Our blogs

Year 1 Home Practice 6th November 2020

Date: 6th Nov 2020 @ 3:45pm

6^th November 2020                                                                                           Home Practice

Welcome back,

It has been lovely seeing everyone again after the half term break. This week we have been reading The Man on the Moon (A day in the life of Bob) by Simon Bartram. We will be more of Bob’s adventures over the next couple of weeks.

This week we have finished our belonging topic in RE and celebrated the 5^th of November with some fantastic firework art. On Thursday we took our learning outdoors for National outdoor classroom day, creating some homes for our mini hedgehogs.

Next week we will continue our new History topic on toys from long ago and go spotty for Children in Need on Friday.

Home Practice

Read every night for at least 10 minutes. We are seeing great progress in the reading. Keep it up!

Remember, if you need a new set of Tricky words, just write a note in the reading diary.

The Oxford Owl e-library is still available via the home learning button on the class page.

Sounds / Phonics

We have been learning the split a_e sound this week. Have a go at our Sumdog Sounds challenge where we look at words with this spelling pattern.

We have also added a tricky words spelling challenge. With these words.

the, no, go, into, are, me, my, be, her, was

Maths

We have entered the children into a country wide maths competition on Sumdog starting today. Answer as many as you can over the next week. Keep an eye out for new challenges in the week.

The Year 1 team

Year 5 Home Practice 6th November 2020

Date: 6th Nov 2020 @ 11:40am

A great first week back, lovely to see everyone after the holiday. Well done to all those who have worked hard on their home practice and reading. We have started our new novel, Goth Girl by Chris Riddell which includes some really interesting vocabulary. In Maths, we have looked at regular and irregular 2D polygons. Outdoor Curriculum Day was fun, we spent some of the morning cloud watching and learnt the names of types of clouds – Geography. In the afternoon, we spent time in our nature area and made journey sticks. They were really good and the children thoroughly enjoyed making them.

Year 5 Home Practice Friday 6^th November 2020

Reading

Please read for at least twenty/thirty minutes every evening. Talk about what you have read with an adult. Discuss the story, characters and any new vocabulary you come across. Write new vocabulary in your reading diary and include comments about the story. Remember to sign when you have finished a book.

Maths

This week’s challenge on Sumdog is based on regular and irregular 2D shape and times tables practice.

Spelling

The Sumdog spelling challenge is focused on tricky words. If you don’t know what a word means, look it up in a dictionary or ask an adult. Please learn these spellings for next Friday (13.11.20):

We are investigating ‘rr-ed’.

purred        stirred           deferred         conferred          ignored    

spurred       slurred           preferred        bored             explored

occurred      referred        scarred           stored             blurred

Spelling, Punctuation And Grammar (SPAG)

This week’s challenge on Sumdog (grammar section) is based on parts of speech (nouns, verbs etc).

Have a lovely weekend, Miss Gravili.

Year 3 Home Practice 6th November 2020

Date: 5th Nov 2020 @ 7:27pm

We have had a great week back at school after Half Term. So lovely so see everybody safe and happy. 

We have started reading Mr Stink in English, we are really enjoying getting to know the characters in the book. In Maths we have been doing lots of counting and times tables. We have also been drawing base 10 symbols to help us add numbers together.

Each day we have had ‘Time To Talk.’ We have focussed on positive things and have thought about ourselves, how we see things and how we can overcome any challenges we may face.

On Thursday we enjoyed ‘Outdoor Classroom day.’ We did some orienteering by looking at symbols and a key and then using them to make silly faces out of PE equipment. We are looking forward to trying this again next week (hopefully minus the rain).

Home Practice for 6^th November – 13^th November

1. Read to somebody at home every night for 20 minutes. Talk about what you have read. Retell it in your own words.

2. Go on Sumdog and complete the following challenges:

Number and Addition Challenge: 6^th November – 13^th November - target 100 questions.

x tables challenge: 6^th November – 13^th November - target 100 questions.

3. Practise your x tables – you will be tested on them on Thursday 12^th November. You need to know them quickly and confidently without having to count on.

4. Spellings - you will be tested on them on Thursday 12^th November. You need to practise them every night. It is also a good idea to practise spellings from previous weeks.

The /l/ or /ul/ sound spelled ‘-al’ at the end of words.

medal, petal, capital, hospital, animal, equal, final, pedal, magical, local

Home Practice Friday 6th November 2020

Date: 5th Nov 2020 @ 4:49pm

Year 4

Home Practice 6^th November 2020

Year 4, well done for working so hard on your first week back after half term.

This week, we have learnt more about the characters in the Iron Man and written our thoughts and feelings as if we were Hogarth.  In maths, we learnt more strategies for adding numbers together mentally, including partitioning, using pairs to ten, finding doubles and near doubles, and bridging 10 and 100.  We also worked hard to refine our 3 and 6 times tables by counting in multiples and playing Fizz Buzz. In Science, we learnt more about classifying animals and went on a mini-beast hunt in the nature area.  We enjoyed making clay tree faces during ‘Outdoor Classroom Learning’ Day – see our pictures in the gallery.  

Well done to all those who have been on Sumdog during the last week.  It is crucial that you practise the skills set on Sumdog, as they will help you make more progress.  If you do a little every night, you will very soon see a difference in your learning.

Reading

Please read for 20 minutes each evening to an adult at home.  Make sure you discuss the story and the characters.  Find the meaning of any new words too.  Reading every night will help you read more fluently and with understanding. 

You can find even more books to read on our website.  Go to Year 4, Home Learning and click on Oxford Owl.  Use the class login and password and explore lots of books to read.

Times tables

You have been given your own individual times table target.  Please make sure you continue to practise your times tables in preparation for your test after half term, on Wednesday (11^th November 2020).  Ask someone at home to test you on your tables – can you recall them quickly and accurately?  Well done to everyone who has been practising their tables during the past week – it is fantastic to see the progress you are making.

You can also practise your tables playing ‘Hit the button’.  Select the times tables or division button and then the table that you want to practise.  This is an excellent way to practise your tables.  Either type in ‘hit the button’ (the game is on Top Marks) or use the link below:

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

Spellings

The spellings this week all have the spelling ‘ch’ in them, but this is a ‘sh’ sound (they are mostly French in origin). Please practise your spellings each evening at home.  You will be tested on them after half term, on Thursday (12^th November 2020).  We have discussed in class different strategies you could use to help you learn them and you could always use ‘Look say cover write check’.

chalet          chef            brochure      parachute    sachet

charlatan     quiche          chaperone    chauffeur    moustache

crochet        chivalry        machine       charade       machinery

Sumdog Challenges

You have been set 3 challenges on Sumdog:

• A maths challenge (mental addition of numbers within 1000)
• A grammar challenge (tricky past tense verbs)
• A spelling challenge (based on the spellings above)

Please make sure you log on and have a go!

The Secret Garden Competition

Date: 2nd Nov 2020 @ 3:28pm

 A new film version of  The Sectret Garden has been released. To celebrate this a competition is being run by the RHS Campaign for School Gardening and Sky. You can draw, paint, create a collage or model or even plant up a minature garden. If you would like your child to be in the competition the entry needs to be on a single sheet of A4 paper. The entry needs to include the design elements and why they have chosen them.

Please send your child's entry into school by Monday 16th November and we will send them off. 

Good luck!

Click here to find out more.

Reception 23rd October 2020

Date: 23rd Oct 2020 @ 5:08pm

This week our story has been funny bones! 

We have learnt a lot about our body and all our different bones. In Maths, we have been finding the missing numbers from the numberlines and making Halloween Patterns. In Literacy, we have been using our phonics to help us label the skeletons. 

We had a special Halloween Day on Friday! We got to dress up in our spooky costumes, we made potions and scooped out pumpkins. Mrs Wood came for our special Golden Assmebly and read us 'A Dark Dark Tale'! 

What an amazing end to our first half term of school! 

WELL DONE RECEPTION 

Year 6 Home Practice - 23rd October 2020

Date: 23rd Oct 2020 @ 4:23pm

For the final blog of this half term, I would like to say a huge thank you to Year 6. You have been brilliant these past 7 weeks and 2 days: working hard in all lessons, respecting the rules and routines we have in place; and completing the Home Practice in time. We hope you all have a great half term doing lots of things you enjoy!

Our learning in Year 6 this week:

• In Maths, we have been learning how to use the grid method effectively, which is one of our formal written strategies, for large multiplication calculations and applying that knowledge to reasoning questions.
• In English, we have researched World War I (The Great War) and found some very interesting facts to help us understand what the main character, Tommo, will be going through as he heads off to war.
• In Geography, Year 6 researched expertly again to create a poster about one of the many famous mountains of the world.
• In PE, we have completed our first Intra Competition and the first ever Virtual Inter Competition – Football. It consists of dribbling around cones in the fastest time possible. The results of Year 6 is as follows:
  • For the girls, the fastest was Erin
  • For the boys, the fastest was Daniel
    • Congratulations to everyone for taking part!
• In French, we have been looking at L’Halloween traditions in France and writing Halloween-themed sentences, ‘I am going to dress up as … I am going to wear…’
• In Science, we learnt about the work of Carl Linnaeus and explored the classification system of living things.
• Finally, the children had a super day dressed in their Halloween outfits and everyone created their own scary story on a Halloween night.

After half term, remember that the days when you can change your book are:

Monday – Roller Coasters

Tuesday – Big Dippers

Wednesday – The Waltzers

The Home Practice deadline is still for the Friday we come back after the half term. These are the tasks to be completed:

• Reading – Please keep reading for a minimum of 20 minutes every day.

Please write in your Reading Journals often.

As you may know, we have access to Oxford Owl ebooks where you can read a whole range of books from their library. If you would like to use this great resource, the username is ‘sto56’ with the password ‘1234’.

• Sumdog challenges:
  • x3, x6, x9, x4, x8
    • Each child has their own tables target which they should know. The Sumdog challenge may relate to their target but if not, you can always use Sumdog for extra Tables Practice. Every Tuesday there is a tables test.
  • SPAG – Parts of Speech
  • Spellings (-ent, -ence words)
    • persistent, persistence, violent, violence, intelligent, intelligence, inconvenient, inconvenience, obedient, obedience, conference, difference, conscience, reference, excitement

Year 5 Home Practice 23rd October 2020

Date: 23rd Oct 2020 @ 3:55pm

Year 5 have had a great start to the new school year. The children have worked so hard and shown interest and enthusiasm for all their learning. We have finished our first novel, Street Child by Berlie Doherty and learnt so much about Victorian Times. In maths, we worked on written methods of addition. The children learnt about Halloween traditions in France and wrote some excellent sentences in the future tense. The costumes were great for Halloween Day, thank you for your kind donations. Have a wonderful holiday and stay safe.

Year 5 Home Practice Friday 23^rd October 2020

Reading

Please read for at least twenty/thirty minutes every evening. Talk about what you have read with an adult. Discuss the story, characters and any new vocabulary you come across. Write new vocabulary in your reading diary and include comments about the story. Remember to sign to say you have finished a book.

Maths

This week’s challenge on Sumdog is based on written addition and tables practice.

Spelling

The Sumdog spelling challenge is focused on tricky words. If you don’t know what a word means, look it up in a dictionary or ask an adult. Please learn these spellings for the Friday after half term (6.11.20):

We are investigating ‘pp-ed’.

slipped        cropped          dropped         swapped          wrapped      

skipped       tapped            stepped          nipped             bopped

hopped       stopped           flipped           clipped             whipped

Spelling, Punctuation And Grammar (SPAG)

This week’s challenge on Sumdog (grammar section) is based on pronouns.

Have a great holiday.

Miss Gravili

Year 2 Home Practice 23rd October 2020

Date: 23rd Oct 2020 @ 3:49pm

We have had a wonderful half term in Year 2. All of year 2 this week have made a great effort to be the best friend they can be, in the classroom and during play times – well done. In English this week the children have wrote about the novel Meerkat Mail. They did a brilliant performance in groups, acting out parts of the story on our outdoor stage. This week in Maths we have looked at our 2 x tables, counting in 2s and finding missing numbers. The children have done lots of learning all about ‘number bonds’ and they have loved being the quickest to say the correct bond. The children have celebrated L’Halloween in French. The children learnt all the body parts and took part in spooky French races.  In Geography the children have enjoyed creating their own zoo maps. The maps have included key features and the children have used their brilliant imagination about what their zoo will be like.  Today the children have had a Halloween learning day. We have done spooky number work in maths, created our own potion and instructions in writing, created monsters in Design Technology and used Pumpkins in Art. Well done to all the children (and parents) costumes were great today!

Reading

In Year 2 we aim to read for a minimum of 15 minutes every night and discuss the book with an older sibling or adult to help deepen your knowledge.

Reading books are changed every Monday.

Reading resources:

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

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 red box ‘eBook Library for Letters & Sounds’

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

Spelling

This week we have been learning how to spell words with the ‘oi’ sound.

Please complete practise these spellings ready for your quiz every Friday.

This week’s spellings are:

tinfoil

spoil

poison

noise

royal

annoying

destroy

enjoy

child

children

Maths

This week we have been looking at counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. Finding missing numbers when counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. Please practise your times-tables at home. We have looked at and recapped number bonds to 10 and 20. The children have enjoyed playing SPLAT – being the first one to say the correct pair of numbers to make 10.

Sumdog

Sumdog can be played from home, as well as in the classroom. To log in from home, students use the same details as they do in class. There are new challenges put onto Sumdog every week.

Log in at www.sumdog.com

Additionally, students can access Sumdog via the app, which are free to download and play. In both cases, they'll need an internet connection.

Sumdog challenges

Multiplication –  x2 x10 x5 tables

Maths – number bonds to 10 and 20

 - Place value and comparing numbers.

Spellings – oi oy

Thank you for all your hard work and support this half term. Have a great week off and we will look forward to seeing you when you are back.

The Year 2 team

Home Practice Friday 23rd October 2020

Date: 23rd Oct 2020 @ 1:57pm

Year 4

Home Practice 23^rd October 2020

Another fantastic week of learning Year 4!

In maths we have consolidated our learning of tenths, including counting in tenths, placing and finding tenths on a numberline and finding the difference between tenths.  We also started learning more strategies for mentally adding numbers together – this will be our next focus.  In English, we started our new novel, ‘The Iron Man’ and retold the first chapter as the Iron Man.  We also created a ‘Wanted’ poster for him. We found out more about Celtic warriors in history and labelled our own warrior.    

Well done to all those who has been on Sumdog during the last week – practising these skills is the key to making progress, so keep up your fantastic efforts.  Let’s see if everyone in Year 4 can log onto Sumdog during the next couple of weeks and practise these skills!

Reading

Please read for 20 minutes each evening to an adult at home.  Make sure you discuss the story and the characters.  Find the meaning of any new words too.  Reading every night will help you read more fluently and with understanding. 

You can find even more books to read on our website.  Go to Year 4, Home Learning and click on Oxford Owl.  Use the class login and password and explore lots of books to read.

Times tables

You have been given your own individual times table target.  Please make sure you continue to practise your times tables in preparation for your test after half term, on Wednesday (4^th November 2020).  Ask someone at home to test you on your tables – can you recall them quickly and accurately?  Well done to everyone who has been practising their tables during the past week – it is fantastic to see the progress you are making.

You can also practise your tables playing ‘Hit the button’.  Select the times tables or division button and then the table that you want to practise.  This is an excellent way to practise your tables.  Either type in ‘hit the button’ (the game is on Top Marks) or use the link below:

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

Spellings

The spellings this week are taken from the Year 3/4 statutory word list. Please practise your spellings each evening at home.  You will be tested on them after half term, on Thursday (5^th November 2020).  We have discussed in class different strategies you could use to help you learn them and you could always use ‘Look say cover write check’.

appear         continue       grammar      material       possible      

suppose       breadth       different     group           medicine

pressure      surprise       breathe       difficult       guard

Sumdog Challenges

You have been set 3 challenges on Sumdog:

• A multiplication challenge (x3 x4 and x8 – multiplication, division and arrays – many of you are still finding these tables tricky)
• A maths challenge (adding 1’s, 10’s and 100’s, or multiples of)
• A spelling challenge (based on the spellings above)

Please make sure you log on and have a go!

And finally, have a lovely relaxing time over half term.  Make sure you have lots of fun and enjoy spending time with your family.  Come back to school refreshed and ready for the next 7 weeks of learning at St Oswald’s.

Year 3 Home Practice 23rd October 2020

Date: 22nd Oct 2020 @ 7:36pm

What an amazing first half term in the juniors. We have had a fantastic time and grown up so much already. We have worked hard and are ready for a well-deserved week off to rest, reflect on our learning and spend time with our families.

This week we have absolutely LOVED reading the instruction book ‘How to Wash your Woolly Mammoth.’ We wrote our own instructions and used our sense of humour to make them funny – like paint the woolly mammoth’s tusks pink and give it a foot massage.

We have been looking at 2-D shapes in Maths and have been measuring accurately using our rulers. As always, we have counted and practised our times tables every day!

We have done lots of art to make spooky pictures which we used to decorate our classroom for Friday’s Halloween themed day. We practised mixing different colours of paint, sketching and cutting out. We also got in the spirit of Halloween in our French lesson where we looked at Halloween traditions in France, read a story in French about Halloween and wrote our own sentences using the text as a model.

Well done Year 3 and thank you for such a super first half term!!! JJJ

Home Practice for 23^rd October – 6^th November

If you do the home practice for 10 minutes every day and read each night, you will really see a difference in your learning.

1. Read to somebody at home every night for 20 minutes. Talk about what you have read. Retell it in your own words.

2. Go on Sumdog and complete the following challenges:

Spelling Challenge: 23^rd October – 6^th November - target 250 questions.

Maths Challenge: 23^rd October – 6^th November - target 250 questions.

x tables challenge: 23^rd October – 6^th November - target 250 questions.

3. Practise your x tables – you will be tested on them on Thursday 5^th November. You need to know them quickly and confidently without having to count on.

4. Spellings - you will be tested on them on Thursday 5^th November:

The /l/ or /ul/ sound spelt ‘-el’ at the end of words.

This spelling is usually used after m, n, r, s, v, w and commonly s.

camel, tunnel, squirrel, travel, towel, tinsel, hazel, vowel, angel, jewel

5. If you want to do some writing during Half Term, you could keep a diary. Focus on capital letters, full stops, spelling, and handwriting.

Year 1 Home Practice 23rd October 2020

Date: 22nd Oct 2020 @ 3:52pm

Year 1 Home Practice                                                                                   Friday 23^rd  October 2020

First of all we’d like to say a huge well done to everyone in Year 1 for settling in so well and completing their first half term in Year 1. You have all been amazing and deserve a well earned break. This week we have enjoyed reading Winnie the Witch and her adventures with Wilbur and friends. We really enjoyed our Halloween dress up day and even created some magical potions. See our galleries on the class page!

We have also been building some skeletons and putting them back together in our Science and looked at some pastel drawings in our Art.

Reading

Continue to read every night over half term. When you have finished your books, please access our eBook library to keep up the practise.

Phonics / Sounds

This week we have been recapping all our long vowel sounds. We will add new spelling challenges on Sumdog over the next week so keep an eye out. First up - words with consonant blends (br, fl, nt, ck etc...) Keep practising your tricky words. We have sent a new set out with everyone today.

Maths

This week we have introduced the features of 3d shapes and continued looking at addition and subtraction within 20. Have a go at the Sumdog challenges we have set.

We’d like to extend thanks to all for your continuing support.

Have a lovely half term

The Year 1 team

Year 6 Home Practice - 16th October 2020

Date: 16th Oct 2020 @ 6:07pm

Well done to the whole class for reading this week. We have noticed an improvement already in those who have read every day so please keep it up; little and often will make a huge difference this year. As well as reading, we have introduced the Home Reading Journals where you can add comments, opinions, vocabulary and any thoughts. This helps to show us how much you understand the book you have read. Thank you to those who have written detailed comments about their books. Once again, just to remind you, here are the days when you can change your book:

Monday – Roller Coasters

Tuesday – Big Dippers

Wednesday – The Waltzers

Another thank you to those who have completed their Sumdog challenges by Wednesday. All the challenges will be a practice of last week’s learning which will always help when we review it the following week. We will always have a maths, spelling and grammar challenge to practice all week from Friday to the next Friday. This week have had another brilliant response with 87% completing by Wednesday. 

Our learning in Year 6 this week:

• In Maths, we have been learning a range of mental strategies for multiplying large and small numbers.
• In our novel, ‘Private Peaceful’, we have investigated the relationships between Tommo (the main character) and every other character and improved our skill in summarising events. In Mrs Wood’s English lesson, we learnt about the brilliant story of Macbeth and wrote a letter to Lady Macbeth.
• In Geography, we learnt how mountains are formed through two tectonic plates moving towards, away and across each other, which eventually (over millions of years) creates ‘folded’, ‘fault-block’ and ‘dome’ mountains.
• For RE, in our topic of ‘Vocation and Commitment’, we wrote as John the Baptist and the impact that had on many people’s lives as Jesus began his mission.
• In PE, we have been preparing for this year’s first Intra Competition and the first ever Virtual Inter Competition – Football. It consists of dribbling around cones in the fastest time possible. All the schools in South Ribble are taking part so fingers crossed for those in Year 6!
• In French, we have been writing sentences using opinions and negatives, e.g. “I love … I hate …”
• Following last week’s research into non-flowering plants in Science, we have presented our information to the class and are now beginning to classify animals.

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

• Reading – Please keep reading for a minimum of 20 minutes every day.

Please write in your Reading Journals often.

As you may know, we have access to Oxford Owl ebooks where you can read a whole range of books from their library. If you would like to use this great resource, the username is ‘sto56’ with the password ‘1234’.

• Spellings (-ant, -ance)
  • Just like last week, these spellings will be looked in detail from Monday:
    • assistant, assistance, arrogant, relevant, important, importance, appearance, extravagant, hesitant, reluctant, nuisance, hindrance, ignorance, resistance, restaurant
• Sumdog challenges:
  • x2, x5, x10, x3, x6, x9
  • SPAG – Adverbs
  • Spellings (-ant, -ance words)
    • Once again, I suggest to first write these out on a piece of paper, then play the games. We will look at these spellings in more detail from Monday so the spelling of these words will be easier after we have investigated them.

Reception 16th October 2020

Date: 16th Oct 2020 @ 4:04pm

This week we have been reading the story 'Kippers Birthday by Mick Inkpen' 

We have been thinking about what we might need for a party, we have made cupcakes, we been busy writing lots of invitations and birthday cards. We discussed what we do for our own birthday partys and looked at birthdays in the 1930s. 

We have done lots of counting this week, especially getting the right amount of candles for our playdough cakes! 

Reception are really trying hard to follow the Golden Rules every single day, so choosing the Golden Stars this week was a tricky job, but here they are :) 

Year 1 Home Practice - 16th October 2020

Date: 16th Oct 2020 @ 3:54pm

Year 1 Home Practice                                                                                           Friday 16^th October 2020

Well done Year One on a fantastic week of learning. This week we have loved our story Black Dog and even retold it with some lovely writing. In our Maths we have been learning our 2D shapes as well as our numbers to 100 and in Science we read all about Linda Buck, a famous scientist who studied smell. (A Smelly scientist)

On Thursday we took part in Lancashire intra-sports football challenge. Everyone took part and didn’t give up, even when it got tricky. Amazing! We’ve also looked at pumpkin sketching, Baptism, in our RE and created some lovely Autumn posters.

For your home practice this week…

Reading

Continue to read every night. This is key to unlocking all the learning we do at St Oswald’s. Continue to access our eBook library at Oxford Owl, via the home learning button on the class page.

Phonics / Sounds

This week we have been learning the oo, ew and ue sounds. Here are the words we’d like you to have a go practising in your Sumdog spellings.

Pool, boot, cool, shoot, spoon, blew, chew, crew, drew, flew, grew, blue, clue, glue, fuel

Maths

This week we have introduced the features of 2d shapes and continued looking at reading, writing and counting numbers within 100. Have a go at the Sumdog challenges. We are seeing great progress in our number learning. Well done!

In other news...

Well done to Year One who competed in the Lancashire Maths Contest this week. Out of 68 Classes across Lancashire we came 21^st (Best at St Oswald’s) and on Wednesday Year 1 were the daily winners with an amazing daily score of 165. A special mention to Libby and Xavier who came 44^th and 3^rd in all of Lancashire. Well Done everyone, an amazing achievement. We’d also like to thank Sam for the video he sent in on Monday. Everyone was so happy to see Sam and his chickens.

Year 2 Home Practice - 16th October 2020

Date: 16th Oct 2020 @ 3:52pm

With only 1 week of half-term left, Year 2 have been working harder than ever. Our leaflets from last week managed to make their way to the top shelf in Booths. We have uploaded the photos to our class gallery. Great work by everyone! The children have really enjoyed our class novel this week and they have produced some wonderful pieces of writing. This week we have also taken part in an Intra Sports Competition. The children had to use their dribbling skills and race against the clock on an obstacle course. A great effort by everyone! In French we have been performing and practicing Autumn poems along with learning seasonal colours.

Reading

In Year 2 we aim to read for a minimum of 15 minutes every night and discuss the book with an older sibling or adult to help deepen your knowledge.

Reading books are changed every Monday.

Reading resources:

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

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 red box ‘eBook Library for Letters & Sounds’

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

Spelling

This week we have been learning how to spell words with the ‘ow’ sound.

Please complete practise these spellings ready for your quiz every Friday.

This week’s spellings are:

crown

clown

crowd

howl

house

loud

sound

mouth

bath

busy

Maths

We have been counting forward and backwards in tens and fives. We have also looked at repeated addition.

Sumdog

Sumdog can be played from home, as well as in the classroom. To log in from home, students use the same details as they do in class.

Log in at www.sumdog.com

Additionally, students can access Sumdog via the app, which are free to download and play. In both cases, they'll need an internet connection.

Sumdog challenges

Multiplication –  x5 tables

Maths – counting in 10 and 5

Spellings – ow and ou

Thank you for all your continued support,

The Year 2 team

Year 5 Home Practice 16th October 2020

Date: 16th Oct 2020 @ 3:49pm

Another fantastic week Year 5. We’ve moved on to comparing and measuring angles using a protractor in Maths. For English, we have looked at the different types of recounts and their key features. Our new topic in Science starts next week, Earth and Space and in RE we have been looking at friendship. French with Mrs Quilliam was great, you all counted in fives so well. This will come in handy for telling the time. Keep up the good work by doing all your home practice.

Year 5 Home Practice Friday 16^th October 2020

Reading

Please read for at least twenty/thirty minutes every evening. Talk about what you have read with an adult. Discuss the story, characters and any new vocabulary you come across. Write new vocabulary in your reading diary and include comments about the story.

Maths

This week’s challenge on Sumdog is based on angles and mixed times tables practice.

Spelling

There will be new spellings to learn each week on a Friday and a Sumdog spelling challenge linked to the spelling rule/pattern (spellings could be different from the ones below). If you don’t know what a word means, look it up in a dictionary or ask an adult. Please learn these spellings for next Friday (23.10.20):

We are investigating the silent letters n, p and u in words.

Autumn        circuit         psalm           plague             guillotine       

rogue          cupboard     tongue         condemn           pneumonia

build           hymn           raspberry     baguette         plaque

Spelling, Punctuation And Grammar (SPAG)

This week’s challenge on Sumdog (grammar section) is based on antonyms and synonyms.

Have a great weekend. Miss Gravili

Home Practice Friday 16th October 2020

Date: 16th Oct 2020 @ 3:48pm

Year 4

Home Practice 16^th October 2020

Another busy week in Year 4!

This week we have dramatised the poem ‘The coming of the Iron Man’ during our English lesson.  As part of our Celtic topic in history, we made a model of a roundhouse - see our models in the gallery.  Following this, we wrote a set of instructions to help others make a roundhouse. In maths, we learnt how to compare and order numbers to 1 decimal place, round decimal numbers to the nearest whole number and double 2 and 3 digit numbers. In French we practised the days of the week and the months of the year. We now have the vocabulary to answer the question “Quelle est la date?”

Well done to all those who has been on Sumdog during the last week – practising these skills is the key to making progress, so keep up your fantastic efforts.  Let’s see if everyone in Year 4 can log onto Sumdog next week and practise these skills!

Reading

Please read for 20 minutes each evening to an adult at home.  Make sure you discuss the story and the characters.  Find the meaning of any new words too.  Reading every night will help you read more fluently and with understanding. 

You can find even more books to read on our website.  Go to Year 4, Home Learning and click on Oxford Owl.  Use the class login and password and explore lots of books to read.

Times tables

You have been given your own individual times table target.  Please make sure you continue to practise your times tables in preparation for your test next Wednesday (21^st October 2020).  Ask someone at home to test you on your tables – can you recall them quickly and accurately?  Well done to everyone who has been practising their tables during the past week – it is fantastic to see the progress you are making.

Spellings

The spellings this week explore the ‘g’ sound spelt gue, which is French in origin. Please practise your spellings each evening at home.  You will be tested on them next Thursday (22^nd October 2020).  We have discussed in class different strategies you could use to help you learn them and you could always use ‘Look say cover write check’.

rogue           league          tongue         plague          intrigue

vague           fatigue        dialogue       epilogue       prologue

colleague      meringue      catalogue     synagogue    morgue

Sumdog Challenges

You have been set 2 challenges on Sumdog:

• A multiplication challenge (x3 x4 x6 and x8)
• A grammar challenge (parts of speech, eg verbs, nouns, adverbs etc)

Please make sure you log on and have a go!

Year 3 Home Practice 16th October 2020

Date: 15th Oct 2020 @ 7:38pm

We have had a wonderful week in Year 3. We have finished reading The Twits – we really enjoyed it and are excited to find out what our next books will be (it is top secret for now)!

We have been using our imagination lots in our writing to write about astronauts, glowing keys, jungles and more. Our imagination is unbeatable – so many fantastic ideas. The stories everybody wrote at home with their spellings in were amazing!

We are still focussing on counting, times tables and number facts in Maths. We have also started to look at 2-D shapes and their properties.

We combined Art with RE this week and made beautiful collages all about ourselves – which groups we belong to and promises we have made. We were amazed to realise how many different groups and clubs we are actually part of.

In PE we have been perfecting our throwing and catching skills and using different techniques to beat a defender in a game. We are really good at working together as a team, encouraging and helping each other.

In French we had our first attempt at using phonic sounds to write French words.

Home Practice for 16^th October – 23^rd October

1. Read to somebody at home every night for 20 minutes. Talk about what you have read. Discuss the characters and what has happened to them. Predict what you think will happen next.

2. Go on Sumdog and complete the following challenges:

Spelling Challenge: 16^th October – 23^rd October - target 100 questions.

Number and Shape Challenge: 16^th October – 23^rd October - target 150 questions.

3. Spellings:

The /l/ or /ul/ sound spelled –le at the end of words.

table, apple, bottle, little, middle, bubble, cable, uncle, ankle, circle

Use look, cover, write, check to practise.

Make a list of any other words you can think of which end with the /l/ or /l/ sound spelled -le.

Reception 9th October - Hello Yellow

Date: 9th Oct 2020 @ 4:14pm

We have had the best day celebrating 'Hello Yellow', thinking about happiness, hopes and wishes all day ! 

The Children have loved dancing to happy music, playing well-being bingo, telling funny jokes, making others smile and going to the photobooth!

Have a look at some of our fab pictures. :)

Year 6 Home Practice - 8th October 2020

Date: 9th Oct 2020 @ 3:51pm

Well done to everyone for completing their Home Practice. We have had 96% changing their Home Reading books this week – let’s keep aiming for 100%. Once again, just to remind you, here are the days when you can change your book:

Monday – Roller Coasters

Tuesday – Big Dippers

Wednesday – The Waltzers

This year we are using Sumdog as a great way to practice our learning that has been taught in school that week. We will always have a maths, spelling and grammar challenge to practice all week from Friday to the next Friday. We have had another brilliant response with 90% completing all the challenges by Wednesday – keep this up everyone, as little and often will help our learning for the following week.

Our learning in Year 6 this week:

• In Maths, we have been using different strategies to add large numbers together and how to effectively use the written method.
• In our novel, ‘Private Peaceful’, we have developed our understanding of the characters, Tommo, Charlie and Mother and explored the themes that might run through this story.  
• In Geography, we learnt how the world consists of tectonic plates (part of the Earth’s crust) and that they move at an incredibly slow pace – around 100mm a year!
• For RE, we have begun our new topic, ‘Vocation and Commitment’, with some excellent debates on what makes a vocation. We also created some questions and interviewed a firefighter via zoom to understand their commitment to their role.
• In music, boomwhackers have been our focus to create our own unique beats.
• In French, we used the bilingual dictionaries to further understand, ‘le, la and les’.
• In Science, we have continued our research into non-flowering plants with mosses, ferns and conifers, and deciding how to present our research.
• Finally, this Friday, we celebrated our ‘Hello Yellow’ day which helped us to understand resilience and what ‘powers’ we have to improve our resilience.

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

• Reading – Please keep reading for a minimum of 20 minutes every day.

Most of you are using your Reading Journals really well – just remember to add in any thoughts, vocabulary or any opinions you have of the book at any time, not just after finishing it.

As you may know, we have access to Oxford Owl ebooks where you can read a whole range of books from their library. If you would like to use this great resource, the username is ‘sto56’ with the password ‘1234’.

• Spellings (-sion / -ssion / -cian words)
  • We will be learning the -sion, -ssion spellings again, along with -cian words, which will be looked in detail from Monday:
    • division, television, discussion, session, mission, percussion, profession, politician, magician, electrician, optician, musician, technician, Egyptian, dalmatian
• Sumdog challenges:
  • x2, x5, x10, x4, x8
  • SPAG – More verbs
  • Spellings (-sion / -ssion, -cian words)
    • Once again, I suggest to first write these out on a piece of paper, then play the games. We will look at these spellings in more detail from Monday so the spelling of these words will be easier after we have investigated them.

Home Practice Friday 9th October 2020

Date: 9th Oct 2020 @ 3:44pm

Year 4

Home Practice 9^th October 2020

This week we have planned and written our own story in the style of the stories from ‘How the Whale became’ by Ted Hughes.  In maths we have been counting in different steps, including 100’s and tenths. We have also explored tenths in more detail and found the effect of multiplying and dividing a one or 2 digit number by 10. In history, we discovered the type of houses the Celts lived in – we prefer living in our own homes, ask us why! In French we practised the days of the week and talked about what activities we carried out on which day.

Well done to everyone who has been on Sumdog during the last week – practising these skills is the key to making progress, so keep up your fantastic efforts. 

Reading

Please read for 20 minutes each evening to an adult at home.  Make sure you discuss the story and the characters.  Find the meaning of any new words too.  Reading every night will help you read more fluently and with understanding. 

Times tables

You have been given your own individual times table target.  Please make sure you continue to practise your times tables in preparation for your test next Wednesday (14^th October 2020).  Ask someone at home to test you on your tables – can you recall them quickly and accurately?  Well done to everyone who has been practising their tables during the past week – it is fantastic to see the progress you are making.

Spellings

The spellings this week explore the ‘o’ sound spelt ‘a’ after w and qu. Please practise your spellings each evening at home.  You will be tested on them next Thursday (15^th October 2020).  We have discussed in class different strategies you could use to help you learn them and you could always use ‘Look say cover write check’.

what            quality         quantity       squash         squad

squabble      squander      squadron      wanted         swallow

quad             swap            swapped       wallow          wasp

Sumdog Challenges

You have been set 3 challenges on Sumdog:

• A counting challenge (counting in multiples of 4, 5 and 8)
• A maths challenge (recognising tenths)
• A spelling challenge (based on the sound ‘o’ sound spelt a, after w and qu)

Please make sure you log on and have a go!

Year 2 Home Practice 9th October 2020

Date: 9th Oct 2020 @ 3:37pm

Year 2 have had a fantastic week. Well done to everyone who has gone onto Sumdog and had a go at the challenges. This week we have focused on ‘being a great friend’ and Year 2 have enjoyed celebrating #HelloYellow day. In English this week we have looked at non-fiction writing and the children have researched all about Longton to write a leaflet. They all look great! For Maths we have continued to focus on number and place value. This week we have looked at finding different ways to make a number and exchanging using base ten. In French this week the children have learnt colours through the story ‘Pop le dinosaure mange toutes les couleurs’. They created their own colourful dinosaur using French colours – they look brilliant. In Geography we explored key features on a map and how we use them. We make sure we continue to take part in the daily mile to stay active at school.

Reading

In Year 2 we aim to read for a minimum of 15 minutes every night and discuss the book with an older sibling or adult to help deepen your knowledge.

Reading books are changed every Monday.

Reading resources:

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

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 red box ‘eBook Library for Letters & Sounds’

Username: sto2

Password: 1234

Resources for questioning your child while they are reading 

Spelling

This week we have been learning how to spell words with the ‘oa’ sound.

Please complete practise these spellings ready for your quiz every Friday.

This week’s spellings are:

loaf

go

toes

float

note

pole

glow

show

break

beautiful

Maths

This week we have been looking at place value and number. We are working hard at writing the words for all of our numbers up to 100. Please have a go at using the resources and work set on Sumdog.

Sumdog

A Sumdog Contest starts today and finishes at 8pm on the 15^th October. Here are some key things to keep in mind whilst having a go at the Contest:

• Children can play at any time.
• For the score to count, the Lancashire Maths Contest activity must be showing in the green panel on the left of the students screen when they click to start each game.
• Their scores are based on correct answers.
• A class score is the average of scores from all the children from that class who take part.
• To appear on the leader board, at least 5 children from your class need to play.
• As some children have limited computer access, every child is limited to 1000 Contest questions.

Sumdog can be played from home, as well as in the classroom. To log in from home, students use the same details as they do in class.

Log in at www.sumdog.com. 

Additionally students can access Sumdog via the app, which is free to download and play.

In both cases, they'll need an internet connection.

Sumdog challenges

Multiplication –  x2 x10 tables

Maths – Place value

Spellings – oa o_e oe, o, ow

Thank you for all your continued support,

The Year 2 team

Year 5 Home Practice 9th October 2020

Date: 9th Oct 2020 @ 11:25am

The weeks are flying by in Year 5 due to all the learning we are doing. Well done to everyone for working with interest and positivity. The diary recounts about an alien adventure were excellent. I really enjoyed reading them. We have learnt some new things in Maths – factors, multiples, square numbers, prime numbers and prime factors! In French, the children have learnt to read unknown words using the sounds an/en/am and em. Amazing pronunciation Year 5! #Hello Yellow Day for Young Minds was really fun. We did a lot of talking and some great activities.

Year 5 Home Practice Friday 9^th October 2020

Reading

Please read for at least twenty/thirty minutes every evening. Talk about what you have read with an adult. Discuss the story, characters and any new vocabulary you come across. Write new vocabulary in your reading diary and include comments about the story.

If you would like to find even more books to read, please look on Oxford Owl ebooks. You will find the link on the website - Year 5, Home Learning and there is a password for you. 

Maths

This week’s challenge on Sumdog is based on multiples, factors, prime numbers and mixed times tables practice. There is also a Lancashire Maths Contest on Sumdog. Look out for this on the green panel on the left of the screen when you start your games. It must be there for your scores to count!

Spelling

There will be new spellings to learn each week on a Friday and a Sumdog spelling challenge linked to the spelling rule/pattern (spellings could be different from the ones below). If you don’t know what a word means, look it up in a dictionary or ask an adult. Please learn these spellings for next Friday (16.10.20):

We are investigating the silent letters b, h and t in words.

whistle        ghoul         rhythm           subtle             comb       

thistle         ghastly      rhinocerous     Christmas      debt

ghost           rhyme        nestle              doubt             climb

Spelling, Punctuation And Grammar (SPAG)

This week’s challenge on Sumdog (grammar section) is based on verbs.

Have a great weekend. Miss Gravili

Year 3 Home Practice 9th October 2020

Date: 8th Oct 2020 @ 6:33pm

Thank you for all of your amazing rock posters. We have put them up on display in our classroom and they look great. I have learnt lots of new things.

We have done a lot of hands on learning this week. We used charcoal and sand to create Stone Age cave paintings (we worked so well as a team to clean the classroom afterwards). We also did an investigation in Science where we looked at different qualities of rocks to choose which would be best for a Stone Age cutting stone (again great team work and sharing).

In Maths we have been using number lines to find missing numbers and to add numbers together. In English we have been hearing all about the monkeys and the Roly-Poly Bird in The Twits.

Friday was ‘Let’s Brighten Up a School Day.’ We focussed on all of the positive things – things we are good at and things we have in our lives that we are grateful for. It was really nice to hear how proud we all of ourselves and each other.

Home Practice for 9^th October – 16^th October

1. Read to somebody at home every night for 20 minutes.

2. Go on Sumdog and complete the following challenges:

Number Challenge: 9^th October – 16^th October - target 100 questions.

X2 and x5 tables challenge: 9^th October – 16^th October – target 100 questions.

3. If you are confident enough, teach somebody at home how to use a number line to find numbers which total 100.

4. Spellings:

These are words that have an /s/ sound spelled with a ‘c’, they have an ‘e’, ‘i’ or ‘y’ after the /s/ sound.

race, ice, cell, city, fancy, lace, space, circle, circus, rice

Make up a story using all of your spellings words. It can be as silly as you like. I would love to see when you have finished.