Year 6 Blog Friday 25th November 2022

Date: 25th Nov 2022 @ 4:08pm

Welcome to Year 6 weekly blog.

We have had a fabulous week getting back to our curriculum, following Robinwood last week. As we had missed one of our sports journalist sessions, Gareth Walker came for an extra visit to help us understand how an editor edits a journalist’s work before we then created our own. We will be using what we have learnt to help create articles for the upcoming Learning Times.

Our learning this week included:

• In Maths, we have learnt to use bar models to find percentages of numbers and continue to use the grid method for up to four-digit by two-digit numbers.
• In English, we have read more of our novel, Private Peaceful, and inferred main characters words and actions to help us write in role.
• In PE, we focused on net/wall and gymnastics this week. In net/wall, we introduced the children to using better accuracy with the sport of table tennis. In gymnastics, we used the paired sequences from last week and applied them to different apparatus focusing on good transitions and slow and accurate movements.
• In History, we began our new topic on World War I with an introduction of how it started and who was involved. Out topic will delve into what life was like for people living during this time.
• In RE, we looked at the expectations of ourselves now and in the future, what expectations we have of others, and what it’s like when people let others down.
• In French, we used a dictionary to look up the meanings of adverbs of frequency (sometimes, always, never etc) then we read some sentences about the climate in different seasons in the Alps and in Marseille - two contrasting locations in France. Some of us were able to continue by writing about the climate in England in French - fantastique! 
• In Science, to hone our working scientifically skills, we looked at some investigation plans and worked out what kind of graph the scientists would draw to show their results. We then recapped our learning about Classification as we are coming to the end of this topic. Finally, we looked at the food we set up to grow mould last week and checked to see if our predictions were correct. 
• In Design and Technology, we began our new topic of sewing by evaluating last year’s products before designing our own, which we will create in the coming weeks.

Home Practice

Please try to complete the following tasks by next Wednesday:

Reading – Please read up to 30 minutes a night and complete your reading task.

• You may change your book any day between Monday and Wednesday

Spellings 

• Sumdog (A2 wk 5 -ent, -ence)
  • persistent, persistence, violent, violence, intelligent, intelligence, inconvenient, inconvenience, obedient, obedience, conference, difference, conscience, reference, excitement

Maths challenges:

• Counting:
  • This week we have been counting in decimal steps.
  • Draw a line with some marks on it like I do in class.
  • Start with these numbers: 7.5, 3.9, 25.4 and count up 10 times then back again in 0.7:

7.5, 8.2, 8.9, 9.6, 10.1 etc

and in 2.5:

7.5, 10, 12.5, 15, 17.5, etc

• Number facts:
  • To help your maths even more, please continue to learn your numbers facts, 7 + 8 = 15, 4 + 7 = 11.
  • The best way to do this is to simply have someone in your home quiz you with questions like (8 + 6, 6 + 5, 3 + 8, 5 + 9, etc)
  • Then get them to change the place value of these digits (0.8 + 0.6, 0.06 + 0.05, 0.3 + 0.8, etc)

• Sumdog (Times Tables A2 wk 5)

• Sumdog (Adding and subtracting fractions)
  • This challenge will help to cement the learning we have done with adding and subtracting fractions. Try to work through them quickly as they now should be easier to answer. Let me know if you find this tricky and we can work on this together.

Maths Training

For further maths work, please visit the ‘Maths Training’ section which you can find in the tasks box on the left of the main screen. This will enable your child to push their learning further with the skills that Sumdog has given them, following the diagnostic test, which they completed in the first week of school.

Year 2 Blog Friday 25th November 2022

Date: 25th Nov 2022 @ 4:05pm

Another great week in Year 2, the time is going by so quickly! We have started to prepare for our Nativity Play already. The children have been amazing, learning the songs/actions and acting out their parts so confidently. In English, we read The Sand Horse by Ann Turnbull and the stories about sand creature adventures that Year 2 wrote were really fantastic. Everyone has been trying to use more exciting adjectives to describe things in more detail. We have finished our topic on multiplication and we are moving on to tables and graphs in Maths. In RE, we learnt about the Advent Wreath and what the different parts symbolise. In Computing, the children are learning about digital photography and they took careful photos of objects/people around the classroom. In French, they focussed on the words for parts of our face and even began to read in French too - managing to read the correct colours and body parts for the worksheet. Tres bien!

Click here to see some Outdoor learning photos

Reading

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

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

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

Reading resources:

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

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

Username: sto2

Password: 1234

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

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

Spelling

Please practise these spellings for your quiz on Friday (02.12.22). 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 02.12.22.

It has been brought to my attention that occasionally the spellings game can cut off. This is a minor tech issue, if this happens and you have completed your work, there is no need to do it again. 

This week’s spellings:

relax              thief

record            only    

dream              she

speed               key

swede               great

Maths

At home, count forwards and backwards in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s. Play the ‘follow me’ game. Start at different numbers and speed up for more of a challenge.

You will have a 2x, 5x and 10x tables and an array/repeated addition challenge on Sumdog to complete by Friday 02.12.22.

Sumdog

Log in at www.sumdog.com

Remember coats and wellies for Forest School!

Please sing Nativity songs at home and do the actions that you can remember!

Sponsored Santa Dash next Friday 2^nd December.

Library visit on Tuesday 29^th November.

Have a lovely weekend.

Year 2 Team.

Year 4 Blog Friday 25th November 2022

Date: 25th Nov 2022 @ 3:44pm

Year 4 Blog

Friday 25^th November 2022

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

In English, we created our own ‘Wanted’ poster for the Iron Man. We tried to include lots of description, so that he could be easily identified. Have a look at some of our posters in the gallery. We also wrote a diary extract as if we were Hogarth when he enticed the Iron Man into the pit.  We felt very guilty for our actions and tried to explain this in our diary account.

In Maths, we learnt how to multiply by 10 and 100.  We used counters and place value charts to demonstrate the digits getting either 10 or 100 times larger.  In addition, we learnt how to multiply using compensating (eg using 20 x 6 to help calculate 19 x 6).

In French, we practised saying some words with the an/en sound and we continued to learn the verb etre, to be by listening and reading

We made simple electrical circuits in science this week and tried to problem solve when they didn’t work. We now understand that a complete circuit is needed for a component to work. You can see some pictures here. To extend our learning, we also drew a picture of the circuit in our books.

In PE we practised our hockey skills. We got into pairs and practised stopping the ball and pushing it back. We also practised dribbling the ball around a cone and then passing it back to our partner. Following this, we took part in a mini competition which involved dribbling a ball, turning around a cone, dribbling back and passing to our partner. This was very competitive! 

In Computing, we practised recording sound and editing it.  We also discussed what makes a good audio recording so that we could make improvements to our work.

In Geography we started our new topic ‘Climate Change’. Throughout this topic, we will be learning what climate change is and how it affects different environments (eg a local area, oceans and glaciers).  We started the topic by looking at atlases and finding the position of the Equator, the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, the Prime Meridian and the Arctic and Antarctic Circle. We then labelled these on our own maps.  Next, we located the North and South Poles and briefly discussed any differences we would see on the map.  

Home Practice

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. 

Counting

This week, please practise counting in 6’s and 9’s as many of you are finding this tricky.

For example, start at 0 and count up to 72 and back again

0   6   12   18     etc                            72   66   60   etc

Start at 0 and count up to 108 and back again 

0   9   18   27     etc                             108   99   81   etc

Now have a go at this, still adding 9 (Tip – add 10 and subtract 1).

Start at 56 and count to 155 and back again

56   65   74   etc                                 155   146   137  etc                      

Times tables

Please practise your individual tables target for your test next week on Wednesday (30^th November 2022). Ask someone at home to test you on your tables – can you recall them quickly and accurately?

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

It is crucial that you learn all of your table facts as this will help you with many aspects of maths.

Spellings

Your spellings next week are all from the Year 3 / 4 Tricky words list.  You will be given a paper copy home on Monday and we will practise these in class during the week.  Your test will be on Friday 2^nd December 2022.

caught         experiment            increase       particular    separate

certain        extreme                interest       peculiar       special

complete      famous                  island           potatoes      thought

Sumdog challenges

You have been set 3 challenges on Sumdog:

• A spelling challenge based on the spellings above
• A times tables challenge based on the 3, 6 and 9 times tables
• A challenge based on multiplying by 10 and 100, as well as using known facts to work out other multiplications (eg 30 x 6, use 3 x 6 = 18, then multiply by 10)

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

Have a great weekend

The Year 4 Team

Reception Blog - Friday 25th November 2022

Date: 25th Nov 2022 @ 12:38pm

This week we have been having lots of fun going to the Circus with Ninja Nan.

As this has been our story of the week we have talked about all the different acts that Ninja Nan saw at the circus and had a fabulous go at writing about them. We have drawn some lovely pictures.

In Maths we have been learning about repeating patterns and enjoyed using interactive games for this. Also we have been measuring different objects with cubes and discussing which is longer and shorter. 

We have looked at toys from the past and how they are different from the ones we have today and even that some toys we have today have been around for a very long time! From this we are going to make our own toys, therefore we have planned what we want to make and what we will use. If you have any junk modelling things at home please bring them in next week. For example: boxes, tubes, egg boxes, lids etc. 

Year 3 Friday Blog 25th November

Date: 24th Nov 2022 @ 8:55pm

Happy Friday!

This week we have finished reading the Ice Palace and really enjoyed the ending. Here are some examples of the fantastic writing we have done from the story. Next week we are reading another Robert Swindell's novel, The Postbox Mystery. We will be exploring news papers and writing some articles.

In our maths learning this week we have been learning the grid method and everyone picked it up really quickly. Super listening was the key! We did find that not knowing our times tables fluently slowed us down a little but we are definitely getting quicker and more accurate. We have sent home some grid method practice to help embed this learning.

In our RE learning we have been completed our Promises topic. In this learning we explored Baptism and the role of parents and Godparents. Everyone contributed to these lessons and shared some lovely thoughts on their own experiences. Well done Year 3!

As part of our PSHE learning on keeping ourselves safe, we have been exploring how to prevent the spread of germs. We had a great discussion and learned some reasons why we need to wash our hands and bin our tissues.

In our Science, we used our results from our pattern seeking investigation last week to work out what they told us. We wrote what we had found out. After this, we recapped all our learning so far about bones and muscles. Next week we will move on to find out how invertebrates move without a skeleton like ours. Mrs Qulliam was very impressed with our knowledge adn ideas.

In French, we practised saying some words with the an/en sound and we continued to learn the verb etre, to be by listening and reading. Our language leaders have done a great job this week at asking everyone the french question in the mornings. Fantastique!

Next week we invite you to come to our Advent assembly. We have sent home some words to learn and you can use the songs below to practise together.

Home Practice

Keep changing your books regularly and read for at least 15-20 minutes every night! 

Well done to everyone who completed their Sumdog challenges and even had some time to practise on the Sumdog Training. Three new challenges have been added today. Remember, little and often every night will benefit your children with their learning in school.

Try and do a little counting at home as well. This will promote number fluency and understanding. There are lots of counting games here at ictgames.com that we use in school. You will also find lots of counting songs here.

We have given out your spellings to practice for next week's test. We are looking at the -al and -il spelling pattern next week. In our spelling lessons this week we have been revisiting our spelling strategies. We have been stretching our words into sounds to help us spell more accurately and using what we already know to spell new words.

Here are your spellings for this week.

petal      mental       pedal       cereal      hospital      pencil      devil     anvil      gerbil       pupil

Have a lovely weekend

The Year 3 Team

Year 1 Blog- Friday 25th November 2022

Date: 24th Nov 2022 @ 10:16am

Welcome to your Friday blog!

English

This week we have been learning through the story of Bob. He is an astronaut but he doesn't believe in aliens - they don't exist.......do they?

We have been writing in sentences. We have tried really hard to use finger spaces, our own ideas and to make sure our writing is on the line. We have also been really careful with our handwriting so that our writing looks beautiful on the page.

We also visited Year 3 to read our Traction Man books. The children and Mr Campbell were really impressed. The Year 3 children gave useful and thoughtful feedback.

Phonics

We have been learning about alternative pronunciations, ch as in Christmas, ch as in chef. We already know ch as in chunk.

Maths

We have been learning about repeating patterns. We have been describing the patterns and finding the part that is repeated. We have also been sorting objects using different criteria.

R.E.

We learnt about Jesus' baptism in the River Jordan. We answered some tricky questions about it and some of us even acted it out during choosing time!

P.E.

We are now half way through our robot dance. We split off into groups and began thinking of ideas for our dances. We worked so well together!

P.S.H.E.

We compared two families and wrote about how they are the same and different.

D.T.

We looked at the DT Christmas cards from last year and talked about how they were made. We then planned our own cards - how they were going to move, what they will look like and what we need to make it.

I.C.T.

Our next artist focus was Kandinsky. We made our own circles on the iPads, it was a bit trickier than using the laptops!

Science

We read lots of fact files about animals and their diets. We then sorted them into whether they were a carnivore, herbivore or omnivore. We were so impressed with their knowledge!

History

We sorted toys into 'new' and 'old'. We drew our own pictures in our books.

Outdoor Learning

Nearly every time we go out for our learning we see a robin on the fence. This lead us to a discussion about birds around school and where they find food in Winter. We made bird feeders using lard, meal worms, bird seed, raisins and oats. We had fun mixing it together!. We also practised tying knots in string so that we could hang the feeders on a tree.

In our second session we went for a walk to find places to hang our bird feeders. We also noticed some more changes-some of the trees have hardly any leaves left so we could see the nests. We also saw a few trees with unusual bark on them so we are going to try to identify them. For the last part of this session we all got a special listening stone out of a velvet bag. The stone helps us to listen as we feel its smoothness. We lay on a tarp to just listen and look at the clouds as they changed shape.

Click here to see some photos

Music

We have continued to learn the songs for the nativity. This will be in church on Tuesday 6th December. All costumes will be provided by school.

French

We began to learn the words for pet animals. We sang songs, played games using these words and listened to our favourite story, Aboie Georges about a dog who has lost his bark because he has swallowed all sorts of different animals!

Home Practice

Sumdog challenges

Phonics - Split digraph u_e OR oo (book) words

Maths - True or false questions

Practise counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. Start at different numbers. Count forwards and backwards.

Year 5 Blog Friday 25th November

Date: 23rd Nov 2022 @ 9:39am

Happy Friday

Welcome to your Friday Blog 

We have had another fantastic week in Year 5. 

On Monday we planned our own Greek snack in DT. We decided which snack we wanted to make and then found out which ingredients and utensils we would need and the steps we would follow to make our Greek snack. As a class we decided to make our own pitta breads. Everybody then decided what they wanted to have with their pitta bread. We will make our Greek snack next week! Yum! Don't forget to bring any extra ingredients you want for your Greek snack on Monday. 

We started our new History topic this week. It is called Ancient Greece. We first spoke about what we already know about Anicent Greece. Then we looked at modern Greece - where it is located and what it is like. Finally we looked at Anicent Greece on a map. It looks different to modern Greece. We can't wait to find out more about Ancient Greece. 

We have been doing lots of map work this week to celebrate the start of the World Cup. Each day we have used a world map in an atlas to locate and talk about the countries that have played matches each day. We spoke about the continent, capital city, bordering countries, surrounding seas and oceans, size, distance from Qatar, etc. 

In French, we began to learn the vocabulary associated with breakfast in France. We also recapped the pronouns je, tu, il, elle, nous, ready to move on to our first verb conjugation next week!

In English we have been reading more of Room 13. We have used some ideas from the book and our own imagination to plan and write our very own story! Everybody really enjoyed using their own ideas and creativity. The focus was to split the writing into paragraphs and to try to include lots of description and some dialogue (speech). 

In maths we have been learning about statistics. We started by learning about discrete data and answering questions from tables and bar charts. Then we learnt about continuous data and aswered questions from tables and line graphs. Your Sumdog challenge this week will give you the opportunity to practise what you have learned. 

Home Practice 

Reading

Please read out loud to somebody for 20 minutes every night. Try to answer these questions:

What has happened so far?

What are the characters feeling?

What will happen next?

Why has the author chosen these words? 

Spelling

You have all chosen your own spellings this week. Make sure you practise them every day. 

Counting

Count backwards:

In 10s from 757.33 to 657.33                     757.33     747.33     737.33     ...

In 0.1s from 19.35 to 18.35                        19.35      19.25         19.15      ...

In 10,000s from 631,246 to 531,246          631,246     621,246      611,246     ...

Times Tables

You have been given a new tables target. Please make sure you practise every day. You need to know your tables quickly and confidently. 

Sumdog

Complete the Sumdog challenges. These are essential as they practise the skills you need in maths and English lessons. 

There are 3 challenges:

Maths

Times tables

Spelling - these will be some of the words you need to know by the end of Year 5. 

DT

We will be making our Greek snacks on Monday. 

Please remember to bring in the ingredients and utensils you need. 

Year 2 Blog Friday 18th November 2022

Date: 18th Nov 2022 @ 4:09pm

Year 2 looked great wearing spots for Children in Need Day. We did some Pudsey Bear themed arts, crafts and movement activities (PE). In English, we have done a lot of writing, we retold a story called Wing and wrote our own version of Whatever Next! By Jill Murphy. In Maths, we started our new topic on counting, multiplication and sorting. The children have been doubling numbers and looking at repeated addition. We have completed the Signs and Symbols topic in R.E by designing a Baptism candle. In History, we compared jobs now, with jobs back in 1666. We looked specifically at how different the firefighter’s equipment was. The children are starting to learn their Christmas songs in Music, they have been singing beautifully! In French, they recapped numbers to 15 with a game then recapped parts of the body by singing tete, epaules, genoux, pieds (head, shoulders, knees and toes). Year 2 also labelled a skeleton in French, noticing that French words don't always look like they sound and that some words have accents that change the sound of the letter. The Freddie Fit session was the highlight of the week and the children thoroughly enjoyed the music and exercise.

Reading

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

Please date, sign and leave a small comment when you have read with your child and make it clear that you have finished a book, then we know we can change it. For Example - 14.09.22 Max’s Box. Read to page 6, really enjoying the book or finished the book. MG.

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

Reading resources:

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

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

Username: sto2

Password: 1234

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

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

Spelling

Please practise these spellings for your quiz on Friday (25.11.22). 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 25.11.22.

This week’s spellings:

leader              brief

cleaner             penny    

even                  donkey

delete                I’m

shriek                I’ll

Maths

At home, count forwards and backwards in 2’s to 24. Write the numbers down to see the pattern. Notice how the answers are the same as the 2x table. When you multiply by 2 you are also doubling the number. For example 2x6=12 and double 6 is 12.

You will have a 2x, 5x and 10x tables and doubling challenge on Sumdog to complete by Friday 25.11.22.

Sumdog

Log in at www.sumdog.com

Remember coats and wellies for Forest School!

Have a lovely weekend.

Year 2 Team.

Year 3 Friday Blog 18th November 2022

Date: 18th Nov 2022 @ 4:06pm

Happy Friday everyone!

We have had a brilliant week this week! We have had a visit from Freddie Fit and been singing lots in preparation for our Advent assembly in two weeks!

In our English we are really enjoying the Ice Palace. It has been a bit spooky and strange but has everyone on the edge of their seat. We have just arrived at Starjik's Palace and we meet him next week! We have been using words and phrases from the story to improve our writing and everyone has written some amazing pieces. We will share some of these next week.

In our Maths we have been learning how to use our times tables to solve problems and and how to sort numbers into Carroll and Venn diagrams. The children are showing great understanding and their explanations are improving every day.

As part of our Big Draw Art, we have been revisiting our collage making skills. We looked at all the countries taking part in the World Cup and looked at their flags. We then used coloured paper to recreate the flags, including some intricate designs. They've turned out brilliantly!

This week in our PSHE learning, we have been exploring how we can keep ourselves safe at home. We listened to some scenarios and assessed the risk they posed. We had some fantastic discussions and very sensible answers. Everyone was able to describe risks they have noticed and how they can keep themselves safe. Well done Year 3!

This year we have been looking at diversity in our Wonderful World assemblies. We listen to a story that makes us think about others in our world and then respond in our own class book. Everyone has enjoyed these stories and written some some thoughtful ideas. Here is a peak at our class book.

On Tuesday, We were visited by Freddie Fit! He put us through our paces and reminded us all about how to keep healthy and stay fit. Have a look here.

Home Practice

Continue to read every night for at least 20 minutes. 

This week in our spelling we have been practising words that have the or, aw,au,al, oor, ore sounds. We talked about how we can spot patterns to help us remember how to spell these words and to look carefully when writing them.

Here are your spellings for this week!

record     enormous    dinosaur     assault     hawk     squawk    floor     door     score   ignore     chalk     wall

We have also been learning about possessive apostrophes and when to use them!

For your maths challenges we have included a mix of x3 and x4 times tables and some number fact practice. We are seeing a huge improvement in number fluency lately. Keep up the regular practising.

Have a lovely weekend

The Year 3 Team 

Year 4 Blog Friday 18th November 2022

Date: 18th Nov 2022 @ 3:50pm

Year 4 Blog

Friday 18^th November 2022

Welcome to this week’s blog. Another super week of learning in Year 4 which included a visit from Freddie Fit – you can see some photos in our gallery.

Here’s what we have been learning this week:

In English, we started our new novel - The Iron Man by Ted Hughes.  We made predictions about the book by looking carefully at different front covers and reading the blurb on the back.  We also discussed which descriptive phrases we liked in Chapter 1 and their impact and effect on the reader.  Following this, we rewrote the first Chapter from The Iron Man’s point of view as his body parts reconnected. Everyone was very proud of their work and used lots of vocabulary and ideas from the novel.

In Maths, we finished our addition and subtraction topic and moved onto multiplication. We started the topic by using arrays to help understand multiplication facts for the 9 and 11 times tables. Next, we used arrays to identify what the term factor means.  Arrays and multiplication squares were  then used to find all the factor pairs of a given number.  This new learning was tricky to start with, but with perseverance we have hopefully mastered it! You can see some pictures in our gallery.

In RE, we finished our ‘Belonging’ topic.  We watched a two video clips so that we could understand what happens at Confirmation, and discussed the people present and some of the key points (eg the anointing, the blessing and the name.)  We also considered what it means to ‘live in the light’ and how at Confirmation, people promise to try and turn away from what is wrong and follow in God’s light.

We started our new Science topic this week – Electricity. First, we discussed what electricity is, how it is made and what it is converted into (light, heat, sound and movement).  We then classified different appliances according to whether they run on mains electricity or batteries. We also learnt about the dangers of electricity and designed posters to warn children about the different ways it can be dangerous. These are going to be judged by a local electrician – we look forward to hearing what he says!   

In PE we split into 2 groups. Whilst one group learnt hockey skills with Mrs Cookson, the other revised different balances and travel movements with Mrs Tipping.  The children then put together a short sequence which combined balances and travel movements.  They will be adding to this sequence over the coming weeks. You can see some photos here.

We made Clips videos in our PSHE session to demonstrate how to be more resilient and highlight how to ‘reframe’ unhelpful thinking.  We were given a scenario and acted it out twice. The first time demonstrating what unhelpful thinking might look like, and the second time showing how to reframe the thinking in a positive way.

In Art, we continued creating our own mosaic design and also made flags using paper and creating a collage.  We discussed the countries taking part in the World Cup and then chose one we wanted to collage. These will be hung up in the hall so everyone can see our work.

Home Practice

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. 

Counting

This week, please practise counting in 9’s.

For example, start at 0 and count up to 108 and back again 

0   9   18   27     etc                             108   99   81   etc

Times tables

Please practise your individual tables target for your test next week on Wednesday (23^rd November 2022). Ask someone at home to test you on your tables – can you recall them quickly and accurately?

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

It is crucial that you learn all of your table facts as this will help you with many aspects of maths.

Spellings

Here are your spellings for this week.  You have also brought a paper copy home with you, so that you can practise these during the week.  Please remember to use neat joined up writing and check them very carefully once you have written them! We will be practising these spellings in class too. Your test will be on Friday 25^th November 2022.

they            weigh           eight           grey             sleigh

young           touch           blood           trouble        country

does            chef            brochure      parachute    machine

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 9 times tables
• A challenge based on multiplication arrays and the 3, 4 and 8 times tables

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

Have a great weekend

The Year 4 Team

Reception Blog - Friday 18th November 2022

Date: 18th Nov 2022 @ 1:05pm

We have had another fabulous week doing Supertato this week!

On Monday we got a video message from the police asking for our help to catch the evil pea. All this week he has been causing mischief in our classroom, from trapping vegetables under things, to sticking them to the table. We have been detectives going round the classroom looking for clues to capture him and we have made wanted posters, desribing what evil pea looks like. On Friday we found him in the school kitchen! Trapped in a block of ice! We have also made our own Supertato's and made up our own stories!

On Tuesday we had a visit from Freddy Fit, he talked to us about keeping healthy and we did a PE lesson with him.

In Maths this week we have been learning about 2D shapes. We have been sorting them and making pictures with them. We also went around school looking for different objects that are like 2D shapes.

We have started our new topic on Birthdays and celebrations in RE. If you have some photos of celebrations the children have been too recently, please could you send them in for us to show to one another.

Continuing our topic of people who help us, we have been learning about the Police and what they do and we have made our own England flag, getting us ready for the World Cup starting on Sunday!

Next week our story is based around the circus!

Have a lovely weekend Reception and we will see you next week. 

Year 6 Blog Friday 18th November 2022

Date: 18th Nov 2022 @ 10:50am

Welcome to Year 6 weekly blog.

This week has been our fabulous residential to Robinwood in Todmorden. We all had a super time. Click the link - Robinwood 2022 – to see some of the pictures. Also, look out for our Robinwood video coming soon on our YouTube channel, St Oswald's TV .

Our highlights included:

• Accurately firing an arrow in archery
• Crawling through tight spaces in caving
• Using our strength and coordination to combat indoor climbing
• Finding the courage to release the wire on the giant swing
• Working together creatively to solve the dungeon challenge
• Using our senses to navigate through the night line blind folded
• Developing great communication skills to solve the quest challenge
• Building confidence to head down the large zip wire

The children have been a credit to the school this week and we hope to build on the 12 qualities learnt at Robinwood:

Responsibility, cooperation, confidence, resilience,

Patience, respect, support, listening,

Developing skills, problem solving, encouragement, communication

Our learning continued on Thursday and Friday with:

• Maths – we have learnt to accurately use the grid method effectively with large numbers and begun to find fractions of amounts.
• English – we learnt how to write a detailed letter so we could thank Robinwood for our fantastic time there.
• Science - we recapped what we learnt about microbes last week, then researched ways of preserving food to slow down the growth of microbes. We used this knowledge to predict which foods will grow mouldy the quickest, giving reasons for the order we predicted.  We will watch what happens to the various food items over the next few weeks!  Safety: All foods will be kept in sealed bags.
• Art – having researched the flags of the World Cup, we designed our own flag using the skill of cutting materials to make a collage.
• RE – we began our new topic of ‘Expectations’ where we discussed different scenarios, and the expectations we have of ourselves and what others expect.

Home Practice

Please try to complete the following tasks by next Wednesday:

Reading – Please read up to 30 minutes a night and complete your reading task.

• You may change your book any day between Monday and Wednesday

Spellings 

• Sumdog (A2 wk 4 -ant, -ance)
  • assistant, assistance, arrogant, relevant, important, importance, appearance, extravagant, hesitant, reluctant, nuisance, hindrance, ignorance, resistant, restaurant.

Maths challenges:

• Counting:
  • This week we have been counting in steps of: 20 000, 200 000 and x 2. Try to do the same out loud or with paper.

• Draw a line with some marks on it like I do in class. You could write the numbers as you count up or down, then double check it to make sure you have said the correct numbers.
• g. Start with 5 digit numbers and count up 10 times then back again in 20 000s:

43 654, 63 654, 83 654, 103 654, etc

and in 200 000s:

43 654, 243 654, 443 654, 643 654                

Start at a different number and count up 10 numbers and down again but this time in x2:

9, 18, 36, 72, 144, 288, 576, 1 152, etc    

• Sumdog (Times Tables A2 wk 4)

• Sumdog (Factor pairs linked to division)
  • Remember that a factor is a number that divides into a number, leaving no remainders. 42 ÷ 7 = 6 and 42 ÷ 6 = 7, so both 7 and 6 are factors of 42. In fact, 7 and 6 are factor pairs – which is what we have looked at these past few days.

Maths Training

For further maths work, please visit the ‘Maths Training’ section which you can find in the tasks box on the left of the main screen. This will enable your child to push their learning further with the skills that Sumdog has given them, following the diagnostic test, which they completed in the first week of school.

Year 1 Blog-Friday 18th November 2022

Date: 17th Nov 2022 @ 9:55am

Welcome to your Friday blog. Everyone looked brilliant dressed in their spots- thanks for supporting this cause.

English

We listened and discussed a new Traction Man story. In this story he got a new pet but it wasn't as good as Scrubbing Brush! We planned our own story and wrote a book! We are authors and illustrators! We will read the books to children in other classes when they are finished.

Traction Man. Click here.

Traction Man meets Turbo Dog. Click here.

Phonics

This week we continued to learn about alternative pronunciations, ea as in head and ie as in cookie.

Maths

We have been counting in 2s and 5s. We have been counting groups of objects in 2s and 5s. Please practise this at home, start at different numbers and go forwards as well as backwards.

We have also been checking that we are forming our numbers correctly.

R.E.

We learnt about the symbols used in a baptism. We learnt about the Holy water, oil, white gown, candle and the cross.

P.S.H.E.

We read the story - Giraffes can't dance. We learnt that the giraffe wanted to dance, even though his friends told him that he couldn't. He was special and chose to dance anyway! The moral of the story is - be you!

Art

We made our own world cup flags using collage and cutting skills. We concentrated so well!

See our pictures here.

Science

We sorted animals into different groups using the toy animals that we have in the classroom. Some of our ideas were - fur/no fur, tail/no tail and legs/no legs.

See our pictures here.

P.E.

We were amazing in PE! We started to plan our robot dance. We worked so well in our groups that we managed to create half of the dance. We will continue to practise next week.

If you want to listen to the music at home, click here.

D.T.

We made our own prototype of either a slider or lever. The Gingerbread Man was being chased by the character!

See our pictures here.

I.C.T.

We learnt about another artist this week - Henri Matisse. We focused on his 'The Snail' artwork and recreated it on the laptops. There were some great pictures.

History

We learnt about 'new' toys this week and compared them to the old toys from last week. We wrote about our favourite toy and shared them with each other.

See our pictures here.

Yellow table did not have chance to play with their toy, so please bring it back in on Monday!

Outdoor Learning

The first session this week was about making shelters for small woodland creatures. Each team had a soft toy animal which we made a cosy and safe shelter for. We used all the available natural materials and found a way of getting moss of the paths to create a soft surface. We described our shelters to the rest of the group. Excellent team work, communication, imagination, resilience and creativity was shown.

Our second session was all about mini beasts and worms. We had a go at worm charming to see if we could get worms to come to the surface by vibrating the ground. We also looked under the logs to see what other creatures we could find. We talked about how we find different creatures at different times of the year.

PLEASE SEND IN A PAIR OF NAMED WELLIES WHICH WILL STAY IN SCHOOL IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY.

Thank you

French

 We recapped numbers to 12 with a game then we recapped parts of the body by singing tete, epaules, genoux, pieds (head, shoulders, knees and toes) and a game. We finished with the story of Grand Monstre Vert - Big Green Monster. 

Music

We have been practising the songs for our Nativity!

We also got out the boomwhackers and played them. We are getting really good at playing when it's our turn.

Freddy Fit

We had a brilliant session with Freddy. He put us all through our paces and we all had great fun! We all showed him our fabulous golden listening.

 Freddy also talked to us about the importance of eating healthily, drinking enough water and getting plenty of sleep. 

Home Practice

Sumdog challenges

Phonics - split digraph o_e OR oo words

Maths - doubling

Practise counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. Start at different numbers. Count forwards and backwards.

Please read every night for at least 10 minutes- it really makes all the difference!

Year 5 Blog Friday 18th November

Date: 16th Nov 2022 @ 7:18pm

Happy Friday and welcome to your Friday Blog. 

We have had a great week. It was amazing to see the Year 5 children step up to the responsibility of being the oldest children in school whilst Year 6 were on their trip to Robin Wood. Some of the Year 5 children were buddies to help the infants and everybody set a great example to the younger children.

It was great to see everybody in spots on Friday to raise money for Children in Need. 

In geography this week we learnt about land use and natural resources in the UK. We spoke about which of these natural resources are in danger of running out and which we have plenty of like wind to use in wind turbines. We also started to prepare for the World Cup by making flags of the different countries taking part. We will learn more about each country throughout the World Cup. 

In French, we completed our learning on telling the time. The children have done so well with this. It has been a pleasure to watch their confidence grow over the last few weeks. Please keep practising at home to retain this skill - there are lots of games on time, but also other topics here: https://www.french-games.net/frenchtopics

We have been very active this week. First of all we had Freddy Fit on Tuesday afternoon, he was so impressed with our sporting skills and also our behaviour and manners. You can see us being active here. Then on Wednesday we went swimming in our shorts and tshirt. We learnt how to save ourselves if we were ever in danger in water. On Thursday we had PE. We did a dodgeball tournament, it was great!

In maths we have been using the formal written method (column method) to subtract numbers with up to five digits and numbers with two decimal places. Everybody has done a fantastic job. We then used this method to solve problems, everybody was extremely resilient and motivated and some children even spent their lunch times determined to solve a problem. You can see us problem solving here. 

Next week in maths we will be looking at statistics, including bar charts and line graphs, and also looking at angles in shapes. We will continue to practise counting and our times tables. 

We have been reading Room 13 in English. The main character Fliss finds herself alone in the hotel, she is the only one awake. We have been writing our own stories about Fliss in the hotel on her own at night time. We have been focussing on writing in paragraphs, including speech, and describing in lots of detail to create an image in the reader's mind. We have also been sorting words into their different word classes including noun, adjective, adverb, verb, determiner, pronoun, conjunction, article and preposition. It is important that we know what each of these words means and that we can form sentences using these different types of words. You can see us learning about word classes here. 

Home Practice

Reading

Read at home every night for 20 minutes. Look out for ways characters and settings are described. Try to find some good words and sentences to include in your own writing. 

Spellings

Your spellings this week have the prefix co- and re-. Some of the spellings have a hyphen separating the prefix and the root word. 

The prefix co- means together, jointly, in partner with or mutually. 

The prefix re- means again, back or repetition. 

Here are your spellings:

co-operate          co-own          co-ordinate          re-enter          re-emerge          coexist          reinvent          retell 

    retell          reignite          re-educate          re-examine          re-enter          reactive          rearrange          reapply 

Counting 

Count out loud in:

100s from 12,397 to 13,397                   12,397     12,497     12,597     ...

1,000s from 608,912 to 618,912            608,912     609,912     610,912     ...

10,000s from 751,832 to 851,832           751,832     761,832     771,832     ...

Sumdog

Complete the Sumdog Challenges:

Maths Challenge

Multiplication Practice

Spelling Challenge 

Research

Next week we are going to write magazine articles all about a famous person. Please choose a famous person you are interested in and find out about them. You might research things like:

What are they famous for?

When and where were they born?

Where did they study?

What was their childhood like?

What are their hobbies?

Who is in their family?

Have an amazing weekend and well done for such a fantastic week! 

Year 2 Blog Friday 11th November 2022

Date: 11th Nov 2022 @ 4:41pm

Year 2 have done so much learning this week and thoroughly enjoyed the more practical activities we have done. In Maths, they have continued their work on shape looking at 2-D and 3-D shapes and their properties. The children did well making 3-D shapes, such as cubes, cuboids, pyramids and triangular prisms, from art straws and blue-tac today. In Art, they designed firework paintings and made lovely poppies for Remembrance Day. In English, we have worked on using joining words (conjunctions) more in our sentences and always using a describing word (adjective) with a noun. They also did some fantastic writing about fireworks. In R.E they learnt about Shabbat and Havdalah Candles for Judaism week. In French, Year 2 looked at French customs for Remembrance Day. French people add cornflowers to their wreaths as well as poppies because the blue reminds them of the soldier's uniforms. We made a wreath by drawing round our hands and joining them together as a sign of peace. We listened to a song in French about being a child of peace. 

Reading

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

In a few weeks, we are hoping to visit the library in Longton. It would be great if you could practise the alphabet with your children and talk about alphabetical order. This will prepare them for finding books in the library.

Please date, sign and leave a small comment when you have read with your child and make it clear that you have finished a book, then we know we can change it. For Example - 14.09.22 Max’s Box. Read to page 6, really enjoying the book or finished the book. MG.

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

Reading resources:

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

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

Username: sto2

Password: 1234

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

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

Spelling

Please practise these spellings for your quiz on Friday (18.11.22). 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 18.11.22.

This week’s spellings:

belong              hairy

begin                tough    

sky                    you

July                   soup

baby                  once

Maths

At home, count forwards and backwards to 100. Pick any number between 1 and 100, say what one more/less than that number is. For example 25, one more than 25 is 26 and one less than 25 is 24. You could write them down or call them out. Then have a go at 10 more/less than a number. For example 67, ten more than 67 is 77 and 10 less than 67 is 57.

You will have a 2x, 5x and 10x tables and 2-D/3-D shape challenge on Sumdog to complete by Friday 18.11.22.

Sumdog

Log in at www.sumdog.com

Remember coats and wellies for Forest School!

Have a lovely weekend.

Year 2 Team.

Year 6 Blog Friday 11th November 2022

Date: 11th Nov 2022 @ 4:20pm

Welcome to Year 6 weekly blog.

For our second week back after half term, Year 6 have had two more visitors.

On Wednesday, Gareth Walker visited again, who is the founder of Literacy Kicks. He is working closely with Year 6 to write their own sports journalist articles.

Mr Pickles, our Mount Everest expert, joined us this Wednesday to show Year 6 a different side to Mount Everest. The pictures and videos of his journey to base camp, along with his stories, were a delight for the children to see. 

This week’s learning in Year 6:

• In Maths, we have learnt different mental jottings of multiplying whole numbers and decimals to help become more efficient, and we have learnt how to find equivalent fractions to decimals and vice versa.
• In English, we began our new novel, ‘Private Peaceful’, through predicting the themes based on the synonyms of the words ‘peaceful’ and ‘private’. On Friday, we wrote our own Remembrance Day poems, thanks to the inspiration of John McCrae’s In Flander’s Fields and Moina Michael’s We Shall Keep the Faith.
• In PSHE, we discussed ways of helping ourselves and others when faced with difficult challenges. We then related this learning to what we can do next week at Robinwood.
• Our ‘Mountains’ topic in geography concluded with a story of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay – the first two people to reach the summit of Mount Everest. We then had a visit from Mr Pickles, who has ventured to the base camp of Mount Everest, and gave us a different view of what it was like there.
• In PE, we learnt how to pass and receive a ball with hockey sticks. Then applied that learning in mini games. We also learnt how to show different paired balances in gymnastics, before creating a mini performance for the class to evaluate.
• In RE, we learnt about the celebration of Rosh Hashana, a Jewish festival to celebrate their new year. We designed a card with various signs and symbols for a Jewish person. 
• In French this week, we used a bi-lingual dictionary to look up nouns to write a poem in French on the theme of Remembrance Day. We had to be careful to find the word happiness (noun) rather than happy (adjective). 
• In science, we learnt about another group of living things - Microorganisms. We planned and carried out a fair test using yeast. How does ______ affect the amount of gas produced by yeast? We researched ways of preserving food and used this research to predict which foods will go mouldy first.

Home Practice

Please try to complete the following tasks by next MONDAY:

• Pack your bag. Check the list of items you will need for Robinwood (NO EXTRA BAG IS NEEDED. JUST USE ONE)
• Bring a water bottle
• NO LUNCH – Robinwood is providing ALL your food for the entire stay.
• Do not forget your coat!

Reading

• Try to do your best to read over the weekend. Enjoy a really good book!

Year 4 Blog Friday 11th November 2022

Date: 11th Nov 2022 @ 3:42pm

Year 4 Blog

Friday 11^th November 2022

Welcome to this week’s blog.

If your child is following the Reconciliation program at church, they will have come home with a leaflet, ‘Celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation at home’. Please discuss and share this information with your child.

Here’s what we have been learning this week:

We read some Remembrance poetry this week, listening very carefully to the words. We then copied a poem into our books, making a big effort to make our writing look beautiful on the page and not to make any mistakes. Following this, we wrote our own Remembrance poetry using the poem ‘What are we fighting for?’ as a stimulus. Our poems were very thoughtful and beautifully written.

In Maths, we revised and learnt more about the formal written method of subtraction.  We used this to subtract 4 digit numbers from 4 digit numbers, including when zero was used as a place holder.  We were very proud of our efforts, especially when we needed to include exchanging!

In RE, we have been learning about Judaism. We learnt about the rules of the Jewish faith and the Torah.

We also finished our History topic about the Romans this week.  We learnt about the 3 invasions of Britannia and why the first 2 were unsuccessful. We also learnt about Boudicca, her army and how she rebelled against the Romans. Finally, we considered the lasting legacy the Romans have left on Britain.

In French this week, we learnt the verbs J'ai (I have) and Je suis (I am) in the context of World War 1 soldiers. We thought about how the soldiers must have felt and used expressions such as J'ai froid - I am cold.

We started our new computing topic – audio production. Over the course of the topic we will be making digital recordings and editing them.

On Friday afternoon, we also had a visit from Mr Maloney and his dog Poppy.  Poppy was so well behaved and we enjoyed stroking her and asking lots of questions. You can see some photos in our gallery.

Home Practice

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. 

Counting

This week, please practise counting in 6’s.

For example, start at 0 and count up to 72 and back again  

0   6   12   18     etc                             72   66   60   etc

Times tables

Please practise your individual tables target for your test next week on Wednesday (16^th November 2022). Ask someone at home to test you on your tables – can you recall them quickly and accurately?

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

It is crucial that you learn all of your table facts as this will help you with many aspects of maths.

Spellings

Here are your spellings for this week.  You have also brought a paper copy home with you, so that you can practise these during the week.  Please remember to use neat joined up writing and check them very carefully once you have written them! We will be practising these spellings in class too. Your test will be on Friday 18^th November 2022.

busy            business      exercise      imagine        opposite

regular        calendar       experience   important    ordinary

remember    caught         circle           forward       library

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 6 times tables
• A challenge based on the formal written method of column subtraction – please note this only goes up to 3 digit subtract 3 digit numbers

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

Have a great weekend

The Year 4 Team

Year 3 Friday 11th November

Date: 11th Nov 2022 @ 3:33pm

Welcome to your Friday Blog

We have had an amazing week of learning in Year 3. Everyone is showing a brilliant attitude to their learning and we have been very impressed! 

In our English learning we have started our new novel, The Ice Palace by Robert Swindells. We been looking at vocabulary to improve our ideas and how to use decriptive phrases to imropve our writing. Everyone created some fantastic descriptions the spooky forest.and of Ivan's dramatic escape from the wolf pack. On Friday as part of our Remebrance day commemorations, we heard the story of Walter Tull, one of the first black officer's to serve in the 1st Word War. We wrote some letters to Walter and asked him some poignant questions about the time he served in the army.

In our Maths learning we have been learning how to use our times tables to solve tricker problems. Through partitioning and regrouping, the children have been multiplying 2 digit numbers by 3 and by 4. We found this new learning tricky to start with but we have been very impressed with everyone's resilience. Well done Year 3!

In our Computing learning we have been having a go at making our very own stop frame animations. We used some of learning from last week and made some stickman sports.Have a look at some of our attempts here.

In DT we have continued our learning about shell structures. We really improved on our attempts from last week and created a 3D house. For our upcoming project, can you please send in a small shoe box with your child next week. We will be designing and making our own football stadiums for the world cup. Thanks in advance.

We have continued to explore Lancashire in our Geography. This week we had a go at being cartographers and drawing our own maps. We included the M6 and the major cities in our local area.

Home Practice

Keep changing your books regularly and read for at least 15-20 minutes every night! 

Well done to everyone who completed their Sumdog challenges and even had some time to practise on the Sumdog Training. Three new challenges have been added today. Remember, little and often every night will benefit your children with their learning in school.

Try and do a little counting at home as well. This will promote number fluency and understanding. There are lots of counting games here at ictgames.com that we use in school. You will also find lots of counting songs on YouTube. We have been singing these this week...

We have given out your spellings to practice for next week's test. We are looking at contactions and how to use apostrophes. In our spelling lessons this week we have been revisiting our spelling strategies. We have been breaking our words into syllables to help us spell more accurately and using what we already know to spell new words.

Here are your spellings for this week.

don't       didn't    won't   can't    couldn't    we'll    they're    we're    she'll    it's

Have a great weekend

The Year 3 team

Reception Blog - Friday 11th November 2022

Date: 11th Nov 2022 @ 12:34pm

We have had another great week this week!

Our story has been Supertato! we have had hidden evil pea's around the classroom and have used positional language to find out their location. We have done lots of superhero writing. Also, we talked about healthy food. We peeled and chopped vegetables to make our own soup that we even got to try! It was delicious!

This week has been Judaism week. We have learnt about the Jewish Religion and made our own Menorah Candles!

In French this week, we recapped numbers and colours, then we joined in with a fireworks poem. We added actions to show we understood. We also talked about French traditions for Remembrance Day - French people add cornflowers to their wreaths as well as poppies because the blue reminds them of the soldier's uniforms. From this we made our own collaged flowers, either a poppy or a cornflower. You will be able to see them in our classroom window!

In maths this week we have been doing alot more counting forwards and backwards within 10, we have also used the language more and less to describe where numbers are on a numberline. 

During our afternoons we have been talking about all of the different people who can help us, in school, at home and in the community. We have opened a Vets roleplay area this week and all of the children have loved going into it to look after the animals. This week we also looked at animals who can help us and we were lucky enough to meet Mr Maloney's schhol dog called Poppy, who came into class. Poppy goes into Mr Maloney's school to work with children when they have different feelings.

Next week it is more Supertato adventures!

Year 1 Blog- Friday 11th November

Date: 10th Nov 2022 @ 9:58am

Welcome to your Friday blog. This morning we had a minute silence for Remembrance Day.

English

This week we have been learning through the story of Traction Man. He changes his outfits depending on his mission! Some of us even became Traction Man.....or Traction Girl! The pictures in the story are very detailed and we described the one where Traction man is diving in the sink.

Phonics

We have been learning about alternative pronunciations, o as in mother,

Maths

We have been doing some checks to show our skills and knowlege about all the learning we have been doing.

R.E.

We continued to learn about the sacrament of baptism. We watched a video of a baptism and drew our own version in our books.

P.E.

We learnt about mirroring in PE. This is where you copy a partner. We made up our own robot dance moves and copied each other.

French

We looked at French customs for Remembrance Day.  French people add cornflowers to their wreaths as well as poppies because the blue reminds them of the soldier's uniforms. We made a wreath with red poppies and blue cornflowers to remember.

I.C.T.

We learnt about the artist Pier Mondrain and copied his artwork on the laptops. We learnt to use the line tool on paintz.app and made our own versions.

History

We began our toys topic in history this week. We focused on old-fashioned toys, such as yo-yos, dominoes, tiddlywinks and kaleidoscopes. We had the chance to play with them and choose our favourite.

Next Friday, the children will be allowed to bring one of their toys into school to represent 'new' toys. A letter will come home on Monday regarding this.

See some photos. Click here.

Science

We continued to look at animals and how to group them. We learnt about mammals, fish, birds, reptiles and amphibians. We then compared the animals with questions such as: can all birds fly? Do all mammals have 4 legs?

P.S.H.E.

We read the story - All about families. We compared families and spotted the differences.

Outdoor Learning

This week we have been building shelters. We used ropes, tarps, pegs and clips. We showed great determination, resilience and team work. We used our knowledge of knots to secure the ropes. We built shelters in both our sessions this week to see if we could improve on our first attempt. The shelters kept us dry when there was a bit of rain!

Sumdog challenges

Phonics - split digraph i_e OR oa words

Maths - one-step word problems

Practise counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. Start at different numbers. Count forwards and backwards.

Please read every night for at least 10 minutes- it really makes all the difference!

Year 5 Blog Friday 11th November

Date: 9th Nov 2022 @ 8:34am

Happy Friday

We have had a fantastic and very busy week in Year 5. 

On Monday we carried out a sensory evaluation of Greek food as part of our DT project. We used words to describe the appearance, smell, texture and taste of feta cheese, olives, pita bread and tzatziki. We then gave each food product a star rating out of 5. We will use this evaluation when we plan our own Greek snack. You can see us in action here. 

On Tuesday we were proud to take part in our Friendship Assembly. Everybody was brave, respectful, hardworking, dedicated and motivated and felt proud to show off our friendships in Year 5. 

On Wednesday we went swimming in our pyjamas! This was to learn ways we can help other people if we see them in trouble in the water. 

On Thursday we went on our school trip to Rock and River. We had the best day! Here is a photo gallery of our day. 

In maths this week we have been practising the written method (column) for addition. This has included adding numbers with more than four digits and numbers with two decimal places. Next week we will be using the written method to subtract. Knowing your number facts is so important to be able to use this method successfully. 

This week we have completed our RSE lessons. We started our lessons by coming up with ground rules, these were:

1. We can giggle if we feel embarassed
2. We can talk to each other and parents
3. We can ask questions

Everybody showed great maturity during our lessons, listening carefully and asking thoughtful questions. We gained an understanding of the emotional and physical changes we go through as we grow and develop. 

Home Practice 

Reading 

Please read out loud to somebody every night for 20 minutes. Look at how paragraphs are used - how does the author split up the writing? 

Spelling

Here are your spellings this week. These are some of the words you need to know by the end of Year 5. They don't follow a rule or pattern. 

accommodate          accompany          according          achieve          aggressive          amateur          ancient 

          apparent          appreciate          attached          available          average          awkward          bargain          bruise 

Number Practice 

As we have been looking at the column method for addition and subtraction this week, it is crucial that you are quick and confident with your number facts. Please go on Hit the Button and have a go at each activity on the Number Bonds page. Continue practising until you can answer the questions quickly without having to do any counting or working out. 

Hit the Button

Sumdog

Complete the Sumdog challenges

Have an amazing weekend! 

Year 4 Blog - Friday 4th November 2022

Date: 4th Nov 2022 @ 4:45pm

Year 4 Blog

Friday 4^th November 2022

Welcome to the Year 4 blog and another busy half term. We have worked our socks off this week and are very proud of our learning.  

In English, we wrote a chapter from another person’s point of view trying to include vocabulary from the novel and lots of thoughts and feelings.  In addition, we wrote questions about a chapter and planned a book review.

In Maths, we finished our statistics unit. We learnt how to interpret data and solve questions using information in a table, and also presented and interpreted data using pictograms.  Following this, we started our new unit – Addition and Subtraction. We began by revising the formal written method of addition and used this to add 4 digit and decimal numbers together, including exchanging. 

In Science this week, we carried out an environmental survey to look at the impact humans have on the landscape and how this can impact living organisms. We found out that the best place for wildlife in our school is the nature area.  

In RE, we explored how we are all unique and different.  We understood that we should treat each other as we would like to be treated and designed a poster to explain this. We also wrote our own set of Golden Rules to live by, and chose a reading from the Bible which we felt celebrated the uniqueness of each of us.

In History, we learnt more about life in the Roman Army and wrote an account as if we were a Roman Legionary - we tried to include as much historical information and detail as possible.

In PE, we practised our dodgeball skills in preparation for the competition in a few weeks time.

In PSHE, we thought about a skill or character strength we would like to develop. We then set a goal for our own development.

Home Practice

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. 

Counting

This week, please practise counting in 4’s.

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

0   4   8   12     etc                             48   44   40   etc

Then practise counting in 8’s.

For example, start at 0 and down up to 96 and back again

0   8  16  24  etc                                  96  88  80   etc

Times tables

Please practise your individual tables target for your test next week on Wednesday (9^th November 2022). Ask someone at home to test you on your tables – can you recall them quickly and accurately?

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

It is crucial that you learn all of your table facts as this will help you with many aspects of maths.

Spellings

Your spellings next week all have the prefixes in-, il-, im- or ir-.  You have also brought a paper copy home with you, so that you can practise these during the week.  Please remember to use neat joined up writing and check them very carefully once you have written them! We will be practising these spellings in class too. Your test will be on Friday 11^th November 2022.

inactive       incapable     incredible    inaccurate

immature     immobile      impossible    impatient

irregular      irrational     irresistible  irresponsible

illegal           illiterate      illogical        illegible

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 4 and 8 times tables
• A challenge based on the formal written method of column addition – please note this only goes up to 3 digit plus 3 digit numbers

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

Have a great weekend

The Year 4 Team

Year 2 Blog Friday 4th November 2022

Date: 4th Nov 2022 @ 4:18pm

Year 2 have had a fantastic week back after the half term holiday. They are all enthusiastic and enjoying their learning. In English, we have read three books already, Not Now, Bernard by David McKee, The Lion In The Meadow by Margaret Mahy and There’s NO Such Thing as a Dragon by Jack Kent. The children compared these stories and wrote a detailed book review. They also wrote conversations between the characters and did some super comprehension work. We have finished the addition and subtraction unit in Maths and have moved on to Shape. The children named 2-D shapes and talked about their properties. They were introduced to the word quadrilateral (4 sided shapes) and reminded that corners are called vertices. In RE (Journey in Love - RSHE), the children learnt about communities and how we can contribute in a positive way to the community we live in. We also talked about staying safe and meeting God in our community through school and Church. The Great Fire of London is our History topic this half term. We looked at London now and in the past. The skeleton pictures using art straws looked fantastic and the weather has been quite good for Forest School. Please could children keep wellies in school all week and remember warm/waterproof coats for when they are doing out-door learning.

Reading

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

Please date, sign and leave a small comment when you have read with your child and make it clear that you have finished a book, then we know we can change it. For Example - 14.09.22 Max’s Box. Read to page 6, really enjoying the book or finished the book. MG.

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

Reading resources:

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

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

Username: sto2

Password: 1234

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

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

Spelling

Please practise these spellings for your quiz on Friday (11.11.22). 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 11.11.22.

This week’s spellings:

after                chute

never                want    

Chris                 wash

school                paper

chef                  friends

Maths

At home, count in fives forwards and backwards to 60 or 100. Notice how we count in fives when telling the time on a clock, it’s just like a circular number line. Talk about time, focusing on O’clock, half past, quarter past, 5 past, 10 past, 20 past and 25 past.

You will have a 2x, 5x and 10x tables and shape challenge on Sumdog to complete by Friday 11.11.22.

Sumdog

Log in at www.sumdog.com

Have a lovely weekend. Enjoy the fireworks!

Year 2 Team.

Year 3 4th November 2022

Date: 4th Nov 2022 @ 4:02pm

Welcome back to your Friday blog. We have had a fantastic week back in school and started lots of new learning and exciting topics.

We have been writing our Quest adventure stories this week and on Friday afternoon we visited Reception and Year 1 to read our stories. Everyone made a huge effort all week to make their writing look beautiful on the page and used some fantastic sentences to excite the reader. We have been working hard on sentence structures this week and found out different ways to develop our ideas. 

This week we have started our Geography learning. We have been exploring maps and will be studying our local area and Lancashire. We looked at differntly scaled maps and talked about what human features we could find. We spotted cities, towns, villages, motorways, airports and much more! 

In maths we have been practising all our strategies and learned when we need to use formal written methods. We have sent home some times tables practice sheets as we will be focused on Multiplication and division from next week on. When practising times tables at home work on recall and speed as well as accuracy. The Sumdog times tables training is a great way to practice the individual times tables the children need to work on.

In French this week we have been learning the vern etre - to be. It was tricky but everyone gave it a good go. We finished with some spooky halloween songs.

We have also started our new computing topic on animation. Today your child will have brought home their first attempt at flip book animating. Everyone did very well at improving their designs as we struggled at first. Great perserverance Year 3! Next week we will be using the iPads to create our own stop frame animations!

Home Practice

Continue to read every night for at least 20 minutes. We have seen a huge improvement in everone's reading habits during silent reading time. Well done!

Spellings - This week we have been learning how to spell our homophones. A little practice every night does the trick. For these words, writing them in short sentences is a good way to remember them in the right context.

their   there     our     are    to  too   two   break    brake   were     where

Continue to access the Sumdog platform for a little time everyday. We are seeing huge improvements in accuracy across all maths skills. Keep it up!

We have set a 3 digit number challenge as well as a times table practice. Do your best!

Have a super weekend and enjoy the fireworks! And remember to keep safe.

The Year 3 team.

Year 6 Blog Friday 4th November 2022

Date: 4th Nov 2022 @ 3:36pm

Welcome to Year 6 weekly blog.

For our first week back after half term, Year 6 have been working very hard and have remembered the importance of being of being good role models for our school. This was evident as a few of our Year 6s led St Oswald’s All Saint’s Mass on Tuesday.

This week, we had two visitors to our class. On Wednesday, Gareth Walker visited, who is a Sports Journalist with over 20 years’ experience of working on National Newspapers and founder of Literacy Kicks. He will be working with Year 6 to help teach them how to be a Sports Journalist over the next six weeks.

On Friday, Father Michael visited us to discuss how he became a priest and what it means to commit yourself to your faith. The children asked super questions and learnt a great deal. Thank you for visiting us, Father.

This week’s learning in Year 6:

• In Maths, we have been improving our fraction addition and subtractions strategy by using common multiples. We also looked at various strategies to work out multiplication questions mentally.
• In English, we completed Clockwork by creating our own alternative ending, which had to include suspense writing tools: short sentences, different senses and exciting vocabulary.
• In RE, we completed our topic of ‘Vocation and Commitment’ by interviewing Father Michael about being a priest and how he was ordained.
• Our ‘Mountains’ topic in geography continued, with research into three tectonic disasters (volcanoes, tsunamis and earthquakes) which the children will present next week.
• In PE, we concluded one invasion games topic (Tag Rugby) by evaluating our performance in small game of 4 v 4. We also started a new topic through the sport of Hockey, where the same strategies and tactics (of Tag Rugby, Netball and Handball) will be used, but with the added skill of holding and running with a stick.
• In French this week, we looked at how to say the sound 'an/am/en/am' then we began learning to read, pronounce and write weather phrases. 
• In Science this week, we used our knowledge of the characteristics of invertebrates to create our own new species. We challenged a partner to classify our newly-discovered creature, giving their reasons why. Then we used natural materials to make a collage picture of our new invertebrate.

Home Practice

Please try to complete the following tasks by next Wednesday:

Reading – Use your Home Reading to read every night for up to 30 minutes. You also have a Reading Journal/Diary that must be used for the title of the book and any reading challenge chosen.

• You may change your book any day between Monday and Wednesday

Spellings (Spellings of Autumn 1)

• Sumdog (Autumn 1 mixed spellings wk 6)
  • politician, magician, electrician, optician, musician, technician, Egyptian, vision, session, decision, permission, compassion, expression, progression, impression.
  •  

Maths challenges:

• Counting:
  • This week we have been counting in whole number steps of 50, 90 and 900. Try to do the same out loud or with paper.
  • Draw a line with some marks on it like I do in class. You could write the numbers as you count up or down, then double check it to make sure you have said the correct numbers.
  • g. Start with different numbers and count up 10 times then back again in 50s:

233, 283, 333, 383, 433, 483, 533, etc

and in 90s:

233, 323, 413, 503, 593, 683, 773, 863, etc               

Start at a different number and count up 10 numbers and down again but this time in 900s:

740, 1640, 2540, 3440, 4340, 5240, 6140, 7040, etc     

• Sumdog (Times Tables A2 wk 1)

• Sumdog (Multiply whole numbers and decimals)
  • These questions are practice of the work we have done recently. Work through as many as you can as they will help hugely for next week’s learning.

Maths Training

For further maths work, please visit the ‘Maths Training’ section which you can find in the tasks box on the left of the main screen. This will enable your child to push their learning further with the skills that Sumdog has given them, following the diagnostic test, which they completed in the first week of school.