Year 2 Blog Friday 24th February 2023

Date: 24th Feb 2023 @ 5:16pm

It was lovely to see everyone again after half term and what a great week. We have done a lot of writing and even used pens as a special treat! Everyone’s handwriting has improved so much, so keep trying hard. In English, the children wrote a recount about their half term holiday and they have written a couple of imaginary stories. It was great to see so many interesting words, conjunctions and openers being used. In Maths, we have moved on to the money topic. We compared/added coins, found the same amount using different coins and worked out change. The children wrote fantastic Lenten promises and learned about Lent in RE. In French this week, we attempted out first piece of writing. The children named the fruit and vegetables they used in their Arcimboldo-style face. Well done year 2 - un tres bon effort! We didn't quite finish in time for parents to see them sadly! During our PE lesson, we got the large apparatus out. The children made up great sequences where they performed jumps, balances, a travel or a roll.   

Reading

In Year 2, children should read for at least 15/20 minutes every night and talk about the book. This will help with understanding the text and learning new words.

Reading books are changed every Wednesday. You will receive 2-4 books depending on their length, they should last the week, if you read a little each night. However, if you need to change a book at any other time, we will change it as needed.

Reading resources:

Oxford Owl – This resource has an exciting range of carefully levelled books to help children learn to read and really enjoy it.

If parents and children decide to use this resource, we ask they access phase 5 books. Go to https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/ and select ‘my class login’. Scroll down to the ‘eBook Library for Letters & Sounds’. You could also explore the rest of the site and read books from the Oxford Owl eBook library or listen to audio books.

Username: sto2

Password: 1234

Resources for questioning your child while they are reading - https://www.literacyshedblog.com/uploads/1/2/5/7/12572836/ks1_reading_vipers.pdf

In addition to this, reading a good bed time story to your child is so worthwhile and really helps towards a lifelong love of reading.

Spelling

Please practise these spellings for your quiz on Friday (03.03.23). A sheet will go home every Friday with the spelling list on. This is for home practise only and can be kept with you.

You will have a Sumdog challenge on these words to complete by Friday 03.03.23.

This week’s spellings:

/aI/ sound spelt ‘y’.

Including two words from the Year 1/2 spelling list.

cry            why

dry            fly    

try             by

July           every

reply          great

Maths

Great effort learning your 5x tables in a random order.

Next week for our quiz (03.02.23) we will be learning the division facts for the 5 x table in order. The children have brought home a poster to help them learn these facts.

Count in 5’s forwards and backwards, see how quickly you can go, but it must still be accurate. Chant/sing the division facts x5 tables. Ask an adult to quiz you on them.

You will have a multiplication/division (5x) table and a money challenge on Sumdog to complete by Friday 03.03.23.

Here are some links to other maths games/apps the children can play to help them learn their number facts.

Topmarks.co.uk also have and English section for phonics/spellings games. If you explore the site you will find lots of different games that are relevant to Year 2.

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

https://whiterosemaths.com/resources/1-minute-maths

(I believe this app is free to download.)

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/5-7-years/counting

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/5-7-years/multiplication-and-division

Sumdog

Log in at www.sumdog.com

Remember it’s our Year 2 Lent Assembly next Thursday 2^nd March. Parents are invited to the school hall at 2.40pm.

It was great to talk to everyone at Parent’s Evening.

Have a lovely weekend.

Year 2 Team.

Year 5 Blog Friday 24th February 2023

Date: 24th Feb 2023 @ 3:56pm

Happy Friday and welcome to your Friday Blog. 

We have had a great first week back. 

In maths we have been simplifying fractions and converting fractions to decimals. This was really tricky at first but everybody tried their best and should be so proud! Next week we will be multiplying four-digit numbers by one-digit numbers. Make sure you are confident with your tables. 

In English we started our new class novel - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S.Lewis. We are really loving it so far. We have been using exciting sentences to describe the professor from the story. Our aim was to intrigue the reader so they want to read more about him. 

We were having a go at writing complex sentences with relative clauses, here are some examples:

The professor, who had never said a word, crept around the house. 

His eyes, which were dark and narrow, seemed to look right through Lucy. 

In art we completed our topic on William Morris. We carved a pattern in the style of William Morris into a polystyrene block. We then painted onto it and used it to print repeated patterns onto a piece of card. The finished pieces all look amazing and are all so unique! Well done everybody!

In history we looked a photos of two schools in Preston during the Victorian era. We looked closely at the images and thought about the similarities and differences between those schools and schools in Preston today. 

Some of the similarities included the wearing of school uniforms and sitting at desks. 

Some of the differences included the amount of children in one room, the layout of the classroom, and the things on the walls. 

Home Practice

Reading

Read at home every night. Discuss the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary. 

Spelling

Here are your spellings this week. Some have silent letters, and some have ei after c. 

deceive          receive          ceiling          receipt          deceit          perceive          

knight          government          environment          know          knew          autumn          column          listen          castle 

Counting

Please count out loud in:

300s from 0 to 3600 and back again

0          300          600   

70s from 0 to 840 and back again

0          70          140

0.6s from 0.6 to 7.2 and back again

0.6          1.2          1.8 

Time Tables

You have been given new tables targets this week. Please practise every day. You can use Hit the Button and Sumdog. 

Sumdog

There are 3 Sumdog challenges:

Spelling Challenge

Times Tables Challenge 

Maths Competition 

Have a super weekend! 

Year 4 Blog Friday 24th February 2023

Date: 24th Feb 2023 @ 3:44pm

Year 4 Blog

Friday 24^th February 2023

Welcome to the first blog of this half term. Here is a summary of our learning this week:

In English, we retold a diary extract attempting to show the character’s feelings through actions, emotions and body language, rather than explicitly stating.  In addition, we identified verbs and adverbial phrases in sentences, and attempted to use these to enhance our writing. 

In Maths, we learnt how to label positive and negative numbers on a numberline. We also learnt about hundredths and numbers to 2 decimal places, as well as recognising and writing some decimal and fraction equivalents.

In RE, we watched a video of the Introductory Rite of the Mass and listened to a reading from Matthew’s Gospel in which he explained how God loves and gives advice to us about how to love better. Following this, we considered how we can follow Matthew’s advice in our everyday lives.

In French this week, we recapped the days of the week and how to say the 'i' sound . We learnt some new vocabulary with this sound in. Then we watched a video of this year's Carnaval de Nice which ended on Mardi Gras.  This year's theme is les Tresors du Monde - the Treasures of the World. We enjoyed looking at the floats and the costumes. Amazing!

In Science, we compared boiling and evaporation and explained what they are.  We also identified all variables and then set up and carried out an experiment. We learnt that the amount of time it takes for water to evaporate depends on the amount of water there is, when all other variables are kept the same.    

In History, we investigated Anglo-Saxon placenames using Digimaps. We found out that ‘ton’ at the end of a name means ‘settlement’ and that ‘ford’ means ‘river crossing’. We were surprised that so many place names came from Anglo-Saxon words.

In PSHE, we started a new topic about feelings.  We discussed what feelings and emotions are, and how they help us to manage different situations. In addition, we talked about how our feelings can change throughout the day.

In Computing, we practised editing and recolouring photographs, and talked about the effect that changes on an image can have. Have a look at some of our work here.  

Home Practice

Reading

Please read out loud to somebody for 20 minutes each evening.  Focus on fluency and understanding. If you find any new words, make sure you find out what they mean – write them in your reading diary and try and use them in your own writing.  

Counting

This week, please practise counting in 10’s  

For example, start at 42 and count up to 182 and back again

42  52  62  etc                     182  172  162    etc

Now have a go at counting which includes negative numbers

For example, start at -12 and count to 15 and back again

-12  -11  -10  etc                        15   14   13   etc

Times tables

You should know your individual tables target.  These will be tested next Wednesday (1^st March 2023). 

Remember you can also practise your tables playing Hit the Button and timestables.co.uk

Spellings

Next week’s spellings all have the prefix inter or anti. You will be tested on these next Friday (3^rd March 2023).

antiseptic antidote       antibiotic     antibody      anticlockwise

antisocial           antihistamine         anticlimax    interfere     international

interrupt internet       intervene     intercept     interject

Sumdog challenges

You have been set 3 challenges on Sumdog:

• A spelling challenge based on the spellings above.
• A times tables challenge based on the 3, 6 and 9 times tables
• A negative number challenge

Please make sure you log on and have a go!  Little and often is the key to success!

Please keep practising your times tables as much as you can.  Knowing your tables off by heart is crucial and will help you in many different areas of maths.

Using Hit the Button can also help you practise your number bonds.  Please have a go at brushing up your number bond skills, so that you can recall them quickly and accurately.

PLEASE REMEMBER TO BRING YOUR PAJAMAS NEXT WEDNESDAY AS YOU WILL NEED THEM IN YOUR SWIMMING LESSON. PLEASE ALSO BRING A SPARE PLASTIC BAG TO PUT THEM IN AFTERWARDS!

Have a lovely weekend

The Year 4 Team

Year 6 Blog Friday 24th February 2023

Date: 24th Feb 2023 @ 3:39pm

Welcome to our first Year 6 blog since the February half term.

This week, Year 6 were invited to celebrate Ash Wednesday and receive their ashes before Lent begins. 

REMINDER

For our PE lessons this term, which will include rugby and orienteering (weather depending), please bring in extra trainers (preferably old ones) that you do not mind getting dirty and a plastic bag to keep them in. You may take them home each week, if you prefer to clean them.

Our learning in Year 6 this week:

• In Maths, we used our knowledge of times tables to help solve short and long division questions. We have begun to learn the method but this will need to be practised over the next few weeks before we can be secure with it.
• In English, we met the final main character, Samuel, who will help Vita to complete her heist in the novel, The Good Thieves. We wrote a diary entry as her describing the first time she met either: Silk, Arkady or Samuel.
• In RE, we started our new topic, ‘Unity’, and discussed and created an information text for ways to be a good friend to others.
• In PE, we worked on evaluating our performance in invasion games, and how we can give constructive feedback to another person, just like a coach.
• In Music, we used glocks and recorders learning the chords: G, A, F and C. We also learnt to sing the song, ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ by Carole King.
• In PSHE, we discussed the benefits and risks of social media, and how we can encourage others to use social media responsibly.
• In French this week, we looked at the geography of France and added cities, rivers and mountains to a map. We learnt how to say the compass points in French and put the information together to make sentences such as Marseille est dans le sud de la France. 
• In Science, we used apps and pulse meters to measure our pulse in a quicker and more accurate way than trying to count ourselves. We gathered the data and talked about the range of pulse rates in the class and why that might be. We then learnt what is meant by a double circulatory system by modelling it - running round in a circuit passing through the heart twice for every trip round the body, picking up oxygen in the lungs and dropping it off around the body before going back to the heart and so on. We then tried to explain our understanding in writing. Next week, we will look at lambs' hearts and dissect them. If anyone feels squeamish, they do not have to take part.

Home Practice all relates to this week’s learning. These are the tasks needed to be completed:

Reading

• Please keep reading every day to build up stamina. A great idea is to read 20-30 pages a day (you can read more) in one sitting, as this will build up your ability to read at length for long periods of time.

Spellings (challenge words)

• Sumdog (Year 6 Sp 2 wk 2 short -y- sound)

Rhythm, system, physical, symbol, mystery, oxygen, symptom, hymn, myth, physics, syrup, cylinder, pyramid, rhyme, syllable

Maths challenges:

• Counting:
  • This week we have been counting in single digit steps to prepare us for future division learning. Try to do the same out loud or with paper.
  • Draw a line with some marks on it like I do in class. You could write the numbers as you count up or down, then double check it to make sure you have said the correct numbers.
  • Start with these numbers: 1, 2 and 3 and count up 10 times then back again in 3s:

35, 38, 41, 44, 47, 50, 53, 56, etc

and in 6s :

365, 371, 377, 383, 389, 395, 401, etc

• Number facts:
  • To help your maths even more, please continue to learn your numbers facts, 6 + 8 = 14, 8 + 7 = 15.
  • The best way to do this is to simply have someone in your home quiz you with questions like (8 + 6, 6 + 5, 3 + 8, 5 + 9, etc)
  • Then get them to change the place value of these digits (0.8 + 0.6, 0.06 + 0.05, 0.3 + 0.8, etc)

• Sumdog (Multiplication Sp 2 wk 2)
  • We have practiced a lot with these types of questions over the past month. Make sure you read the numbers in the question correctly and you will hopefully be able to work them out mentally.

• Sumdog (Divisions with times tables Sp2 wk 2)
  • For this challenge, use your times tables knowledge to answer quick division questions, which may be in the style of missing number sentences, e.g. 4 x ? = 36; 7 x ? = 56;? X 6 = 72, etc.

Year 3 Blog Friday 24th February 2023

Date: 24th Feb 2023 @ 1:34pm

Welcome back to your Friday Blog

Thank you all for coming to our parents evenings this week. The children have been very proud to show off all their amazing learning this year.

In our English this week we have been acting as characters in the story and writing some accounts of their experiences on the road to Jo'burg so far. Everyone is working hard to improve their writing. Well done Year 3!

In Maths we have finished our fractions learning and next week we will be learning new division strategies. We have been learning to find fractions of amounts and solve word problems with these. It has been tricky! This week we have set a Sumdog challenge to get ready for your learning next week.

In PE we have been learning how to play a new sport, handball.  We have used our skills from our invasion games learning earlier in the year and have enjoyed the new challenge. We have also started our gymnastics topic with Mrs Wood. This week we practiced some balances and animal travels. It was good fun. Over the next few weeks we will be perfecting our gymnastic skills and creating our own routines.

In our Geography learning we explored climate zones in Africa and used atlases to find out what the different climate zones were. We learned some great new vocabulary too!

temperate    tropical      desert       grassland / savannah

In Music we have been continuing learning our Egyptian songs, exploring rhythm with our percussion instruments and using glocks to improvise our own compositions. Have a look at our gallery here.

Home Practice

Continue to read your school books and have a go with your questioning. Practising these skills will ensure your children continue to improve as readers.

On your Sumdog challenges this week we arae looking at division to get ready for next week's learning. We have also shown the children how to access the training and tables practice features.

Another great app for practising your number facts is one minute maths by the White Rose Maths team. It is free to download from the AppStore and PlayStore. 

Your spellings this week are all homophones. Have a good go at learning them and using them in context.

there     their       they're       bury      berry        break      brake    to      too       two

Have a lovely weekend

The Year 3 team

Reception Blog - Friday 24th February 2023

Date: 24th Feb 2023 @ 10:54am

What a fabulous first week back! Big thank you for all of the cress diaries. The children have loved sharing them with us.

We have started our new topic of 'growing' and the children have really enjoyed our story of Oliver's Vegetables. We had a special delivery at the beginning of the week and it has inspired all of the children to write letters and lists all about the food we have received. Throughout the week we have retold the story so far using actions, we have sent this through on seesaw then you can all see how fabulous it is :)

In maths we have been looking at weight and capacity, using lots of vocabulary to talk about what we have found out.

Tuesday was pancake day, so we talked about how to ake them, we all mixed the ingredients, then cooked and ate them.

In Music we have used instruments to explore loud and soft sounds.

In the afternoons we have been exploring different fruits and vegetables, sorting them, looking at their seeds, what they look like and how they grow! We have even done drawings of the patterns we can see in different vegetables.

In RE we all talked about Lenten promises, what they were and what we could do. Each child has done their own and stuck it on our wall for everyone to see.

In French this week we began to learn the words for some farm animals through a song, game and story. The children are gaining confidence with greetings, answering simple questions about themselves in French - fantastique!

The Friday afternoon was time for PE and tots on tyres!

Year 1 Blog - Friday 24th February 2023

Date: 22nd Feb 2023 @ 4:34pm

Welcome to your first blog of this half term. 

English

We have started reading a new book - Where the Wild Things Are. We have listened to the story and watched animations of the story- we love the wild rumpus part! We described the settings in the story and listened for the language which is repeated. We looked closely at the wild things and discussed what human and animal parts they had. The puppets we made to re-tell the story were amazing-some of us also came up with our own characters. We are going to plan and write our own version of the story next week.

Phonics

We have been learning about all the igh sounds, focusing on split digraph i_e in slime and i in wild (just like our new story!)

Click here for a phonics song.

Maths

This week we have been learning about 2D and 3D shapes in more detail. We have compared the shapes and sorted them into groups.

We have continued to practise counting forwards and backwards in 2s, 5s and 10s from different starting numbers.

R.E.

We have started our new topic - Special Meals. We talked about a special meal that we have had, ordered the events of Mass and then focused on The Last Supper. We used speech bubbles to learn what Jesus said to his disciples.

P.E.

We have finished gymnastics and started throwing and catching. This week, we recapped how to underarm throw to a partner safely and then played a game to see which group could throw and catch the quickest!

Geography

We recapped the UK capital cities and sorted pictures of landmarks into each one. We found that London was the easiest as it is our capital city and some of us have been there!

Listen to the Big Ben song here.

Computing

We used our maths knowledge to start our new topic of grouping data. We are so good at sorting and grouping objects now! We were given lots of different objects and asked to sort them in different ways. Then, we went on Sumdog on the laptops.

P.S.H.E.

We learnt about personal hygiene and all the different ways that we can remain healthy. We listened to a very funny story called 'Dirty Bertie' and talked about making the opposite choices that Bertie does!

D.T.

We began our food topic this week. We learnt about the differences between fruit and vegetables and wrote down as many as we could think of.

Outdoor Learning

In one of our sessions this week we found a letter in our lodge from the forest fairy. She told us she had left some magic stones in our nature area and we could find them, decorate them and keep them. We had a great time helping each other to find the stones, then we decorated them with acrylic pens.

In another session we chose our own learning, we built dens, played in the mud kitchen, made up games, looked for mini-beasts or climbed trees. We showed great teamwork, imagination and perseverance.

Two groups learnt how to use hammers and screwdrivers safely. We have a volunteer helping in our sessions on a Monday so two more groups will use the tools next Monday.

We wore safety goggles and a glove on our helping hand. We learnt the difference between screws and nails.

French

We recapped the words for some farm animals and added some new vocabulary through a song, game and story. It's lovely to watch the children joining in with enthusiasm - excellent Y1!

Music

We continued to learn The Little Red Riding Hood song wiht Mrs Wood.

Home Practice

Phonics - ie and i_e words

Maths - 10 more and 10 less

Please continue to read for at least 10 minutes every night with your child, it really will make all the difference to your child's progress.

Thank you for coming in to the parents' evenings -we value all your support.

Year 6 Blog Friday 20th January 2023

Date: 20th Jan 2023 @ 7:18pm

Welcome to the Year 6 blog. This week, some of our Year 6s (along with a team of Year 5s) took part in a swimming competition at Hutton this Friday after school. It was a tough competition but our team managed to come 2^nd in our Penwortham/Longton area. A fantastic result!

REMINDER

For our PE lessons this half term, which will include cross country and orienteering (weather depending), please bring in extra trainers (preferably old ones) that you do not mind getting dirty and a plastic bag to keep them in. You may take them home each week, if you prefer to clean them.

Our learning in Year 6 this week:

• In Maths, we have learnt how to accurately measure, draw and estimate angles using a protractor. We have started to find missing angles but this learning will continue into next week.
• In English, we have begun our new novel, The Good Thieves by Katherine Rundell, by predicting the plot and themes based on clues of the four main characters. We then met the novel’s main protagonist, Vita, which we described using our knowledge from the text.
• In Geography, we investigated the similarities and differences between three digital maps: Google Earth, Google maps and Ordinance Survey maps (through the digimaps website). Next week, we will look into more detail of how an Ordinance Survey map is useful, using our local area of Longton.
• In PSHE, we helped a fictional character, Sita, with online friendships, and gave her advice on how to keep the friendship safe.
• In PE, we were joined by Year 5 to work together for improving our stamina in cross country, learning different tactics in tag rugby and creating new sequences in gymnastics.
• In Computing, we continued 3D modelling using Tinkercad. This week we learnt to add 3D shapes to a project and modify them.
• In Science, we investigated the reflection of light with mirrors and tin foil. The children were then able to use their understanding of reflection to invent a periscope using junk materials. Some worked better than others, but everyone could say how they could improve their design next time.

Home Practice all relates to this week’s learning. These are the tasks needed to be completed:

• Reading – Continue to read every night for 30 minutes. You can now change your book on any day – in Year 6 we aim to change it every week.

• Spellings (challenge words)
  • Sumdog (Spellings Sp1 wk 3 silent and unstressed letters 2)

guide, history, knee, know, lamb, often, parliament, recognise, rhyme, sign, separate, surprise, vegetable, weight, wrong.

• Maths challenges:
  • Counting:
    • This week we have been counting in mixed number steps. Try to do the same out loud or with paper.
    • Draw a line with some marks on it like I do in class. You could write the numbers as you count up or down, then double check it to make sure you have said the correct numbers.
    • Start with these numbers: 4/5, 4 1/5, 3 ½ , 8 ½ and count up 10 times then back again in 3 1/5 and 3 2/5:

4 1/5, 7 2/5, 10 3/5, 13 4/5, 17, 20 1/5, etc

and in 4 ½ :

8 ½, 13, 17 ½, 22, 26 1/2, etc

• Number facts:
  • To help your maths even more, please continue to learn your numbers facts, 7 + 8 = 15, 9 + 7 = 16.
  • The best way to do this is to simply have someone in your home quiz you with questions like (7 + 8, 9 + 7, 3 + 8, 5 + 9, etc)
  • Another great way is to use HIT THE BUTTON which you can access by clicking here
  • Then get them to change the place value of these digits (0.7 + 0.8, 0.09 + 0.07, 0.3 + 0.8, etc)

• Sumdog (Times tables Sp1 wk 3)

• Sumdog (NEW diagnostic test)
  • For this week’s Sumdog challenge, I have asked Sumdog to retest everyone. Questions may vary from person to person. The result will benefit all children, when they use Sumdog outside of the challenges I provide. Please let me know if there are any issues with it.

Year 2 Blog Friday 20th January 2023

Date: 20th Jan 2023 @ 5:02pm

Year 2 have been working so hard this week, every minute of the day has been used for learning something new and the children are always very enthusiastic and positive about the tasks they are given. In English, the children explored the snow and wrote descriptive snow poems. They also learnt how to make paper snowflakes to decorate their work. In Maths we continued our Money topic where we added amounts (£/p) with two 2-digit numbers. For example, £22 + £36 and 59p + 45p. We started our topic on Capacity/Volume and looked at the units, millilitres and litres and when we would use them. For example, litres to measure how much water in the bath and millilitres to measure a mug of tea. In French, we played games and learnt a new song to reinforce the vocabulary of fruit. Mrs Quilliam heard children asking for their fruit snack in French - well done Y2! During RE, the children heard the Bible story of Jesus’ Baptism and sequenced/illustrated it beautifully. In PE we learnt to jump correctly and worked on star, tuck and twist jumps. In Art, we made Chinese New Year rabbit silhouettes. The Lake District is our new topic in Geography. We gathered facts about the Lake District on a mind map. Keep working hard and enjoying your learning Year 2, well done.

Forest School

One of our sessions this week was to make a spotter. These help us to really focus on what we are looking at. We looked at the buds on the trees and we used the picture on our spotter to identify the trees. We realised that we have a great number of different trees in our grounds.

Our other session was to investigate bubbles. We made a bubble mixture and tried to blow bubbles through a shape made from string. The first group realised this wasn't  working and started using willow.... this worked brilliantly! We also tried blowing bubbles by making shapes with our hands.We showed great perseverance!

Click here for some photos.

We also had some free play in the Nature Area. We noticed there is a lot of new growth and we found ice!

Reading

In Year 2, children should read for at least 15 minutes every night and talk about the book. This will help with understanding the text and learning new words.

Please date, sign and leave a small comment when you have read with your child and make it clear that you have finished a book, then we know we can change it. For Example - 14.01.22 Max’s Box. Read to page 6, really enjoying the book or finished the book. MG.

Reading books are changed every Wednesday. You will receive 2-4 books depending on their length, they should last the week, if you read a little each night. However, if you need to change a book at any other time, we will change it as needed.

Reading resources:

Oxford Owl – This resource has an exciting range of carefully levelled books to help children learn to read and really enjoy it.

If parents and children decide to use this resource, we ask they access phase 5 books. Go to https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/ and select ‘my class login’. Scroll down to the ‘eBook Library for Letters & Sounds’. You could also explore the rest of the site and read books from the Oxford Owl eBook library or listen to audio books.

Username: sto2

Password: 1234

Resources for questioning your child while they are reading - https://www.literacyshedblog.com/uploads/1/2/5/7/12572836/ks1_reading_vipers.pdf

In addition to this, reading a good bed time story to your child is so worthwhile and really helps towards a lifelong love of reading.

Spelling

Please practise these spellings for your quiz on Friday (27.01.23). A sheet will go home every Friday with the spelling list on. This is for home practise only and can be kept with you.

You will have a Sumdog challenge on these words to complete by Friday 27.01.23.

This week’s spellings:

‘s’ sound spelt ‘c’ before ‘e’, ‘i’ and ‘y’. Including two words from the Year 1/2 spelling list.

ice              celery

face            circle    

city             Cinderella (remember the capital C!)

race             once

pencil           most

Maths

The children are really enjoying the focus on times tables and have done very well again this week.

Next week for our quiz (27.01.23) we will be learning the division facts for the 10 x table in order.

The children have brought home a fact poster with the division facts for the 10x table. Please pin them up on the wall or fridge and learn them.

They also have a little worksheet with multiplication and division facts for 10 to have a go at. This can be kept at home, no need to send them back in.

By the end of Year 2, children should know fully the x2, x5, x10 and x3 tables and the corresponding division facts. This will really help with their learning when they move up to the juniors.

At home, count in 10’s forwards and backwards, see how quickly you can go, but it must still be accurate. Chant/sing the division facts x10 tables. Ask an adult to quiz you on them.

You will have a division fact/10x table and a money challenge on Sumdog to complete by Friday 27.01.23.

Sumdog

Log in at www.sumdog.com

Just to let you know, our PE day has changed from Friday to Wednesday for the rest of this term.

Have a lovely weekend. Year 2 Team.

Year 5 Blog 20th January 2023

Date: 20th Jan 2023 @ 4:06pm

Welcome to your Friday Blog

We have had a super week of learning this week!

We have loved reading more of our novel Street Child. We wrote some super descriptive pieces with Mrs Wood and have been working hard on thinking about how our sentences sound when they are read.

In maths we have been reviewing our mental maths strategies and working on our number facts. Everyone is really working on their explanations and reasoning. Well done Year 5!

In Art we have been exploring the art of William Morris. We have been exploring his textiles looked at how we might replicate his work.

In French, we conjugated a regular -ER verb (manger - to eat) for the first time, then practised adding the correct endings for a range of subject pronouns. Well done, Y5. Great grammar! 

Home Practice

Reading

Read out loud to somebody every day for 20 minutes. Look out for new words and find their meaning.  

Times Tables

Continue to practice your tables target for your test next week. A little practice every day will do the trick! 

Counting

Count out loud in 1,000s from 24,105 to 42,105. 

What pattern do you notice?

Count out loud in 30s from 0 to 360 and back again.

0          30          60          ...

Count out loud in 40s from 0 to 480 and back again.

0          40          80          ...

Spellings 

Check Sumdog for your spellings this week. 

Sumdog

Complete the Sumdog challenges:

Times tables

Maths Challenge

Spelling Challenge 

Have a super weekend. 

Year 4 Blog Friday 20th January 2023

Date: 20th Jan 2023 @ 3:46pm

Year 4 Blog

Friday 20^th January 2023

Welcome to this week’s blog. Here is a summary of our learning this week:

In English, we continued reading our class novel, The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips. We used ideas and vocabulary from the story to write our own diary account.  In addition, we learnt more about verbs and adverbs and how choosing words carefully can really enhance our writing.

In Maths, we learnt more about time. We read time on both an analogue and a digital clock to the nearest minute.  We also learnt how to tell the time on a 24- hour clock, as well as converting between analogue, digital, and 12 and 24 hour clocks.  As highlighted last week, time is a tricky concept and needs lots of practice.  Why not ask someone at home to help you tell the time – you might find this resource helpful if you want to practise at home.

In RE, we learnt about the local parish and church.  We discussed the name of the parish and activities in the church which spread the Good News. We also considered how the school and parish link up and why the local parish community is important. 

In Science, we began a new topic about States of Matter by looking at the properties of solids, liquids and gases. We then classified a range of items using a Venn diagram, explaining why we knew, for example, that shampoo was a liquid. There was a lot of really good discussion using the new vocabulary. 

In PE, we continued with our swimming lessons. We are becoming more confident in the water, and much faster at getting changed and remembering to organise our clothes in our lockers!

In History, we started our new topic about the Anglo-Saxons.  To begin with, we learnt who the Anglo-Saxons were, where they came from and why they came to England.

To celebrate Chinese New Year which falls on Sunday 22^nd January, we had a visitor who came in to tell us about life in China. Our visitor (James) taught us a few words in Cantonese and how to count to 10. He also answered lots of questions about his time living in China. 

In PSHE we discussed our rights and responsibilities. Rights are the basic things that we are all entitled to – such as freedom, equality and the right to be treated fairly.  However, for each right, there is a responsibility placed on us.  For example, although we have the right to education, we also have a responsibility to work hard and do our best in school.

Home Practice

Reading

Please read out loud to somebody for 20 minutes each evening.  Focus on fluency and understanding. If you find any new words, make sure you find out what they mean – write them in your reading diary and try and use them in your own writing.  

Counting

This week, please practise counting in 2’s and 20’s.  

For example, start at 184 and count up to 210 and back again

184   186   188  etc                   210   208   206   etc

Now have a go at counting in 20’s

Start at 240 and count up to 360 and back again

240   260   280 et                     360   340   320  etc

Times tables

You should know your individual tables target.  These will be tested next Wednesday (25^th January 2023). 

Remember you can also practise your tables playing Hit the Button and timestables.co.uk

Spellings

This week’s spellings are all homophones.

scene           seen            mail             male             bawl

ball              waist           waste          guest           guessed

new              knew            to                two              too    

These spellings will be tested next Friday (27^th January 2023).

Sumdog challenges

You have been set 3 challenges on Sumdog:

• A spelling challenge based on the spellings above
• A times tables challenge based on the 2, 5 and 10 times tables
• A time challenge – estimating time and reading analogue and digital clocks

Please make sure you log on and have a go!  Little and often is the key to success!

Please keep practising your times tables as much as you can.  Knowing your tables off by heart is crucial and will help you in many different areas of maths.

Using Hit the Button can also help you practise your number bonds.  Please have a go at brushing up your number bond skills, so that you can recall them quickly and accurately.

Have a relaxing weekend

The Year 4 Team

Year 3 Friday 20th January 2023

Date: 20th Jan 2023 @ 2:39pm

Welcome to your Friday Blog

This week we have enjoyed our new story The Butterfly Lion. We have been describing Bertie's home and retold the story where he saved the little lion from the hyenas. Everyone has been working hard to improve their writing this week and taking care with their presentation.

In our maths we have been learning a new strategy to add more efficiently. When adding 19, we can add 20 and take away 1, when we add 39, we can add 40 and take away 1. We have also been practising our x8 tables. Keep working on these as well as our x2, x5, x10, x3 and x4.

In Art, as part of our textiles learning we have been exploring African patterns and colour. Inhis topic we will be experimenting with different fabric paints and dyes. We will be designing and creating our own African cloth bag. Have a look at our gallery here.

Home Practice

Reception Blog - Friday 20th January 2023

Date: 20th Jan 2023 @ 11:29am

We have had another great week doing about the story of Zog. We have been labelling pictures of Zog using describing words and putting them into sentences!

In phonics we have played cross the river, we have done this reading or writing words with our new digraphs in. These are sh, ch and qu.

In maths we have been subitising - saying what the amount is without counting. We have also been sorting random amounts from 6-10 and counting to and from 20.

On Tuesday afternoon we had snow and ice on our school grounds, so we got our wellies on and went for a walk all the way to our pond, which we discovered was frozen!! On our way we talked about what we could see and hear. We saw frost on the trees, but we could also hear it melting, as it was dripping on the ground.

In Come and See we did the story of Jesus meeting Simeon and Anna at the temple, we made our own candles to show Jesus being the light of the world.

We have really enjoyed celebrating Chinese new year too! We looked at how it is celebrated and planned our own celebration. We had dragon dancing, food tasting and we even made our own flags and chinese lanterns. We even looked at the Atlas's and talked about what we could see on the maps, we saw rivers, mountains, the sea and much more!

In PE we have started our Tots on Tyres progamme and we have also done yoga.

A big well done to everyone on another super week!

Year 1 Blog - Friday 20th January

Date: 18th Jan 2023 @ 5:42pm

Welcome to your Friday blog!

English

We have continued to learn through the story of Hansel and Gretel. We wrote some sentences about how the characters might be thinking and feeling. We described the setting of the story in terms of our senses... I can see, I can hear...  We listened to a different version of the story - 'Trust Me, Hansel and Gretel Are Sweet' and compared the two.

Phonics

We have been learning about all the ee sounds again.We also revised oo as in zoo and moon and learnt ew as in screw.

Maths

This week we have been learning about measuring time. We have learnt about seconds, minutes and hours, days of the week and months of the year.The vocabulary we have also been using is before and after.

We have continued to practise counting forwards and backwards in 2s, 5s and 10s from different starting numbers.

R.E.

We learnt about the special people that work and volunteer in Church. We identified them in pictures and built our own Churches our of lego!

P.E.

We learnt two new gymnastic movements (crab walk and bear walk) and learnt to star jump effectively. Our confidence is growing each week!

Girls - please try to wear long socks on Wednesdays so that they can be taken off for gymnastics.

Geography

We learnt about the four countries that make up the UK in more detail. We labelled each country on a map and added on their capital cities. This was quite tricky for us, especially the spelling!

Computing

We are becoming whizzes on the laptops! We remembered how to open up a Word document and we typed our own lost poster for the teddy. We've learnt how to use the space bar, enter key, backspace, caps lock and even the arrows to navigate around the document.

P.S.H.E.

We learnt about medicines and how they help our bodies. We talked about moderation, different types of medicine and who can give us medicine.

Science

We continued to learn about materials. This week, we described their properties - are the materials opaque? Transparent? Strong? Light?

Each night, Patch the class teddy will be sent home as a part of our Science lessons. This is to test seasonal change. If you are chosen to take the teddy, please write the time that the sun goes down (Patch needs to go to bed then!). Hopefully we will see a pattern and a change in the times.

Outdoor Learning

One of our sessions this week was to make a spotter. These help us to really focus on what we are looking at. We looked at the buds on the trees and we used the picture on our spotter to identify the trees. We realised that we have a great number of different trees in our grounds.

Our other session was to investigate bubbles. We made a bubble mixture and tried to blow bubbles through a shape made from string. The first group realised this wasn't  working and started using willow.... this worked brilliantly! We also tried blowing bubbles by making shapes with our hands.We showed great perseverance!

Click here to see some photos.

We also had some free play in the Nature Area. We noticed there is a lot of new growth and we found ice!

French

We played games and sang songs to reinforce the vocabulary of fruit.

Music

We have been learning about another traditiional tale called Little Red Riding Hood.

Click here to listen to the story and sing the songs.

Home Practice

Phonics - oo words and ew words

Maths - Sequencing events

Please continue to read for at least 10 minutes every night with your child, it really will make all the difference to your child's progress.

Year 2 Blog Friday 13th January 2023

Date: 13th Jan 2023 @ 4:20pm

A fantastic week in Year 2. The children are putting 100% effort into all their learning. I’m very impressed with the work they are producing and all the extra learning they are doing at home! Keep up the great work everyone. In English, we are reading Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl, we looked at the interesting/ambitious vocabulary that he used and thought about using it in our own writing. The character descriptions of Boggis, Bunce, Bean and Mr Fox were excellent. In Maths, we have worked hard on time all week. The children learnt to tell the time to; o’clock, half past, quarter to and quarter past. Please reinforce this at home by asking your child to tell you the time. In RE the children made beautiful Bible bookmarks and during Science they started their new topic on ‘Animals including Humans’. In French this week, we recapped the words for some fruit from year 1 and added some new ones to extend our French vocabulary. We focussed on whether the nouns are masculine or feminine in French and played games to help us remember the words.  We enjoyed doing the conga to a fruity song - J'aime les fruits! The children really enjoyed doing Braille Art, they wrote their names in braille and decorated it colourfully. We discussed the different jobs people do in PSHE and understood that people get paid for doing these jobs.

Click here to see some of our Outdoor Learning

Reading

In Year 2, children should read for at least 15 minutes every night and talk about the book. This will help with understanding the text and learning new words.

Please date, sign and leave a small comment when you have read with your child and make it clear that you have finished a book, then we know we can change it. For Example - 14.11.22 Max’s Box. Read to page 6, really enjoying the book or finished the book. MG.

Reading books are changed every Wednesday. You will receive 2-4 books depending on their length, they should last the week, if you read a little each night. However, if you need to change a book at any other time, we will change it as needed.

Reading resources:

Oxford Owl – This resource has an exciting range of carefully levelled books to help children learn to read and really enjoy it.

If parents and children decide to use this resource, we ask they access phase 5 books. Go to https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/ and select ‘my class login’. Scroll down to the ‘eBook Library for Letters & Sounds’. You could also explore the rest of the site and read books from the Oxford Owl eBook library or listen to audio books.

Username: sto2

Password: 1234

Resources for questioning your child while they are reading - https://www.literacyshedblog.com/uploads/1/2/5/7/12572836/ks1_reading_vipers.pdf

In addition to this, reading a good bed time story to your child is so worthwhile and really helps towards a lifelong love of reading.

Spelling

Please practise these spellings for your quiz on Friday (20.01.23). A sheet will go home every Friday with the spelling list on. This is for home practise only and can be kept with you.

You will have a Sumdog challenge on these words to complete by Friday 20.01.23.

This week’s spellings:

‘j’ sound spelt ‘ge/dge’ at the end of words and ‘g’ elsewhere in words before ‘e’, ‘i’ and ‘y’. Including two words from the Year 2 spelling list.

jog              edge

join             giant    

huge            gerbil

age              wild

badge          climb

Maths

The children did really well with their first times table quiz (x10), well done everyone.

Next week we will continue to learn the x10 tables but this time the children need to learn them in a random order, rather than as they appear on the list. This is to learn for next week’s quiz on Friday 20.01.23.

The children have brought home a colouring worksheet with the 10x table. The sheets are to be kept at home, no need to send them back in.

By the end of Year 2, children should know fully the x2, x5, x10 and x3 tables and the corresponding division facts. This will really help with their learning when they move up to the juniors.

At home, count in 10’s forwards and backwards, see how quickly you can go, but it must still be accurate. Chant/sing your x10 tables. Ask an adult to quiz you on the x10 tables in a random order (quick fire questions).

You will have a 10x table and a time challenge on Sumdog to complete by Friday 20.01.23.

Sumdog

Log in at www.sumdog.com

Have a lovely weekend. Year 2 Team.

Year 6 Blog Friday 13th January 2023

Date: 13th Jan 2023 @ 3:31pm

Welcome to the Year 6 blog.  This Friday, our football A team headed to Poolfoot Farm Sports & Leisure Complex in Thornton-Cleveleys for the Lancashire Football Finals. This is the first time we have ever achieved this, and thanks to the hard work from everyone, they achieved runners-up in the shield finals of the competition. A fantastic achievement!

REMINDER

For our PE lessons this half term, which will include cross country and orienteering (weather depending), please bring in extra trainers (preferably old ones) that you do not mind getting dirty and a plastic bag to keep them in. You may take them home each week, if you prefer to clean them.

Our learning in Year 6 this week:

• In Maths, we have learnt to find fractions of amounts using our multiplication facts, and converted between fractions, decimals and percentages.
• In English, we are nearing the completion of Private Peaceful. This week we have learnt to use new vocabulary to describe a deadly gas attack scene and used various sentence structures to write an action scene.
• In RE, we learnt that there are seventy-three books in the Bible, forty six in the Old Testament and twenty-seven in the New Testament. We used our school Bibles to look up references to decide what genre the writing was and a short summary of them.
• In Geography, we began our mapping work by relating our previous learning of mountains to discuss whether we would live near a volcano. We discussed the advantages and disadvantages of living near one.
• In PSHE, we explored how people on social media can create identities which can affect the way other people perceive them.
• In PE, we divided the class into learning new tactics in an invasion game and prepped our gymnastics routine for our final lesson next week.
• In Computing, we began a new topic of 3D modelling, using Tinkercad, a web-based 3D modelling application. Each child has their own private log in to save work, which we will be adapting over the next 5 weeks.
• In French, we recapped weather and clothes words using the story Quel temps fait-il, Berthe? We answered questions about the text to show our understanding.
• In Science, we looked for patterns between an object, the position of the light source and the size of the shadow. We also used our knowledge of how light travels to explain why shadows are always the same shape as the object. 

Home Practice all relates to this week’s learning. These are the tasks needed to be completed:

• Reading – Continue to read every night for 30 minutes. You can now change your book on any day – in Year 6 we aim to change it every week.

• Spellings (challenge words)
  • Sumdog (Spellings -silent letters and unstressed letters)

answer, favourite, bruise, actually, build, guarantee, certain, guard, definite, library, difference, muscle, exercise, doubt, environment.

• Maths challenges:
  • Counting:
    • This week we have been counting in fraction steps. Try to do the same out loud or with paper.
    • Draw a line with some marks on it like I do in class. You could write the numbers as you count up or down, then double check it to make sure you have said the correct numbers.
    • Start with these numbers: 4/5, 4 1/5, 3 ½ , 8 ½ and count up 10 times then back again in one fifth and then two fifths:

4/5, 1 1/5, 1 3/5, 2, 2 1/5 , 2 3/5, etc

and in 2 ½ :

3 ½, 6, 8 ½, 11, 13 ½, 16, etc

• Number facts:
  • To help your maths even more, please continue to learn your numbers facts, 6 + 8 = 14, 8 + 7 = 15.
  • The best way to do this is to simply have someone in your home quiz you with questions like (8 + 6, 6 + 5, 3 + 8, 5 + 9, etc)
  • Then get them to change the place value of these digits (0.8 + 0.6, 0.06 + 0.05, 0.3 + 0.8, etc)

• Sumdog (Times tables Sp1 wk 2)
  • This week, to see how confident the children are with the lower times tables, I have set a challenge for x4, x5, x6 and x7. Try to focus on speed as well as accuracy again this week.

• Sumdog (Adding and subtracting fractions)
  • For this challenge, you may need a pencil and paper to make quick jottings, especially if you have a question with same multiples, e.g. ½ + ¼ Remember that you need to convert the fractions to have the same denominator.
  • Therefore, ½ = 4/8
  • The question is then 4/8 + 1/4 = 5/8
  • Do not try to complete each question or game quickly, focus on getting as many correct as possible.

Year 4 Blog Friday 13th January 2023

Date: 13th Jan 2023 @ 12:53pm

Year 4 Blog

Friday 13^th January 2023

Welcome to this week’s blog. Here is a summary of our learning this week:

In English, we started our new novel, The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips by Michael Morpurgo. We began by exploring the pictures on the cover, reading the blurb and looking inside the book. We found many similarities between this novel, Kensuke’s Kingdom, and other books we have read by Michael Morpurgo (for example, Toro Toro and the Butterfly Lion).  We also collected words and phrases to describe Lily, the main character, and then wrote a character description.

In Maths, we learnt more about division.  We consolidated the chunking method and also learnt how to record a remainder.  In addition, we investigated dividing numbers by 10 and completed some word problems. We also started our time topic. Time is a tricky concept and needs lots of practice.  Why not ask someone at home to help you tell the time – you might find this resource helpful if you want to practise at home.

In PE, we started swimming lessons.  Our first week went very well - we are looking forward to building our stamina and becoming more confident in the water over the coming weeks.

In French, we revisited all our learning from September to remind us what we have learnt. We know all the singular parts of the verb etre and how to make an adjective feminine if necessary. We looked at how to pronounce words with an and en in them and practised listening and reading in French

In RE, we started our new topic ‘Community’.  We discussed the different communities we belong to, as well as the advantages and demands of being part of a community.  Following this, we considered how the apostles felt when Jesus chose them to help him in his work.

In PSHE we started our ‘respect’ topic.  We considered how people’s behaviour affects us, and others, including online.

We also completed our DT project this week. This involved:

• sketching, labelling and annotating our design
• making the model, including the circuit and switch
• evaluating our final product

You can see some pictures of our finished models here.

Home Practice

Reading

Please read out loud to somebody for 20 minutes each evening.  Focus on fluency and understanding, taking notice of punctuation. Remember to discuss the story with an adult.

Counting

This week, please practise counting in 7’s.  

For example, start at 0 and count up to 84 and back again

0   7  14  21  etc                        84   77   70   etc

Now have a go at counting in 8’s

Times tables

You should know your individual tables target.  These will be tested next Wednesday (18^th January 2023). 

Remember you can also practise your tables playing Hit the Button and timestables.co.uk

Spellings

This week’s spellings all have the ending -ture.

mixture       capture        feature        moisture      adventure

nature         picture        vulture         future         torture

sculpture     creature      fracture      furniture     temperature

These spellings will be tested next Friday (20^th January 2023).

Sumdog challenges

You have been set 3 challenges on Sumdog:

• A spelling challenge based on the spellings above
• A times tables challenge based on the 7 times tables
• A time challenge – telling the time on digital and analogue clocks

Please make sure you log on and have a go!  Little and often is the key to success!

Please keep practising your times tables as much as you can.  Knowing your tables off by heart is crucial and will help you in many different areas of maths.

Using Hit the Button can also help you practise your number bonds.  Please have a go at brushing up your number bond skills, so that you can recall them quickly and accurately.

Have a super weekend

The Year 4 Team

Reception Blog - Friday 13th January 2023

Date: 13th Jan 2023 @ 12:48pm

We have had a great week starting our new topic of Julia Donaldson and the story of Zog. This week we have been retelling the story using story props, it was lots of fun! We have also been using our sounds to write short words on our own in Phonics.

In maths, we have been subitising when looking at different amounts. Then we have put these amounts in order, creating our own numberlines.

In Phonics we have done the sounds: x, y, z and zz and we have learnt new games to help us with our learning, called 'read, read, run' and 'phonic detectives.'

Year 3 Blog Friday 13th January 2023

Date: 12th Jan 2023 @ 4:06pm

We have had another great week in Year 3! 

In English, we have started reading The Butterfly Lion By Michael Morpurgo. We are really enjoying this book and are learning lots of new ways to write our sentences. We have been using ideas from the story and stealing some fantastic vocabulary. Well done Year 3!

In Maths we have been exploring 3D Shape. We have been lusing our mathematical vocabulary to describe our shapes (faces, edges and vertices) and used artstraws to make prisms, cubes, pyramids and lots more. We also started our new topic on place value and number this week. We have set two challenges on Sumdog, one to recap on our shape learning and one to prepare for next week's lessons on place value and subtraction.

We also started our new RE topic on Journeys. We discussed what our journey through the year looks like and what special events we look forward to. We also linked this to our PSHE learning on families. The children came up with some really thoughtful ideas about family and special times.

In Geography we started our new topic on Africa. In this topic we will be looking at three countries. Egypt, Ghana and South Africa. This week we used our atlases to locate these countries on the map and described their location using the points on the compass. We also created some new bookmarks using african prints as inspiration.

Home Practice 

Read out loud to somebody for 20 minutes, tell them all about the different characters and places in your stories.

Spellings

Practise your spellings every night. This week, your spellings have the -ness and -ment suffixes.

happiness     loudness    sloppiness     darkness    sadness    enjoyment    disappointment    excitement    improvement

Counting

Counting out loud is a great way to embed number fluency. 

Count out loud in 10s from 81 to 181.

Count out loud in 4s from 0 to 48.

Count out loud in 2s from 40 to 20. 

Times Tables 

This week we have told the children their times table focus this week. You can use the times tables training on Sumdog and this will also pinpoint weaker areas.

In class we are continuing to practice the 8 times table. Here is a song we have been learning, with a little help from Adele.

Sumdog

Access the Sumdog challenges and training. These are essential to practise and prepare for what we are learning in school. 

You will be tested on your spelling and times tables next Friday. 

Have a lovely weekend.

Year 1 Blog- Friday 13th January 2023

Date: 12th Jan 2023 @ 10:12am

Welcome to your Friday blog!

Englsh

This week we stared learning all about traditional tales. We talked about the features of these stores - there might be magic, talking animals, good characters, bad characters.

We listened to the story of Hansel and Gretel. We used great vocabulary to describe the witch. We illustrated and wrote a description of the witch on a poster.

Phonics

We have been learning about all the different sounds which make ee as in tree, y as in Bobby, ey as in turkey, ie as in field, e as in behave, e-e as in Steve. 

Maths

We have been learning about coins and their value. We have been finding out how many 1ps are the same value as each coin up to 20p. We have been finding out the total when we buy two or more items. We have been explaining how we found the totals.Let your child have a look at any coins you have at home.

We have also been counting forwards and backwards in2s, 5s and 10s. This knowledge has helped us when working out the values of a group of coins, how many 2ps are the same value as 10p? how many 5ps are the same value as 20p?

R.E.

We have started our new topic of 'Special People'. We explored what makes someone special and we identified our special people. We learnt that it doesn't have to be someone in our family.

P.E.

We had our second gymnastics lesson and we built upon the learning from last week. We learnt how to do a tuck jump, egg roll, frog jump and bunny hop.

See our great pictures here.

P.S.H.E.

We started to learn about how we can stay healthy. We looked at food, medicines and exercise and how we need to choose to live healthily. We identified things that are good for our bodies and things that are not so good for our bodies.

Computing

We focused on typing this week and the term 'digital writing' - how we can write digitally. We learnt about Word and how to type our names in a Word document.

Art

We learnt about mixing primary colours together. We experimented as a table and found out which secondary colours can be made.

Geography

We loved learning about the U.K. this week! We starting learning about the 4 countries that make up the UK and then we drew pictures of different places that we have been to. We had examples such as The Lake District and Blackpool.

We also used the atlases to find China ready for Chinese New Year! See our pictures here.

Science

We started our topic of materials. We learnt what a material was and how to identify them. We focused on 6 main materials - wood, water, plastic, rock, metal and glass.

French

We began to learn the words for some fruit. We enjoyed doing the conga to a fruity song - J'aime les fruits!

Outdoor Learning

One of our sessions this week was making forest faces with clay and natural materials. We worked in the nature area and we were careful to avoid standing on the new plants which are starting to grow. We found stones, tiny twigs, moss, spinning jennies and different types of leaves to make the features on our faces. We gave them a name as well. We also had some free play and decided what we wanted to do.

Our other session was making a magic wand. We used wire for the first time-we threaded it though the bells, as wool or ribbon would not go through the tiny hole. We then practised tying knots in ribbon and wool- we showed great perseverance until we were successful!

Click here to see some of our Outdoor Learning

Fairtrade

We had a visit from Mrs Greenlees. She came to talk to us about what Fairtrade is and how we can help the farmers by supporting Fairtrade.

Home Practice

Phonics - common exception words

Maths - money challenges

Please continue to read for at least 10 minutes every night with your child, it really will make all the difference to your child's progress.

Year 5 Blog Friday 13th January

Date: 11th Jan 2023 @ 9:44am

Happy Friday and welcome to your Friday Blog. 

A huge well done to the children who completed their research about Lancashire and Preston in the past and about the Victorian times. Some really interesting facts and photographs! 

This week we have continued to read our class novel Street Child. We have used our research to write a non-chronological report about life in the Victorian times in London. A non-chronological report gives information to the reader about a certain topic and can be written in any order. We looked at examples of non-chronological reports to find out what we would need to include. We included:

• Title
• Interesting introduction
• Sub-headings and paragraphs 
• Facts and figures
• Pictures and diagrams

Everybody did a really fantastic job and will be sharing their non-chronologival report with somebody at home to teach them all about life in Victorian London. We also shared our reports with year 3 who said they were really interesting and informative. 

We finished our current history topic on Ancient Greece by learning all about the Ancient Olympics. We used primary sources of evidence to find clues about the Ancient Olympics in Greece and then made posters with our findings. We looked at images of clay pots which had paintings of the Ancient Olympics. We looked at these to find out who could compete, what sports they competed in and what clothes they wore.

You can see us being historians in our gallery here. 

We will start our history topic about the Victorians next week. The topic is called Local history in the Victorian times. 

We also finished our current science topic about forces. We carried our a pattern seeking investigation by making and investigating different levers. Our aim was to find out if a longer lever made the job easier or harder. We found out that the longer the lever, the easier the job. The shorter the lever, the harder the job.

You can see us investigating here.

On Friday we were introduced to our new science topic - Earth and space. We can't wait to learn more! 

In maths we have been learning about factors and square numbers. We used counters to find factor pairs and then identified square numbers by finding out which factors pairs created a square. 

Home Practice 

Remember

Don't forget to bring in some old trainers and spare socks in a carrier bag for PE next week. Bring them on Monday so your PE kit is in school all week. 

Reading

Read out loud to somebody every day for 20 minutes. Look out for new words and find their meaning.  

Times Tables

You have been given your tables target for your test next week. Practise every day. 

Counting

Count out loud in 1,000s from 76,101 to 86,101. 

76,101         77,101          78,101          ...

Count out loud in 30s from 0 to 360.

0          30          60          ...

Count out loud in 40s from 0 to 480.

0          40          80          ...

Spellings 

Here are your spellings this week. They all end with -able, -ible, -ably, -ibly. 

possible          possibly          incredible          incredibly          sensible          sensibly          reliable          reliably          respectable

          respectably          agreeable          agreeably          probable          probably          enjoyable 

Sumdog

Complete the Sumdog challenges:

Times tables

Maths Challenge

Spelling Challenge 

Have a super weekend. 

Year 2 Blog Friday 6th January 2023

Date: 6th Jan 2023 @ 3:37pm

Year 2 have settled back so well, even though it has only been three days, it feels as though we have done a full week! Well done everyone, it’s great that so many of you have been on triple gold and the house point chart is full! In English, the children wrote a recount about their Christmas holiday and told me all about the things they did at home. I saw great sentence openers and vocabulary also the handwriting was fantastic. We have nearly completed our fraction topic in Maths. We looked at halves/quarters of shapes and amounts and learnt that two quarters = one half. In French this week, we learnt about how French people celebrate La fete des rois - The Feast of the Kings. It involves a special cake with a charm hidden inside. Whoever finds the charm in their slice is crowned the King or queen for the day. The children wrote about this and decorated crowns for the new French display. We started our new topic in R.E – Books. We explored all the books we know about at home and school and will learn more about the Bible. We dedicated today to D.T and spent the whole day making Tudor houses (linked to The Great Fire of London History topic last term). The children were so creative and their constructions were amazing. They worked with great care and thought. Well done Year 2.

Reading

New reading books will be issued next week.

In Year 2, children should read for at least 15 minutes every night and talk about the book. This will help with understanding the text and learning new words.

Please date, sign and leave a small comment when you have read with your child and make it clear that you have finished a book, then we know we can change it. For Example - 14.11.22 Max’s Box. Read to page 6, really enjoying the book or finished the book. MG.

Reading books are changed every Wednesday. You will receive 2-4 books depending on their length, they should last the week, if you read a little each night. However, if you need to change a book at any other time, we will change it as needed.

Reading resources:

Oxford Owl – This resource has an exciting range of carefully levelled books to help children learn to read and really enjoy it.

If parents and children decide to use this resource, we ask they access phase 5 books. Go to https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/ and select ‘my class login’. Scroll down to the ‘eBook Library for Letters & Sounds’. You could also explore the rest of the site and read books from the Oxford Owl eBook library or listen to audio books.

Username: sto2

Password: 1234

Resources for questioning your child while they are reading - https://www.literacyshedblog.com/uploads/1/2/5/7/12572836/ks1_reading_vipers.pdf

In addition to this, reading a good bed time story to your child is so worthwhile and really helps towards a lifelong love of reading.

Spelling

Please practise these spellings for your quiz on Friday (13.01.23). A sheet will go home every Friday with the spelling list on. This is for home practise only and can be kept with you.

You will have a Sumdog challenge on these words to complete by Friday 13.01.23.

This week’s spellings:

door             mind

floor             kind    

poor              behind

because         child

find                children

Maths

This term we will start doing a times table quiz every week alongside our weekly spelling quiz. The children have brought home a sheet with the 10x table on it. This is to learn for next week’s quiz on Friday 13.01.23. The sheets are to be kept at home, no need to send them back in. You may find we repeat the same times tables some weeks this is to make sure the children fully know and have learnt their times tables thoroughly. We will also learn the corresponding division facts for our weekly times table quiz.

By the end of Year 2, children should know fully the x2, x5, x10 and x3 tables and the corresponding division facts. This will really help with their learning when they move up to the juniors.

At home, count in 10’s forwards and backwards, try starting from 20 or 40 or 70 not always 0. Write it down and spot any patterns that will help you remember. Challenge yourself and go past 100 or start from a different number like 4, 14, 24, 34, 44, and 54! When we count in 10’s from 0, the numbers we say are actually the 10x table.

You will have a 10x table and a fractions challenge on Sumdog to complete by Friday 13.01.23.

Sumdog

Log in at www.sumdog.com

Have a lovely weekend. Year 2 Team.

Year 6 Blog Friday 6th January 2022

Date: 6th Jan 2023 @ 1:06pm

Welcome to our first blog of 2023. It has been a short week but we have managed to fit in quite a bit of work, which the children have responded very well to.

On Friday, the juniors celebrated The Feast of Epiphany in church with Father Michael. Well done to those in Year 6 who did the readings and bidding prayers.

REMINDER

For our PE lessons this half term, which will include cross country and orienteering (weather depending), please bring in extra trainers (preferably old ones) that you do not mind getting dirty and a plastic bag to keep them in.

Our learning in Year 6 this week:

• In Maths, we we learnt how to find common multiples and common factors of numbers. We used this knowledge to add and subtract fractions with different denominators.
• In English, we continued our novel, Private Peaceful, by improving our reading skills, retrieval and inference, to gain information about the new character Sergeant Horrible Hanley. We also learnt to describe an action scene using the scene of how Tommo and Charlie rescued their Captain.  
• In RE, we started our new topic, Sources, by discussing the impact that books have on our lives. We asked ourselves whether books can enrich our lives, have they ever inspired us, and is there a book that changed the way we perceive the world.
• In History, we used sources to predict what happened from the start of the World War I to the end. We then learnt about the Treaty of Versailles and how USA, Britain and France felt towards Germany and whether we felt it was harsh or fair decision.
• In PSHE, we discussed what social media is, how it can affect our lives positively and negatively.
• In French, we recapped telling the time in French to prepare for the Question of the week : Quelle heure est-il?
• In Science, we continued our learning about light, investigating how we see a light source, then how we see objects. Finally, we were able to draw a ray diagram correctly. We also looked at all the vocabulary associated with light - you can't explain what you know if you don't have the right words to do it!

Home Practice all relates to this week’s learning. These are the tasks needed to be completed:

• Reading – Continue to read every night for 30 minutes. You can now change your book on any day – in Year 6 we aim to change it every week.

• Spellings (challenge words)
  • Sumdog (Spellings -cial / -tial)

official, artificial, partial, confidential, essential, crucial, glacial, spatial, judicial, financial, beneficial, substantial, social, controversial, racial

• Maths challenges:
  • Counting:
    • This week we have been counting in whole numbers steps. Try to do the same out loud or with paper.
    • Draw a line with some marks on it like I do in class. You could write the numbers as you count up or down, then double check it to make sure you have said the correct numbers.
    • Start with these numbers: 400, 165, 5000 and count up 10 times then back again in 25:

400, 425, 450, 475, 500, 525, etc

and in 250:

400, 650, 900, 1150, 1400, etc

• Number facts:
  • To help your maths even more, please continue to learn your numbers facts, 6 + 8 = 14, 8 + 7 = 15.
  • The best way to do this is to simply have someone in your home quiz you with questions like (8 + 6, 6 + 5, 3 + 8, 5 + 9, etc)
  • Then get them to change the place value of these digits (0.8 + 0.6, 0.06 + 0.05, 0.3 + 0.8, etc)

• Sumdog (Times tables Sp1 wk 1)
  • This week, to see how confident the children are with the lower times tables, I have set a challenge for x3, x4, x5 and x6. Try to focus on speed as well as accuracy.

• Sumdog (Multiples and Factors – part 2)
  • For this challenge, see if you can use the learning from this week to answer questions on various multiples, common multiples, factors and common factor questions.

Year 4 Blog - Friday 6th January 2023

Date: 6th Jan 2023 @ 1:00pm

Year 4 Blog

Friday 6^th January 2023

Welcome to the first blog of 2023 – it has been lovely to see everyone again this week. We’ve only been back 3 days, but what a busy 3 days we’ve had!

In English, we tried to use lots of different sentences (simple, compound and complex) in our writing.  We wrote about our first day back after the Christmas holidays and all the strange things that had happened in our classroom and to the teachers. 

In Maths, we started our new topic – division.  First, we used our knowledge of place value and multiplication facts to divide larger numbers (eg 540 ÷ 6).  Following this, we divided 2-digit numbers using the chunking method when there was no remainder.  Many of us found this tricky, but knowing our table facts really helped.

In PE, we practised our dodgeball and bench ball skills, as well as working as a team. Have a look at us in action! Remember, next week we will start swimming lessons on a Wednesday afternoon!

In Science, we made and tested a circuit. Following this, we made and evaluated switches.  We needed to have a good understanding of which materials conducted electricity and how a switch worked. You can see some of our switches here.

In Geography, we created a double page spread about the causes and impact of climate change along with ideas about how we can stop or limit climate change.  In addition, we carried out an experiment to see the effect of climate change on glaciers. You can see some pictures here.

Home Practice

Reading

Please read out loud to somebody for 20 minutes each evening.  Make sure you discuss the story and predict what you think will happen next.

Counting

This week, please practise counting in 4’s and 8’s.  

For example, start at 0 and count up to 48 and back again

0   4  8  12  etc                         48   44   40   etc

Now have a go at counting in 8’s

Start at 0 and count to 96 and back again

0   8   16   24   etc                     96   88    80  etc                      

Times tables

You should know your individual tables target.  These will be tested next Wednesday (11^th January 2023). 

Remember you can also practise your tables playing Hit the Button and timestables.co.uk

Spellings

This week’s spellings all have the g sound, but it is spelt gu.

guide           guitar          guard           guest           guardian

guess           guilt            guinea          guile            guarantee

guilty           guild            guitarist      guillotine      guaranteed

Sumdog challenges

You have been set 2 challenges on Sumdog:

• A spelling challenge based on the spellings above
• A times tables challenge based on the 3, 4 and 8 times tables

Please make sure you log on and have a go!  Little and often is the key to success!

As you have only been given 2 Sumdog challenges, please practise your times tables as much as you can.  Knowing your tables off by heart is crucial and will help you in many different areas of maths.

Using Hit the Button can also help you practise your number bonds.  Please have a go at brushing up your number bond skills, so that you can recall them quickly and accurately.

Have a super weekend

The Year 4 Team

NEXT WEEK IN DT we are hoping to design and make our own ‘Iron creature’, based on the Iron Man.  If you need anything for your design, such as a cardboard tube, box or tub, please bring these in to school.  In addition, you may wish to bring any ‘decorations’ into school too. School will provide cups, tin foil, some decorations, card and paper, along with the electrical circuit components.

Reception Blog - Friday 6th January 2023

Date: 6th Jan 2023 @ 12:47pm

We have had a great first week back in school.

All of the children have remembered all of our routines and have enjoyed telling us all about their Christmas holidays.

This week we have started our new mini topic of Winter. We have been making snow villages and winter scenes. We have done the j, v and w sounds in phonics and learnt the tricky words 'he' and 'she', doing lots of games to help us remember them.

We have also been making a junk model castle for our small world area, all taking turns in helping each other, ready for our Julia Donaldson topic starting next week and the story Zog.

For this term, we will collect reading book bags in on a Monday, change them and hand them back out on a Tuesday.