add them to our class display. You can send in a copy of your photo or email it to:
stjameseyfs@spherefederation.org
Have a happy and healthy weekend
Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Rippon, Miss. Feldman, Mrs Linton, Mrs Cairnes and Mrs Small
The Fish Who can Wish
This week our focus story was The Fish Who could Wish by John Bush and Korky Paul.
We talked about how the fish was different to all the other fish and used our word of the week Unique to describe him and ourselves.
“I am unique because I have curly hair, my nanny has curly hair but she has glasses so we are not the same.”
“I am unique because nobody can sing like me.”
“I am unique because I am not the same as my sister.”
Sports Day
We’ve also been learning all about Being Healthy and had the best sports day competing in the egg and spoon race, the sack race, the bean bag shuffle and a running race. We made sure we wore our sunhats, stayed in the shade and drank lots of water as part of keeping ourselves healthy in the sun.
Forest School
We’ve had out last forest school this week with Born of the Forest, We enjoyed looking for minibeasts, looking at a birds nest and egg shells and making tea for the woodland animals. We finished by toasting marshmallows over a fire with the help of Sparky. We’ve had the best time and can’t wait to go again in year 1.
“I love forest school, it’s so cool!”
“Let’s go this way and be quiet we might get to stay and have another one!”
Telling the time
We have been revising converting between analogue and digital times today as well as converting from a 24 hour clock to the 12 hour equivalent.
Help at home: It would be great if you could check in with your child’s understanding of telling the time. This could be as simple as asking them what time it is or by playing online games such as this one from Top Marks:
https://www.sheppardsoftware.com/math/time/clock-splat-game/
Living and Learning: I know the importance of 5 a day
For our living and learning session this week, Year 3 looked into the importance of healthy eating. We discussed as a class how many fruit/veg a day we are currently managing to eat, and set ourselves some goals to further improve.
We also looked into influences and healthy choices when deciding what to eat and drink. Year 3 discussed the importance of a healthy, balanced diet and used their learning about different foods groups from earlier this year to help.
After the session the children felt confident talking about the following statements:
Help at home:
Discuss these statements in more detail at home so your child understands the importance of healthy choices when eating and drinking.
With thanks from members of St James’ Church
You may remember that we made Holy Week booklets last half term that we shared with parishioners at St James’ Church.
This week we received a thank you card!
‘… At St James’ Church, my husband and I were given the Holy Week booklet you had made. It was so good to see that you knew, from your school lessons, the Easter story.
We kept your booklet and put it with other Easter cards we had received. The three beautiful pictures and your written information about each one was wonderful as well as the cross on the front page …’
I often boast how proud I am of the efforts and work of Year 4 but it’s particularly lovely to share that with people in our wider community.
Well done, Year 4! You made some people’s Easter that little bit more special!
Our weekly message: Friday 04 April 2025
It was lovely to see so many of you at our Easter service at St James Church this week. We were impressed by our children’s confidence in reading aloud to an audience.
PTA Easter competition
Did your child enter the PTA Easter competition to design an Easter egg? We had loads of entries – it’s been really difficult to pick a winner from each year group. Well done to:
- Reception: Savannah
- Year 1: Cian
- Year 2: Ellis
- Year 3: Ryan
- Year 4: Kiara
- Year 5: Valerie
- Year 6: Lilly
Easter events
Last week, we mentioned this guide from Child Friendly Leeds to help children and families in Leeds navigate their way through the Easter holidays. You might also want to check out another guide from Active Leeds – anyone up for some paddlesports?!
National Youth Strategy
The government is creating a new ten-year National Youth Strategy to tackle the challenges for this generation of young people and to ensure every young person can thrive. The strategy aims to bring power back to young people and their communities to improve youth focused services.
The government wants to hear the views of children and young people aged 10 to 21 (and up to age 25 with special educational needs or disabilities).
Encourage your child to complete the survey to share with the government what they think on a range of themes.
If they don’t have time to complete the survey, then encourage them to share their quick thoughts with the government on what could be improved.
Thank you to Year 3
Recently, Year 3 children took time to organise and clean up our school grounds. They’d noticed some equipment was missing and that there was some litter around the edges of our school field. They took matters into their own hands and got to work! The children were absolutely fantastic and showed good teamwork and perseverance.
Need some help?
Sometimes people need a bit of help from time to time. Wetherby and District Foodbank might be able to help you.
Check out the information below to find out more about when they’re open, how to use them, and the areas they cover. There’s also information about MoneyBuddies, the biggest independent money advice service in West Yorkshire.
Over Easter, there are activities for children whilst parents and carers can share concerns and get confidential advice. There’ll be Easter Eggs, too!
Have a happy and healthy holiday. We’ll see you again on Tuesday 22 April.
Writing
We are preparing to write a spooky story based on the online video: Alma.
https://www.literacyshed.com/alma.html
The children were instantly hooked in and have shown lots on enthusiasm towards their work.
As we work towards our final written piece, we have been learning how to link clauses using dashes, semi-colons and colons.
How to use dashes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCg860btDfg
How to use semi-colons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcpaQc8VbU8
How to use colons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2iYA1sQUZQ
Here are some examples of our work:
She looks at the doll – the doll stares back. Honey.
Alma stared at her Doppel-ganger; the doll looked back at her with a creepy smile. Amelia.
Alma tried the door – it was bolted shut. How would she get in? Madeleine.
Alma looked at the clone; it glared at her like it was ready to fight. Kamile.
The chalkboard, filled with names, determined the next victim – Alma wrote her name beautifully. Summer.
As she peered through the frosty window, the doll-twin stared at her – it was as if they knew each other. Valerie.
The doll was an exact relica of her: green eyes, blue hat, pink gilet and red scarf. Chloe.
Alma knew she was alone; so she thought. Aubree.
Help at home – Ask your child to describe when they would use a dash/semi-colon/colon. Can they give an example? Role play them teaching you how to use them. Write spooky sentences using this week’s spellings.
Spring 2
Welcome back! This half term our theme is Let’s Grow, Let’s Go.
Our first focus book is The Train Ride by June Crebbin.
We will also be talking about our exciting class trip to the National Railway Museum next week.