Reception have had a mysterious visitor this week, leaving footprints around our class and outside areas! The children have been convinced that it is the Gruffalo and have set to work writing posters to find him and measuring footprints to see if they match.
Children watched and elephants painting a picture as a stimulus for discussion this week in KS1 P4C club. It got us thinking... what is art? And do artist always have to have the same methods?
So we thought it would be a good idea to create our own art, using - not our trunks (!) - but our feet! We then turned the marks we made into art using our hands to make the finishing touches.
We also wondered about how we like to look after animals, and if it is OK to train all animals.
This week in Reception we have been reading the story of the Gruffalo.
We are learning the story off by heart using our story map and thinking of words to describe the Gruffalo and the mouse.
We have also written our own recipe for Gruffalo Crumble!
On Tuesday we followed our brilliant recipes to make it too!
Friday 25 November 2016
Year 4 spellings Week commencing 21-11-16
We have been learning how to spell words that sound like they end with 'chuh' but are spelt with a -ture ending. For example creature, sculpture, departure, literature, temperature, furniture.
In Reception this week, we have been learning about using money.
For one activity, we built models using bricks that we had paid for.
We had 10p each to spend, and we could spend as much of that as we wanted. We could even team up with a friend if we wanted to make a larger model, and have 20p to spend between us!
Daisy double checked she had the right amount of coins to start with
Alice, paying 2p for a blue brick
Aron was carefully counting his money to make sure he could afford 2 green bricks
Following on from kindness week, the children explored unkind acts
through rule breaking. We watched this clip to spark our thoughts for our enquiry.
We discussed how sometimes the emergency services might have to break the rules, like going through red lights, as the situation is really urgent. Children then came up with some of the "most naughty" things they could think of, where it would never be OK to do (like stealing or hurting somebody). They also thought of some "less naughty" things, like making yourself messy when your mum has already done your hair!
Nicky thought if would always be best to ask someone in charge before breaking a rule, like stealing some food for a starving person. Most people agreed with this thought, but some children thought that this counted as an emergency situation which would save someone's life.
Very interesting thoughts from P4C club today!
How naughty do you think these acts are...?
Pushing someone into the water.
Tripping someone over by accident, but not saying sorry.
Today in Year 4, we used iMotion to film melting ice. This program automatically takes photographs at set intervals and then enables you to playback the images at different speeds. This allowed us to watch the process of an ice cube melting in 3 seconds rather than the 90 minute it actually took. We explored other uses and examples of time lapse photography as part of our computing and science lessons.
Reception had some rather big visitors today when Year 6 came down. The Year 6 children shared stories with Reception, played alongside them during child initiated play and helped them to get ready for home time. They walked them into assembly too!
In KS1 P4C club, we were discussing what it meant to be kind. We watched this short video clip and reflected upon the question:
If I do lots of kind things, but one bad thing, am I still a kind person?
Children generally believed that the answer to this was 'yes' but it all depended on how bad the 'bad thing' was compared to the 'kind things'. After discussions, we made a card for someone to brighten their day, as a 'kind thing' to do for someone this week.
This week, Reception are thinking about different ways to do something kind for one another. In their activity time, the children came up with lots of different ways to brighten someone's day!
Their acts of kindness included making cards for one another, recording compliments on voice recorders, and even making certificates for a model Agent Caring!
Even if their everyday play, the children in Reception are always finding little ways to help one another.
Rocket Science On Monday afternoon (7th November), Kusama class became a centre for rocket engineering! For a special 'one off' lesson in celebration of bonfire night, we designed and created working rockets. For this science lesson we wanted to make a plastic bottle launch into space (well, as far into the air as we could!) using only 2 ingredients - vinegar and bicarbonate of soda. After learning how mixing the two special ingredients together would create a gas called carbon dioxide we began making an outside 'shell' design for our rockets. The children worked in pairs, and created some wonderful designs for their rockets. Vinegar was was put inside the bottle and the bicarbonate was made into a fuel 'package' with the highly technical delivery system of a paper towel! We went outside to test our rockets. Each group presented to the teacher their rocket and fuel package. The bicarbnate fuel package was pushed into the bottle, the bottle was closed with a cork and carefuly shook to mix the ingredients together to create carbon dioxide in the bottle. The build-up of the carbon dioxide in the bottle created immense pressure which eventually released itself via popping the cork and sending the rocket upwards. You can see an example of this in the short video after the photographs. Why don't you try this at home with your child?
In the EYFS Garden we have installed a new pulley for transporting the bricks in the construction area. As soon as it was set up today the children set to work building their new structures!
We have now started using the Read Write Inc Spelling programme in Y2-Y6. This involves 15 mins of spelling practice each day. The words below are the spellings that the children are learning in class at the moment. We would really appreciate your support in helping your child to be able spell these words.
Prefixes
are groups of letters that we can add to the front of a word
to change its meaning. The prefix u-n-, un, means ‘not’ or the opposite of something.
The prefixes d-i-s-,dis, and i-n-, in, share almost the same
meaning as un-. Some
root words use un- and others use dis- or in- and we just have to learn them as we say, read and spell them.
Following Pie Corbett, Reception have been using story maps to retell the story of Handa's surprise.
We read the story on Monday, created a map on Tuesday and now it's Friday we are able to tell the whole story without even opening the front cover! Here is the story map we created:
We also made up actions to go with the story to help us remember it through movement as well as through looking at the pictures.
To help with our story telling, we have been thinking of as many ways as possible to describe a banana, one of Handa's fruits that she takes to her friend Akeyo. These are the ones we came up with as a class:
We then had a go at making our own 'power word' board!
Children watched a clip from the film Inside Out in P4C club today. Many big questions were developed, including "Can sadness ever be a good thing?" and "Is it good to worry?"
Children voted on the question "Why does anger exist?" which led to in depth discussions about the benefits of being angry ("so you know when you need a break from being stressed") and the downsides of the emotion.
Children generally concluded that anger can be beneficial in some ways, but it would really be better if we could be happy all the time.
Children have been enjoying the new and improved garden area this week!
We have strengthened the focus on specific areas of learning in the outside area including Maths, Literacy, Understanding of the World and Expressive Art and Design. The prime areas of learning (Communication, Social and Physical development) link in with everything we see.
It has been a joy to see the children accessing so much learning from their environment.
Experimenting with sound and rhythm at the music area,
and investigating in the bug hotel.
Cooking in the garden cafe, developing literacy and numeracy
through the environment.
Experimenting with water and guttering.
Aiming high! Number recognition in the goal.
Mixing up a pumpkin potion, developing story telling and speech,
Making the teachers fish, chips, peas and gravy to enjoy in the Cafe!
