Our blogs

Year 1 Blog-Thursday 6th April

Date: 6th Apr 2023 @ 5:29pm

Welcome to your final Friday blog of the Spring term. We had a great Easter assembly with some lucky children winning an Easter egg in the raffle.

English

This week we read our Scaredy Squirrel books to the children in Year 3 and Reception. Everyone loved our stories and we got some really good feedback.

We had a few days learning from a story called The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle. The seed has a journey starting in Autumn and ending up in Summer as an enormous flower.

We learnt about life cycles. We also wrote instructions to tell someone how to plant a seed.

Phonics

Some of us have been learning about al as in walk, talk, chalk and some of us have been learning more tricky words.

Maths

We have been doing lots of assessments this week.

R.E.

We learned more about the Easter story. We went to church on Tuesday to watch Year 6 perform their Easter presentation. We loved joining in with the singing and the prayers.

P.E.

We practised our fundamental skills outside.

Art

We all made an Easter card by collaging an egg shape.

French

We listened to La legende des Cloches de Paques - the story of the Easter Bells. In France, they say that the bells fall silent at Easter because they have gone to Rome to be blessed. They return on Easter Sunday, dropping chocolate eggs in gardens for children to find.  We practised some vocabulary related to Easter with a hunt the word game. 

Outdoor Learning

We have all made our hedgehog now using hammers and screwdrivers.

We did some more planting- carrots and foxgloves.

We went in the nature area and found new types of flowers growing, snails,woodlice, spiders ,ants and worms.

We wish you all a happy, holy and peaceful Easter.

Year 6 Blog Thursday 6th April 2023

Date: 6th Apr 2023 @ 2:07pm

Welcome to the last Year 6 blog this spring term. We are so pleased with everyone’s effort throughout the term! This week, we led a church service based on Holy Week and were invited to church again by Father, where we learnt more about the stations of the cross, and what it means for Christians.

Also, Year 6’s learning this week:

• In Maths, we learnt that algebra means ‘the reunion of broken parts’, what algebra symbols mean and how to solve them. We also improved our learning on how to add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions.
• In English, we used our Skellig story to help learn how to answer reading questions of retrieval and inference using the text as evidence.
• In PE, we completed our orienteering unit with an intra competition in pairs trying to find the points hidden around the school grounds.
• In History, we learnt how the Maya were so successful, with clever farming and building structures using limestone and obsidian as their main resource. We summarised our findings in the style of a historian.

For the Easter holidays, I have included a ‘Suggested Revision Guide’ that has extra home practice sheets to use as you please. All documents have been given to you in a folder.

The Easter holidays are to rest, relax and enjoy time with your family. The documents I have included in the folder are for those who wish to do some extra practice during the two weeks, for just a small amount of time each day. It is not a requirement to complete everything but little and often of reading, maths revision, grammar and spelling revision will go a huge way when you return on Monday 24^th April. Please bring in any work and revision in on that day so I can advise on what to do next.

Enjoy your Easter break!

Year 2 Blog Thursday 6th April 2023

Date: 6th Apr 2023 @ 1:50pm

Year 2 have had a truly excellent Spring Term, they have worked so hard and have made so much progress in their learning. A huge well done to everyone in class and you definitely deserve a good rest over the Easter Holiday. I hope you have lots of fun with family and friends and enjoy your Easter eggs!

In D.T, we designed, made and evaluated our vehicles which were really good and extremely creative. All the vehicles worked well and hopefully you will be able to play with them at home. Look at the vehicles gallery to see your cars!

In R.E, we read the Easter story and the children retold it in their own words with beautiful illustrations. We also went to Church and enjoyed a lovely service prepared by Year 6.

During Easter, read and enjoy as many books as you can. Try to keep reading daily!

I will issue new spellings and times tables in the Summer Term on Friday 28th April. 

There are two Sumdog challenges on 3x tables and comparing and ordering numbers.

Outdoor Learning

We have all made our hedgehog now using hammers and screwdrivers.

We did some more planting- carrots and foxgloves.

We went in the nature area and found new types of flowers growing, snails,woodlice, spiders ,ants and worms.

www.sumdog.com 

Have a great holiday and see you in the Summer Term - remember it's summer uniform!

Year 2 Team

Year 3 Blog 6th April 2023

Date: 6th Apr 2023 @ 1:49pm

Welcome to your Year 3 blog!

This week we have finished our novel Toro, Toro, written by Michael Morpurgo. It was an amazing book! We enjoyed travelling with Antonio on his adventure on the run from Franco's army and on his quest to find Paco the bull. We wrote some brilliant recounts from the story as Antontio and a book review using some examples from real book critics.

In Maths we have been learning how to read bar charts and pictograms and used these to solve problems. It has been tricky in parts but we've remembered our statistics learning from Autumn really well.

We had a lovely celebration in Church on Tuesday. Year 6 led a very thoughtful Easter liturgy and Year 3 joined in brilliantly with their singing.

On Thursday we planned out fabric designs using hieroglyphics and Egyptian art. Next term we will apply our paste and dye to complete our designs. Have a look at our gallery.

In French, we learnt how to make animal nouns plural. We read some short texts and matched the words to the correct picture, then some of us were able to draw our own animals picture and write a sentence to describe it, using the correct plural form of the noun. 

We have had a lovely half term and seen lots of progress in all areas of our curriculum.

We are looking forward to next term!

Have a lovely Easter break and keep reading!!

The Year 3 team.

You can find the latest edition of our school Newspaper, The Learning Times in our galleries.

Reception Blog - Thursday 6th April 2023

Date: 6th Apr 2023 @ 12:56pm

What a wonderful week we have had this week. Mrs Stone has returned from maternity leave and has enjoyed getting to know all of the children.

Throughout the week we have been learning about the Easter story and drawing pictures of what happened. We have recapped the numbers from 11-20, ordering them and matching them to eggs.

We have enjoyed using our outside area much more this week as the weather has been warmer. We have been watching our frog spawn change and we even went on a little walk to our school pond to have a go at pond dipping!

Towards the end of the week we had our stay and play, with lots of Easter/spring crafts and activities - a big thank you to everyone who came. The children really enjoyed sharing their learning with you.

We hope that everyone has a lovely Easter break and we will see you in 2 weeks!

Year 4 Blog Thursday 6th April 2023

Date: 6th Apr 2023 @ 8:21am

Happy Easter and Happy Easter Holiday

We have had a fantastic last week of term in Year 4.  The sunshine on Monday and Tuesday really helped too!

Here is a brief overview of this week’s learning:

In English, we revised the rules for writing dialogue.  We then discussed different words for ‘said’ and how Lila and the chief pirate (Rambashi) might speak.  Following this, we write a scene which included dialogue between these two characters.

In Maths, we practised our mental addition and subtraction skills.  We learnt and refined the strategies of bridging through 10, and compensating using a number line.

In RE, we learnt more about Holy Week and completed a beautiful piece of work in our books which showed our understanding of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  We also took part in a class worship which was led by some of the children in Year 4.

In DT, we finished our sewing projects.  We also evaluated our creations, describing what we felt went well, what didn’t go so well, and whether the product was fit for purpose.  You can see some pictures of our finished items here. 

On Tuesday afternoon, we also took part in an Easter Liturgy in church which was led by Year 6.

Well done for all your hard work this term Year 4.  We hope you have a lovely Easter Holiday - make sure you enjoy yourselves and spend time having fun with your friends and families.

We look forward to seeing you again on Monday 24^th April 2023 in your summer uniforms.

Please remember to keep reading over the holiday!

The Year 4 Team.

Year 5 Blog Thursday 6th April

Date: 6th Apr 2023 @ 7:52am

Happy Easter and Happy Half Term!

We have had a great Half Term.

We had a brilliant time on our school trip to Judge's Lodgings on Tuesday. We experienced life in a Victorian classroom and as a Victorian servant. Here is a gallery of our trip. 

We absolutely loved reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and can't wait to find out what our class novel will be after the holidays. 

Please try to keep reading during Half Term - you might even be able to do some reading outside if it gets sunny.

The Sumdog challenges and competition will continue too - get your team to the top of the leaderboard. 

But most importantly, have fun, spend time with friends and family, and rest! 

Reminders

Please bring in a shoe box and a cereal box for out DT work after Half Term.

Please continue to collect for The Foxton Centre and Bardarndo's.

The CEO from the Foxton Centre will be visiting us after Half Term to collect our donations. It might be a nice idea to donate some Easter Eggs if you get too many or find some in the sale. 

Have a wonderful Easter! 

Reception Blog - Friday 31st March 2023

Date: 31st Mar 2023 @ 1:04pm

This week we have continued our learning all about minibeasts as we have been adding mini beasts to our bug hotel, it is very full now!

In science and writing we have been learning all about frog lifecycles, making our own, writing about them and even watching our frog spawn change over the past two weeks. We have also been to check on our bean plants to see how they have been growing in the different areas we left them. The ones in class have grown the most so far.

In maths we have been looking at one more and one less than a number - we have been doing this practically outdoors, jumping along numberlines to solve the questions.

In French, we listened to La legende des Cloches de Paques - the story of the Easter Bells. In France, they say that the bells fall silent at Easter because they have gone to Rome to be blessed. They return on Easter Sunday, dropping chocolate eggs in gardens for children to find. We also learnt a traditional French nursery rhyme about a rabbit - Mon petit lapin a bien du chagrin. 

In music we have continued with the story Handa's surprise and made our own African music.

In come and see we learnt all about the Easter story, the children asked some brilliant questions and could retell parts of the story. We used the Easter story as our art this week, making pictures of what happened.

And on Friday afternoon, we had our last Tots on Tyres session with Mrs Cookson.

Next week our learning will be all about Easter and Spring. We will also welcome Mrs Stone back from her maternity leave!

Year 4 Blog Friday 31st March 2023

Date: 31st Mar 2023 @ 1:03pm

Year 4 Blog

Friday 31^st March 2023

Welcome to your Friday blog. 

Everyone looked fabulous on Thursday when they dressed up for World Book Day! You can see some pictures of us in our costumes here.

It’s been another very busy week in Year 4 – here’s what we have been learning:

In English, we started our new novel, The Firework Maker’s Daughter by Philip Pullman.  We looked carefully at the front cover and made predictions about the plot and themes of the novel.  In addition, we were introduced to some key characters, Lila, Chulak, Hamlet and Lalchand.  We used evidence from the text to describe the main character, Lila.  We also read the stories we had published to both Year 5 and Year 6. You can see some pictures of our story telling here.

In Maths, we practised division using partitioning (mental division) and using the formal written method of chunking, both without and with a remainder.  Many of us found this tricky, again because we are not yet confident with our tables.  

In French this week, we looked at some paintings by Matisse and expressed our opinions of them. We then read some French sentences and decided which sentences applied to which work of art. After Easter, we will make our own collage in the style of Matisse and describe it in French.

In RE, we started our new topic - Self-discipline. We discussed what this means and how we need to be especially self-disciplined throughout Lent.

In Geography, we looked carefully at a map of our local coastline (Lancashire and Merseyside).  We then used ‘Digimaps’ to find features found on our local coastline and labelled these on our maps. In addition, we provided a key to the symbols.

In PSHE, we matched feelings to a scale of intensity and identified strong feelings.  We also described different feelings and how they may be experienced in the body.

In DT, we practised 3 different stitches (running stitch, back stitch and over stitch). We then planned and designed the product we wanted to make (a purse, pencil case or phone holder). This included drawing, labelling and annotating our design on a planning sheet.  Next, we collected the resources needed and made our product.  You can see pictures of us in action here.  Next week, we will be evaluating our creations to consider what we felt went well, what didn’t go so well, and whether our product is fit for purpose.

It was our last swimming lesson this week. We have thoroughly enjoyed our lessons and have all made lots of progress with our swimming. Well done to all of Year 4!

Home Practice

Reading

Please read out loud to somebody for 20 minutes each evening. Try retelling what you have read to someone else.  Remember to focus on fluency, understanding, and adding expression to your reading.

Counting

This week, please practise counting in hundredths

For example, start at 0.01 to 0.17 and back again

0.01    0.02   0.03  etc           0.17   0.16   0.15     etc

Then start at 2.56 and count to 2.75 and back again

2.56   2.57   2.58   etc             2.75   2.74   2.73   etc

Times tables

You should know your individual tables target.  These will be tested next Wednesday (5^th April 2023). 

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

Please practise your tables each night as this will help you in lots of different aspects of maths and many of you are finding them tricky to apply in different contexts.

Spellings

As we had a big spelling test this week, we will spend next week revising spellings we have previously learnt. We will be practising these each day in class.  There will be no spelling test next week!

Sumdog challenges

You have been set 2 challenges on Sumdog:

• A tables challenge - using place value and known facts to multiply and divide mentally
• A division challenge - dividing by 2, 4, 5 and 6

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

As there are only 2 Sumdog challenges this week, please take a little time to practise doubling and halving numbers again.  You can practise this on Hit the Button. Click on ‘play game’ then select either halves or doubles – choose any of the games, they are all good practise! Good luck!

Another app for practising tables and number facts is One Minute Maths from White Rose.  It is free to download from the AppStore and PlayStore. There are lots of excellent games you can play which will help you brush up your mental maths skills.  Please do your best to access this fabulous free resource!  Knowing your tables and number facts off by heart is crucial and will help you in many different areas of maths.

Have a relaxing weekend

The Year 4 Team

We have attached a new online safety guide 'What Parents and Carers Need to Know about Age-Inappropriate Content'. Please Read.

Year 6 Blog Friday 31st March 2023

Date: 31st Mar 2023 @ 1:02pm

Welcome to our Year 6 blog.

On Thursday, we had a super time celebrating World Book Day with a special assembly about Tyrus Wong, the Chinese American immigrant who was responsible for the creation of Disney’s Bambi. Please see the pictures of the great outfits on our Year 6 gallery.

On Friday, Year 4 surprised us with a visit to show their excellent adventure stories based on Adolphus Tips. We then showed our persuasive adverts to buy a house – super writing by all! Please see the pictures on the Year 6 gallery.

We have attached a new online safety guide 'What Parents and Carers Need to Know about Age-Inappropriate Content'. Please Read.

REMINDER

For the last week of 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 learnt to work out mode, median, range and mean in a set of data. We also practised how to convert length, mass and capacity with different reasoning questions.
• In English, our main character, Michael, and his family have recently moved to a new house with an estate agent showing them around. We used this to learn formal persuasive ways to speak and become an estate agent to sell a fictional house.
• In RE, we learnt about Jesus’ journey through Holy Week, discussing how He must have felt and why Jesus sacrificed himself. We then created an information page about what happened.
• In PE, we used our school grounds map (created by cross curriculum orienteering) to find hidden letters around the school to form the secret message. We made sure we orientated the map correctly all the way around the course.
• In History, we investigated the Maya timeline by plotting events in chronological order. We learnt where and when they lived and the main events that happened during the Maya era.
• In French, to round off our learning about the geography of France, we read a classic French poem, Dans Paris by Paul Eluard. We then wrote togetherin the same style. - Dans Longton. The children's pronunciation of new French words is impressive - great phonics, Y6. 
• In Science, we completed the investigation involving burning crisps to see how much energy they contain. The children then used the results to say what they had found out and to evaluate the investigation, explaining how it could be improved. You would be amazed how much black smoke comes off one crisp - most off-putting!

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 7 Challenge words 3)

average, awkward, correspond, forty, interrupt, lightning, occur, relevant, sacrifice, excellent, recognise, sincere, sufficient, variety, vehicle

The main spellings will be the ones above, but as we are consolidating our learning of spelling strategies and spelling rules, Sumdog has included these 5 below in the online challenge.

(according, bargain, develop, equip, physical)

Maths challenges:

• Counting:
  • This week, please practise counting in 90s and 900s
  • For example, start at 2 360 and count up to 2 960 and back again
  • 2 360, 2 450, 2 540 etc           2 960, 2 870, 2 780, etc 
  • Also, start at 8 800 and count up to 17 800 and back again
  • 8 800, 9 700, 10 600, etc 17 800, 16, 900, 16 000, etc

• Sumdog (Squared and cubed numbers)
  • This challenge will help recognise squared and cubes numbers. Remember – squared numbers are numbers multiplied by itself twice (3 squared = 3 x 3; 4 squared = 4 x 4)

Cubed numbers are numbers multiplied by itself three times

( 3 cubed = 3 x 3 x 3; 4 cubed = 4 x 4 x 4)

• Sumdog (Volume using cubes and formula)

This week, use your knowledge of times tables and the volume formula (length x width x height) to solve the questions quickly. Some will be word problems so try not to rush them – aim for accuracy.

Year 2 Blog Friday 31st March 2023

Date: 31st Mar 2023 @ 1:01pm

A very exciting week in Year 2, the children looked amazing in their World Book Day costumes. Have a look at the photo gallery! We did a lot of reading and listened to a selection of stories being read by the authors. In English, the children wrote about their favourite books and characters, remembering to use capital letters and full stops, also interesting adjectives. We started reading one of our new books, Fox by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks. It was about the Australian outback, with lots of new vocabulary to learn. We will also be reading the Tin Forest by Helen Ward and Wayne Anderson and The Whales’ Song by Dyan Sheldon and Gary Blyth. These are all stories with a wild theme. In Maths, we have moved on to measuring length in cm with a ruler. The children took care to measure lines and shapes accurately with their rulers. In RE, we learnt about Palm Sunday. In Science, we sorted different materials on a Venn diagram. In P.E, we did ball skills and small games outside. The children learnt more about French phonics this week, looking at the sound 'un'. They enjoyed a song and dance with lots of 'un' words in, then practised reading and writing words in French containing this grapheme. Well done, year 2. Great understanding!

Outdoor Learning

Some of us used our skills of using tools safely to make a hedgehog using a wood slice, nails and screws.

We chose some of own learning in the lodge and the nature area. Some of us planted seeds including dill, coriander and basil. We hope that we are going to have plenty of plants growing when we return after the Easter holiday.

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 Thursday (01.04.23). 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 Thursday 01.04.23.

This week’s spellings:

Words ending – er/est. Including two words from the Year 1/2 spelling list.

nicer             fastest

later             oldest   

rider             cleanest

writer           father

bravest         class

Maths

Great effort learning your division facts for the 2x tables in order.

Next week for our quiz (Thursday 01.04.23) we will be learning the division facts for the 2x table in a random order.

Count in 2’s forwards and backwards, see how quickly you can go, but it must still be accurate. Challenge yourself and go past 100. Chant/sing the division facts for the x2 table. Ask an adult to quiz you on them in a random order.

You will have a 2x table and division facts challenge on Sumdog to complete by Thursday 01.04.23.

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

For our D.T project next week, we will be making vehicles. Please could you send in any small boxes (no bigger than a shoe box) for your child to use. I do have some spares but not enough for everyone!

Have a lovely weekend.

Year 2 Team.

We have attached a new online safety guide 'What Parents and Carers Need to Know about Age-Inappropriate Content'. Please Read.

Year 3 Friday 31st March 2023

Date: 31st Mar 2023 @ 8:06am

Welcome to your Friday Blog!

This week we have finished our RE topic on Listening and Sharing and our PSHE learning on communities. The children's ideas and contributions have been wonderful and we have had some really rich discussions in class. 

In English this week we have written our reports on the bullfight using some fantastic vocabulary and sentence openers. We have just reached the part of the story when Antonio's home is bombed by fighter planes. We will be exploring his thoughts and feelings in the week ahead. 

In maths this week we have been revisiting our column addition and subtraction. We also learned how to estimate totals using rounding to the nearest 100 and the nearest 10. Everyone did really well with this and showed brilliant reasoning. 

As part of our Ancient Egypt topic, we are looking at the Egyptian gods and how they were depicted in wall art. We learned all about Ra, Sekhmet and Bastet and why the Ancient Egyptians prayed to them. Below we have attached a video we watched about some of the other Egyptian gods. There were over 2000! We practiced sketching them ahead of our fabric art next week.

On Thursday we had a brilliant St Oswald's World Book Day. You all looked great in your costumes and we had a visit from Mrs Novak who shared some of her Revolting Rhymes.We had a wonderful world Assembly reading a story about an artist called Tyrus Wong who worked for Disney. The story was called Paper Son and it explored the challenges he overcame as a Chinese immigrant. Check out our gallery!

In Science, we looked at the plant investigation we set up last week where different plants are deprived of one of the requirements for growth eg light, water.  We took measurements and recorded our observations. Then we learnt how water and nutrients are transported around the plant. We set up another investigation to dye celery stalks and white flowers to prove that water/dye travels up the stem to the leaves and flowers. We'll see what happens over the next few days. 

We have attached a new online safety guide 'What Parents and Carers Need to Know about Age-Inappropriate Content'. Please Read.

Home Practice

The reading bug has hit Year 3. It was lovely to see everyone bringing in their books this week and swapping them with their friends. Also a huge thank you to Holly who brought in some Roald Dahl books for the class!

Keep reading your school books at home every night for at least 15 minutes.

We have set some number fact practice to improve fluency this week. These might seem a bit easier than normal but we have noticed that some need to increase their speed and accuracy with their number bonds to 20.

Spellings this week all begin with the prefixes super-  or auto-. There is a sumdog challenge with these words. Do what you can.

supermarket

superstar

supersonic

supervision

superhero

superimpose

autograph

automatic

autobiography

automated

autocue

automation

Have a great weekend

The Year 3 Team

Year 5 Blog Friday 31st March

Date: 30th Mar 2023 @ 6:43pm

Happy Friday and welcome to your Friday Blog. 

It has been a wonderful week in Year 5. 

We have done lots of exciting learning. 

In French, the children used all their learning from the last few weeks to write a paragraph about the planets in French. They did an amazing job! I'm so proud of them and can't wait for you to see the end result. I'm sure you will be just as impressed with the standard of their writing!

In maths we have been identiying factors of numbers, learning about prime numbers, and multiplying a two-digit number by another two-digit number. 

A factor is a number that divides another number leaving no remainder, or a number you can multiply by to give a number. 

For example:

1, 2, 3 and 6 are factors of 6. 

1 x 6 = 6      2 x 3 = 6           

A prime number is a number with only two factors, one and itself. 

For example:

2 is a prime number because its only factors are 1 and 2.

7 is a prime number because its only factors are 1 and 7.

9 is not a prime number because its factors are 1, 3 and 9. 

In English we have been writing a battle scene between Peter and The White Witch from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Our focus was to set the scene for the battle where the reader worries for Peter. Next we will describe the battle from Peter's point of view. We have found this very exciting and everybody has done such a brilliant job so far. 

On Thursday we had our very own St Oswald's World Book Day. It was great to see everybody in their costumes and talk about our favourite characters and books. We used World Book Day as inspiration for our art lesson where we created our own imaginary world behind wardrobe doors. It was great to see such creative ideas. 

You can see us celebrating the wonderful world of reading here. 

We continued with our PSHE topic all about communicating safely online. So many of the children are now messaging, video chatting, sending videos and chatting on games. It is so important to always be kind online and make sure parents know exactly what the children are doing whilst online. 

In our PSHE lesson we thought about all of the different ways we can communicate online including:

SMS (text message)

Online messaging (e.g. What's App)

Social media (e.g. Instagram Facebook)

Gaming (e.g. Roblox)

Video calling (e.g. FaceTime)

We then spoke about things that can be shared online, who we communicate with, age restrictions and how to make sure we are being responsible. 

The children were very open and enjoyed talking about their experiences online. 

We have attached a new online safety guide 'What Parents and Carers Need to Know about Age-Inappropriate Content'. Please Read.

Home Practice

Reading

Read out loud every day for 20 minutes. 

Look out for words that are written in a different way for example IN CAPITAL LETTERS,  in bold or in itallics. Talk about why they are written in this way. 

Spelling

Here are your spellings which you will be tested on after Half Term so please practise next week.

bicycle          centre          decide          describe           exercise          experience          experiment          extreme          increase              library          medicine          mention          minute          occasion          occasionally  

Counting

Count out loud in:

2s from 2 to negative 20.

2, 0, -2, -4, ...

3s from 1 to negative 17.

1, -2, -5, -8, ...

30s from 32 to 302. 

32, 62, 92, 122, 152, ...

Times Tables

You have been given your new tables target. Please practise every day. 

I'm sure you have noticed how often we use our times tables in maths - all the time!

Sumdog

Wow, what an amazing effort in the Sumdog compeition this week! Well done everybody. 

Times Tables Challenge

Spelling Challenge

Maths Competition 

DT

Please bring in a cereal box next week to use in our DT lesson. We are going make a prototype (practise version) of our toy for Year 1. 

Have an amazing weekend all you amazing children :) 

Year 1 Blog - Friday 31st March

Date: 29th Mar 2023 @ 5:44pm

Welcome to your final Friday blog of March.

This week we have also attached a new online safety guide 'What Parents and Carers Need to Know about Age-Inappropriate Content'. Please Read.

English

This we we started to write our own version of the story, Scaredy Squirrel Has A Birthday Party. We had so many decisions to make...where to hold the party, things which might spoil the party, ideas for small talk, extra items which might be needed in an emergency! Scaredy Squirrel thinks of everything!

We role played being Scaredy Squirrel talking about his party.

We will read our books to other classes when we have finished them.

Phonics

Some of us were learning about or as in fork and oi as in coin. Some of us were learning or as in door, walk, roar and core.

Click here to sing some phonics songs.

Maths 

We started looking at division problem questions that required us to share objects equally. We started with halving numbers and then built up to sharing into more groups (e.g. share 10 apples between 5 children). We quickly realised that we can easily halve even numbers but it isn't easy to halve odd numbers.

We made sure that we did lots of counting together to check our answers!

Click here to play Hit the Button - click halves to 10.

R.E.

We focused on Palm Sunday and learnt about Jesus being welcomed by people with palm leaves. We made our own welcome banner for Jesus and role played welcoming Him. Then, we learnt the Easter story, focusing on the lead up to Jesus' crucifixion.

P.S.H.E.

After recapping how we can earn money, we learnt about how we can save money. We thought about where our money can be kept safely - a piggy bank, a purse, with adults, and then we learnt about bank accounts and how we can keep large amounts of money safe. We then made a poster about how, and where, we can save our money.

P.E.

This week, we tried throwing and catching with larger, lighter balls. This was quite tricky outside but we quickly learnt to come closer to our partners to stop the ball from being dropped. We then played a game of throwing and catching rounders to improve our teamwork skills.

Computing

We did some tricky learning this week on the laptops! We learnt how to drag and drop objects into sorting groups using the trackpad. We learnt that we had to click with one finger and move another finger - at the same time.

History

We learnt about two very significant inventors - The Wright Brothers. We learnt that they invented the first aeroplane and made the first flight possible. We compared past aeroplanes to present day planes and then wrote about why the brothers are significant. We even tried to make our own paper aeroplanes!

Art

We sketched a story map of our favourite stories on World Book Day.

French

We listened to La legende des Cloches de Paques - the story of the Easter Bells. In France, they say that the bells fall silent at Easter because they have gone to Rome to be blessed. They return on Easter Sunday, dropping chocolate eggs in gardens for children to find. We practised some vocabulary related to Easter with a hunt the word game. 

Outdoor Learning

Some of us used our skills of using tools safely to make a hedgehog using a wood slice, nails and screws.

We chose some of own learning in the lodge and the nature area. Some of us planted seeds including dill, coriander and basil. We hope that we are going to have plenty of plants growing when we return after the Easter holiday.

World Book Day

All of your outfits were absolutely amazing! The children looked incredible. Thank you also to the two mums who came in to read to the children, the children loved it!

Home Practice

Phonics -  or words/ore words

Maths -  Addition and subtraction

KEEP READING EVERY NIGHT!

EVEN MORE CHILDREN THAN LAST WEEK CHANGED THEIR READING BOOKS SEVERAL TIMES! THIS IS BRILLIANT AND IT IS REALLY HAVING A GREAT IMPACT ON THEIR PROGRESS.

READING BOOKS WILL BE CHANGED ON THURSDAY NEXT WEEK.

Year 3 Friday 24th March 2023

Date: 24th Mar 2023 @ 4:04pm

Welcome to your Friday blog.

This week we have been working hard on our writing presentation and enjoyed reading our new story, Toro! Toro! We have also been exploring our Ancient Egypt learning and writing our own hyroglyphics.

In English we have met Uncle Juan the Matador and Antonio has gone to his first Corrida. We wrote some responses as Antonio, exploring his feelings and what we would have done in his shoes. We also have planned a report on the bullfight ready for next week. Everyone has worked hard this week to make their writing look beautiful on the page.

In Maths we have been revisiting our column addition and subtraction. A lot of our learning from last term was remembered and lots of good reasoning was explained along the way. We also revisited our angles learning and learned all about parallel and perpendicular lines. 

Year 2 Blog Friday 24th March 2023

Date: 24th Mar 2023 @ 3:59pm

A great week Year 2, everyone has been working so hard. In English, we have finished our novel, The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark by Jill Tomlinson. The children described Plop using alliteration. They also planned and wrote some lovely spring poems, using their senses to gather more creative ideas. In Maths, we have continued our work on measure by ordering the mass of objects and weighing classroom items. Our new topic in Science is Everyday Materials, we thought about what we already know about materials and asked questions about what we would like to find out. We learnt about the countries and capital cities of the United Kingdom in Geography. The children worked in groups during PE and put together small dances using the elements of fire, water, earth and air. The children began their learning journey into French phonics this week, looking at the sound 'un'. They enjoyed a song and dance with lots of 'un' words in, then practised reading and writing words in French containing this grapheme. Well done, year 2. Great understanding! This week's highlight was a visit from the firefighters. They talked to the children about fire safety at home. We were so impressed with the children's questions and they even got to dress up in some fire gear.     

Outdoor Learning

This week we did a variety of learning. One of our sessions was learning how to use the hammers and screwdrivers safely. We are then applying these new skills to make a hedgehog. We also made Spring wreaths out of willow. This week was the Spring or Vernal Equinox when there is about the same amount of hours of light and dark.

We took advantage of the sunnier weather on Friday to make shadow faces. 

If we didn't do one of the sessions we will catch up next week.

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 (31.03.23). 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 31.03.23.

This week’s spellings:

Words ending - ed. Including two words from the Year 1/2 spelling list.

turned            chopped

played             tried   

jumped            cried

walked              last

stopped            past

Maths

Great effort learning your 2x tables in a random order. Keep up the fantastic work!

Next week for our quiz (31.02.23) we will be learning the division facts for the 2x table in order. You will have a 2x division facts poster to help you learn them.

Count in 2’s forwards and backwards, see how quickly you can go, but it must still be accurate. Challenge yourself and go past 100. Chant/sing the division facts for the x2 table. Ask an adult to quiz you on them in order.

You will have a 2x table and division facts challenge on Sumdog to complete by Friday 31.03.23. There will also be a challenge on measure.

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 we will be dressing up on Thursday 30^th March for St Oswald’s World Book Day.

Have a lovely weekend.

Year 2 Team.

Year 4 Blog Friday 24th March 2023

Date: 24th Mar 2023 @ 3:54pm

Year 4 Blog

Friday 24^th March 2023

Welcome to your Friday blog.  Here’s what we have been learning this week:

In English, we published our adventure stories choosing either to hand write them or use a word processor.  We also designed a sleeve (the front and back cover) and wrote the blurb to tempt others to read our story.  We are looking forward to sharing our stories with Year 6 next week.

In Maths, we learnt how to accurately double a number with ones and tenths and also solved grid multiplication problems - this required identifying missing numbers in a calculation.  Many of us found this tricky as we are still not confident with our times tables.  We also started our new topic - division. We began by halving numbers with all even digits followed by halving numbers with some odd digits!

In French this week, we learnt that feminine nouns usually end with the letter e. This helped us decide whether we need un or une as a determiner. Then we recapped the shape words and began to look at the work of Matisse, a French artist, and tried to spot the shapes he used.

In Science, we began the topic of Sound by thinking about what we already knew. then we did a carousel of activities designed to make vibrations visible. By the end of the lesson, we had learnt that sound is caused by vibrations.

In Art, we explored different fonts of the first letter of our names on the ipads. We then copied some that we liked into our Art Books. We will be using all the ideas we have explored to design our own illuminated letter next week.

In RE, we finished our ‘Giving and receiving’ topic with a beautiful class Collective Worship.

In Geography, we looked at a map of the UK and located our local coastline (Lancashire and Merseyside).  We then gave a title to the map and used colour to indicate where our local coastline is.

During our swimming lesson, we practised swimming lengths in different strokes. We have all made lots of progress with our swimming over the past 9 weeks. Our last swimming lesson will be next Wednesday.

We have also added a guide on how to promote kindness when online. Have a look below.

Home Practice

Reading

Please read out loud to somebody for 20 minutes each evening. Try retelling what you have read to someone else.  Remember to focus on fluency and understanding, and add some expression to your reading too.

Counting

This week, please practise counting in 100's

For example, start at 600 and count back to 2400 and back again

600  700   800  etc                 2400   2300   2200     etc

Times tables

You should know your individual tables target.  These will be tested next Wednesday (29^th March 2023). 

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

Please practise your tables each night as this will help you in lots of different aspects of maths and many of you are finding them tricky to apply in different contexts.

Spellings

Here are next week’s spellings. You will be tested on these next Friday (31^st March 2023).

quarter             purpose       enough         bicycle         experience

exercise            knowledge    special         appear         breadth

busy                  calendar       favourite     opposite      particular   

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 2, 4, 6 and 8 times tables

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

As there are only 2 Sumdog challenges this week, please take a little time to practise doubling and halving number as we have been learning about this in class.  You can practise this on Hit the Button. Click on ‘play game’ then select either halves or doubles. Good luck!

Another app for practising tables and number facts is One Minute Maths from White Rose.  It is free to download from the AppStore and PlayStore. There are lots of excellent games you can play which will help you brush up your mental maths skills.  Please do your best to access this fabulous free resource!  Knowing your tables and number facts off by heart is crucial and will help you in many different areas of maths.

Have a relaxing weekend

The Year 4 Team

Reception Blog - Friday 24th March 2023

Date: 24th Mar 2023 @ 3:30pm

Our favourite part of this week was our school trip!

We talked about growing plants and keeping them healthy. We planted our own plants and worked together to help each other. After lunch we recycled our packaging and left over food and we even put some in the wormery!

Then it was time for games; a boat race and den building.

Year 6 Blog Friday 24th March 2023

Date: 24th Mar 2023 @ 12:53pm

Welcome to our Year 6 blog.

This week, people from the Fire Service came to give Year 6 a fire safety talk. We learnt valuable safety tips on how to keep safe at home and on the road.

On Friday, Year 6 were invited to mass, where we prayed and learnt about the stations of the cross.

Please find attached the latest guidance regarding the use of Whatsapp. As you are aware, the age restriction on the platform is 16.

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 learnt how to interpret pie charts using our knowledge of fractions. We also found the properties of 3D shapes – faces, edges and vertices – and created nets for them.
• In English, we began our new story, Skellig, and met the main character Michael, who has just moved house. We learnt how to write an internal monologue using thoughts and feelings.
• In RE, we began our new topic, Death and New Life, where we discussed the loss of a friend, relative or a teacher they once had, and how we deal or have dealt with it.
• In PE, we worked in small teams to navigate our way through different coned maps to try to complete two courses of orienteering. The children had to use math skills to figure out which direction to move in.
• In History, we learnt more about the Ancient Maya using 10 clues around the classroom. We worked in pairs to discuss what these findings mean, to help us understand what life might have been like for a Mayan.
• In Art, we researched the Mayan masks, created an information page about all their use and used different media (pastels and charcoal) to create them.
• In French, we learnt that feminine nouns usually end with the letter e. This helped us decide whether we need un or une as a determiner. Then we looked at the vocabulary for countries and nationalities and how to make the adjectives agree with the subject of the verb. For example, They (feminine) are Italian would need to be feminine plural. Tricky stuff! We finished by giving our opinions in French about a very popular song In France - we didn't like it much!
• In Science, we continued our learning about healthy diets by burning different brands of crisps to demonstrate that calories are the amount of energy in food. We talked about the effect of eating more calories than we use up on our bodies. We used the data from the investigation to explain what we had found out.

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 5 Challenge words)

available, according, conscious, familiar, muscle, determined, identity, competition, existence, suggest, develop, explanation, privilege, symbol, immediately

Maths challenges:

• Counting:
  • This week, please practise counting in 80s and 800s
  • For example, start at 780 and count up to 1580 and back again
  • 780, 860, 940 etc           1580, 1500, 1420, etc 
  • Also, start at 6 900 and count up to 14 900 and back again
  • 6 900, 7 800, 8 600, etc 14 900, 14, 000, 13 200, etc

• Sumdog (Multiples of 6, 7, 9, 25, 1000)
  • This challenge will help to develop your counting skills.

• Sumdog (3D shapes with nets Sp2 wk 5)

This week, use the learning of 3D nets we have done this week to quickly identify nets of 3D shapes. The most important ones to get correctly are cube and cuboid. Good luck!

Year 1 Blog - Friday 24th March 2023

Date: 23rd Mar 2023 @ 8:13pm

Welcome to your Friday blog!

English

This week we have been learning through the stories of Scaredy Squirrel. He is scared of everything! He rarely leaves his house in the nut tree.

We discussed and wrote about our fears. We made a list of disdvantages of never leaving our house. We wrote a fact file about Scaredy Squirrel and we also planned a timetable of our perfect day-Scaredy Squirrel likes to know exactly what's going to happen.

We are going to write our own Scaredy Squirrel books next week.

Phonics

Some of us have been revisiting or as in horn and ai as in rain. Some of us have been learning ar in rather and half, plus u in wood and could.

Maths

We have been answering even trickier problem questions about multiplication. This required us to count in 2s, 5s and 10s whilst also reading the writing!

We also practised our times tables on Topmarks.

Click here to play the game.

R.E.

We continued to learn about how we can change. We focused on Ash Wednesday and how it is the beginning of Lent. We revisted our Lenten promises to check that we are keeping them and then wrote about how we can make good changes to our lives.

P.E.

We practised throwing at targets this week. It was very tricky due to the wind knocking our targets over. We also practised throwing and catching in bigger groups, which meant that we had to concentrate more. 

Science

We conducted a transparency experiment to see how many household objects were transparent. We used the torches to test this and we found that actually, many objects are either opaque or translucent.

.

History

After recapping our learning about Florence Nightingale, we learnt about another significant nurse - Edith Cavell. We quickly realised that she was very similar to Florence as she also helped soldiers during the war (WW1) and trained other women to be nurses. We then wrote our own ideas as to why Edith is a significant person.

D.T.

We made our healthy smoothies. We had so much fun. We learnt to cut safely and use the blender. Some of us liked our smoothies, some did not!

Outdoor Learning

This week we did a variety of learning. One of our sessions was learning how to use the hammers and screwdrivers safely. We are then applying these new skills to make a hedgehog.

We also made Spring wreaths out of willow. This week was the Spring or Vernal Equinox when there is about the same amount of hours of light and dark.

We took advantage of the sunnier weather on Friday to make shadow faces. 

If we didn't do one of the sessions we will catch up next week.

Computing

We practised our Sumdog learning on the laptops and iPads.

French

 We checked up on our French beans to see how they are growing - some are almost ready for giants at the top!  We listened to a poem about the life cycle of plants and added actions to show our understanding. We finished with a song and a story. 

Home Practice

Phonics -  or and ai words

Maths -  days of the week and months of the year

KEEP READING EVERY NIGHT!

SOME CHILDREN ARE CHANGING THEIR READING BOOKS SEVERAL TIMES A WEEK! THIS IS BRILLIANT AND IT IS REALLY HAVING A GREAT IMPACT ON THEIR PROGRESS.

Year 5 Blog Friday 24th March 2023

Date: 23rd Mar 2023 @ 7:35pm

Happy Friday and welcome to your blog. 

We have had a great week this week. 

In English we have been acting as journalists and writing newspaper reports about the return of spring to Narnia. We have focussed on using journalistic language and writing direct and indirect quotes. 

Direct quotes use inverted commas (speech marks) and say exactly what the person said. 

Mr Beaver, a resident of Narnia who witnessed Father Christmas’ arrival, told our reporter, “I saw him with my own eyes, he was on a sleigh and had presents!”

Indirect quotes do not include inverted commas and are a summary of what the person said.

Lucy, a human who came to Narnia from Spare Oom, reported that she has noticed that the weather is much warmer since her arrival here and that she has even seen flowers and blue sky. 

In maths we have been learning rules of divisibility. We now know how to quickly identify if a number is divisible by 10, 100, 2, 50, 25, 3, or 9. We found it fascinating. 

Divisible by means you can divide  by that number with no remainders. 

We have started our new topic in PSHE. It is all about communicating safely in person and online. We focussed our lesson on showing empathy and thinking about how other people feel. This topic is extremely important as many children communicate with their friends online and need to understand how to do so safely and responsibly. 

It is important to be kind in person and online. We have added a little guide below for you to read.

In geography we continued with our learning about North America. We were surprised by all of the different climate zones within North America. We used atlases to think about what the climate would be like in different countries such as Jamaica compared to Greenland. 

In French, we learnt some conjunctions that will help improve our French writing. Then we looked at the construction of sentences using these words. The children's ability to spot the nouns, verbs and adjectives in French, understand adjectival agreement and their pronunciation is impressive! Well done year 5. I look forward seeing to your finished pieces about space over the next two weeks!

On Friday afternoon we presented our research about space to the class. You can see us in action here. 

We also planted some potatoes so we can observe them over time and learn about the life cycle. See us planting here. 

Home Practice

Reading

Read out loud to somebody every day for 20 minutes. 

Talk about what the characters are thinking and feeling. 

Spelling

Please continue to practise the spellings from the blog last week, we will also do some more practice in class. 

misjudge          mismanage          misconduct          

discontinue          dishonest          disloyal          disobey          discourage          

inconvenient          incapable          inaccurate          inadequate          inappropriate 

Remember if you want an extra challenge, you can choose some of the spellings from the Year 5 and 6 spelling list. 

Year 5 and 6 spellings

Times Tables

Please continue to practise your tables every day ready for your tables test next week. 

Count

Draw a straight line either vertically or horizontally. Use this as a number line to count:

From 15 through zero to negative 15 in 1s. 

From 12 through zero to negative 12 in 2s. 

From 10 through zero to negative 11 in 3s. 

Counties of England

Have a go at naming and locating the counties of England.

Test people at home too :)

Counties of England quiz

Sumdog

Well done to everybody who took part in the challenges and competitions. Amazing work. 

Maths Competition - I have split you up into random teams named Red, Yellow, Green, Blue. There will be a treat for the winning team. 

Times Table Challenge

Spelling Challenge 

Have a wonderful weekend! 

Year 2 Blog Friday 17th March 2023

Date: 17th Mar 2023 @ 3:57pm

Another great week of learning in Year 2. The children had a super time at ‘Bring Yer Wellies’ and learnt so much about plants and planting. They also had an amazing time den building, boat racing and playing racing games in teams. The weather did not spoil our day! Year 2 were also highly praised for their listening skills and lovely manners. I’m very proud of everyone. Freddy Fit visited school and the children enjoyed a PE session with him, which always includes load music, high energy and big smiles. In English, the children planned and wrote fabulous recounts about their trip, including time connectives. In Maths, we have nearly finished the multiplication and division topic. The children have been solving word problems where they need to share group or multiply to find answers. They have been drawing simple pictures to help them do this. In Art, we have painted tulips and used forks to give texture. In Music, the children played the ukuleles. In French, we recapped the vocabulary for family members then we made a card for Mother's Day.  We wrote a sentence inside about how wonderful our mothers are - I hope the children can tell you what it means and maybe read it! 

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 (24.03.23). 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 24.03.23.

This week’s spellings:

Words ending - ing. Including two words from the Year 1/2 spelling list.

reading            taking

talking             swimmimg   

being                running

singing              after

coming              fast

Maths

Great effort learning your 2x tables in order.

Next week for our quiz (24.02.23) we will be learning the 2x table in a random order.

Count in 2’s forwards and backwards, see how quickly you can go, but it must still be accurate. Challenge yourself and go past 100. Chant/sing the x2 table. Ask an adult to quiz you on them in a random order.

You will have a 2x table challenge on Sumdog to complete by Friday 24.03.23. There will also be a doubling and odd/even challenge to complete.

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

Have a lovely weekend.

Year 2 Team.

Year 4 Blog Friday 17th March 2023

Date: 17th Mar 2023 @ 12:57pm

Year 4 Blog

Friday 17^th March 2023

Welcome to your Friday blog.  Here’s what we have been learning this week:

In English, we wrote our own adventure story about Lily from the novel.  We concentrated on quality rather than quantity, proof-reading carefully, editing, and making improvements to our writing.  We are very proud of our stories and will be publishing and reading them to Year 6 next week.  

In Maths, we learnt more about multiplication.  We found factor pairs of numbers using our times tables and consolidated our learning about the grid method. Many of us found this tricky as we are not confident with our times tables!

In French this week, we learnt how to change masculine adjectives into their feminine form, then we used these feminine adjectives to write a card for a special lady to tell her how amazing she is! I hope the children can read and translate for you.

In Science, we used our understanding of changing state to design a machine to speed up evaporation. There were some great ideas and good scientific understanding - well done year 4

In Art, we sketched different gerberas in a variety of pencil grades. We chose different parts of the flower to sketch and then experimented with shades and tints – choosing one colour and investigating how to make it lighter.  We put all our ideas together and hope you enjoy seeing the finished product this weekend.

In RE, we made links between parts of the Mass (for example The Lord’s Prayer and the Sign of Peace) and the religious symbols and steps involved in religious actions and worship.

We were also lucky to have an extra PE session with Freddie Fit this week. As well as keeping us active, Freddie also told us the importance of exercise, water intake and eating healthily.

Home Practice

Reading

Please read out loud to somebody for 20 minutes each evening.  Focus on fluency and understanding. Try and add some expression to your reading too.

Counting

This week, please practise counting in decimal tenths

For example, start at 0.7 and count up to 2.1 and back again

0.7   0.8   0.9  etc                 2.1   2.0   1.9    etc

Then have a go at counting in fractional tenths

For example, start at 7/10 and count upto 2 1/10 and back again

7/10   8/10  9/10  etc           2 1/10   2 0/10   1 9/10   etc

Times tables

You should know your individual tables target.  These will be tested next Wednesday (20^th March 2023). 

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

Please practise your tables each night as this will help you in lots of different aspects of maths.

Spellings

Here are next week’s spellings. You will be tested on these next Friday (24^th March 2023).

invention           action          digestion     creation       calculation

direction           completion   expression   confession    admission

progression       discussion    possession   procession   permission  

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 8 9 10 11 and 12 times tables
• A recognising and using factor pairs challenge

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

Another app for practising tables and number facts is One Minute Maths from White Rose.  It is free to download from the AppStore and PlayStore. There are lots of excellent games you can play which will help you brush up your mental maths skills.  Please do your best to access this fabulous free resource!  Knowing your tables and number facts off by heart is crucial and will help you in many different areas of maths.

Have a super weekend

The Year 4 Team

Reception Blog - Friday 17th March 2023

Date: 17th Mar 2023 @ 12:54pm

This week we have finished our story of Jack and the Beanstalk. We have done great sequencing of the story pictures and retold the whole story using actions.

In Maths we have continued with more addition, looking at one more and less than a number and looking at the part, part, whole model, were you can split a number up and investigate what it makes.

In French this week, we began to learn the vocabulary for family members then we made a card for Mother's Day. We also enjoyed the story of Jacques et les haricots magiques (Jack and the Beanstalk) in French, joining in with the repetitive parts. 

We had PE with Freddy Fit, at first we talked about healthy eating and how to keep our bodies healthy. Then we did dancing, exercises and a game.

We also looked at how the chicks have changed since we saw them last week. They now have feathers!! After this we made our own chick lifecycles and talked about what happens.

Year 3 Friday 17th March 2023

Date: 16th Mar 2023 @ 8:46pm

Happy St Patrick's Day and Welcome to your Friday blog

This week we have enjoyed reading our story Toro, Toro and learned lots about bullfighting. We wrote some information texts using what we learned to write our sentences. We also wrote a lovely piece as Antonio, the main character, when he learned that his best friend, Paco the bull might have to fight in the corrida.

In Maths we learned all about angles and 2D shapes. We revisited our learning on right angles and remembered our 2d shapes from last term.

In our History learning this week we learned all about Ancient Egyptian society and what jobs people had at that time. We also investigated some Ancient Egyptian wall art and tried to identify the people in the picture. It was interesting to work as historians and use our evidence and interpretations.

In PSHE we further explored diversity and community with the Premier League's Primary Stars programme. We loooked at some vocabulary and described what these words meant to us.

In Science, we looked at the results of the investigation to find out which soil is best for growing different kinds of seeds. We've realised that sand does not have any organic matter in it and the seeds have not grown so this must be important for germination. We then continued to research the functions of each plant part. Finally we had a visit from the chicks - amazing!

We also had a great time with Freddie Fit this week. He taught us all about keeping a balanced diet and an active lifestyle. You can see our pictures on the school Twitter.

Home Practice

Keep up with the regular reading with your children. We are meeting a lot of texts in our curriculum this term and reading fluency is key to accessing lots of new learning.

We have set some new challenges on Sumdog today. Some of you are still not aceassing the platform regularly. If you'd like some help with accessing Sumdog, let is know and we will help where we can. 

Continue to count with your children at home. Sing our songs and quiz your child. What number comes next? What is the missing number?

Our Spellings this week are

decided  

taking

serving

writing

making

driving

shaking

baked

famed

giving

tiled

stored

using

dancer

server

Have a fantastic weekend and a Happy Mother's Day for Sunday