Reception Blog - Friday 9th June 2023

Date: 8th Jun 2023 @ 1:32pm

All of the children have come back from their half term break very grown up.

This week we have started our new topic of journeys. We have been talking about the different transportation there are and we have been writing lists of them. On Tuesday we went onto our school car park and looked for different transport, making tally charts of how many we could see.

In maths we have been doing about 3D shapes. We have been on a 3D shape hunt and we have made our own playdough 3D models.

Year 1 Blog-Friday 9th June 2023

Date: 7th Jun 2023 @ 6:11pm

Welcome to your Friday blog!

It has been lovely welcoming the children back from their half term break and finding out what they've been up to.

English

We started learning through the stories of Katie Morag who lives on the Isle of Strury. She sent us a postcard and some clues about the adventures she gets up to in her stories. We looked at her books to find out facts about her. We also did some role playing. We pretended to be different characters and acted out something that happened in the story. We will continue with Katie Morag next week.

Phonics

We have also been practising reading nonsense words ready for our phonics screen. 

Maths

We continued to learn about o'clock and half past times. We know now that if the minute hand is pointing to the 12, it is an o'clock and if it is pointing to the 6, it is a half past.

We also completed some arithmetic and reasoning questions.

R.E.

We focused on how the disciples started to speak in different languages after encountering the Holy Spirit. We wrote the word 'hello' in as many languages as we could around a picture of the disciples.

P.S.H.E.

We focused on strangers and who can be identified as a 'safe stranger'. We wrote what we should do if we come across a stranger and what we should not do.

Science

This week, we focused on trees and how we have evergreen trees and deciduous trees. We went on a tree hunt around the KS1 building and ticked off any that we could see.

Geography

We started to learn about the world. We recapped our UK learning from last term and then we used the atlases to find different geographical features (such as land, oceans and the poles).

P.E.

This week Miss Forshaw taught our P.E. lesson. We focused on running and changing direction. We did a beanbag shuttle run, played domes and dishes and improved our throwing and catching.

We also had a Yoga session with Katie, one of the South Ribble sports coaches. We learnt some positions and put them together in a sequence. We will be having 5 more sessions over the coming weeks.

We are looking forward to performing the Dance From the Heart next week. Please join us next Thursday 10.30 to 11.00 on the playground if you can.

Computing

We had a new character to help this week - BB8! We used sequenced code to help BB8 pick up the scrap metal. The code instructions are beginning to get trickier and longer now!

French

We learnt some words for means of transport.  We repeated a sentence about how we come to school eg Je vais a l'ecole en voiture. Then we tried to join in with the wheels on the bus in French and a song about a boat. 

Forest School and Outdoor Learning

We learnt how to safely use a new tool to make a hole in a wood disc. We also did some threading and tied knots to make a decoration. Mrs Corbett showed us how she had made a mobile but we had our own great ideas as well. The wood was quite hard so we had to really persevere to make the hole.

In our other session we used the logs and branches to make dens,obstacle courses, ladders and even some rope swings! Some of us climbed trees. Our teamwork is really good and our imaginations know no bounds!We found spiders and slugs too.

Home Practice

Phonics - Split digraph i_e

Maths -  Addition

Year 5 Blog Friday 9th June 2023

Date: 7th Jun 2023 @ 9:44am

Happy Friday and welcome to your Friday Blog.

We have had a lovely week back after Half Term. 

We were finally able to make our cam toys in DT after some parts we needed arrived. Our design brief was to make a cam toy for the Year 1 children to enjoy in their Golden Time. We designed our cam toys based on the questions we asked the Year 1 children and made sure that we included their likes and interests. Everybody showed excellent resilience and did not give up until they had made a cam toy which had a moving part and which we think Year 1 would enjoy. After we had finished, we evaluated our cam toys thinking about what went well, what challenges we were faced with, how well we had met our design brief, and what we would change next time. We then took our cam toys to Year 1 and were thrilled to see that the children really enjoyed playing with them. 

We really enjoyed our Sport's Day on Thursday afternoon. It was wonderful to see everybody trying their best, pushing themselves and really encouraging each other. Well done Year 5! 

In maths we have been adding and subtracting fractions with different denominators. We have had to convert one of the fractions in order to be able to add or subtract them, as we can only add or subtract fractions which have the same denominator. The denominator is the bottom number in a fraction that show the number of equal parts something is divided into. 

In English we have continued to read our class novel Varjak Paw. We didn't know much about the type of cat Varjak is, he is a Mesopotamian Blue. We decided to research Mesopotamian Blue cats and are in the process of writing an information text all about them so that our reader can find out about them. So far we have focussed on using brackets for parenthesis, we have done this by writing a definition of unfamiliar words inside brackets. The sentences still make sense without the brackets but the information inside adds extra information for the reader. 

Here are some examples:

The lifespan (how long they live) of a Mesopotamian Blue is 15 to 20 years. 

Masopotamian Blues can be aloof (unfriendly) towards strangers. 

They have plush (soft to touch) fur. 

In French, we recapped how to conjugate a regular ER verb using jouer - to play. Then we looked at an irregular verb - faire - to do. We then tried to choose the correct form of the verb to use in sentences about sport.  A heavy grammar lesson which will make more sense next time it comes up! Well tried, Y5!

Home Practice

Reading

Read out loud every day for 20 minutes. Look out for examples of brackets being used for different reasons. 

Spelling

Here are your spellings this week:

ethic          enthusiastic          lyric          athletic          mechanic          critic          rhythmic          artistic          heroic         

electric          historic          mechanical          electrical          historical          ethical     

Counting

Count out loud in:

Tenths from 0 to 1 whole (ten tenths)         Zero, one tenth, two tenths, ...

Fifths from 0 to 1 whole (five fifths)             Zero, one fifth, two fifths, ...

Eighths from 0 to 1 whole (eight eighths)    Zero, one eighth, two eighths, ... 

Times Tables

Please practise your times tables every day. Remember you can listen to songs on YouTube and play on Hit the Button. 

Sumdog

Times Tables Challenge

Spelling Challenge

Maths Competition in teams 

Have a super sunny weekend!

Year 4 Blog Friday 26th May 2023

Date: 26th May 2023 @ 3:50pm

Year 4 Blog

Friday 26^th May 2023

Welcome to the final blog of this half term. We have worked hard over the past 5 weeks and are ready for a rest before the Summer Term continues. Here is a summary of our learning this week:

In English, we wrote our own powerful descriptions of the grotto of the fire fiend. We tried to use noun phrases and ambitious vocabulary in our writing. We also investigated the features of an instructional text and then wrote our own set of instructions about how to make a firework. We made up our own name for the firework, as well as some wild and wacky ingredients - we hoped it would be a firework Lila (from the novel) would be proud of. 

In Maths, we named and learnt the properties of different quadrilaterals. We discussed their sides and angles and tried to include the words perpendicular, next to and parallel as appropriate. We also used geoboards to make different quadrilaterals and then drew them in our books.

We also practised our tables outside playing ‘Times Tables Masters’.  Have a look at some pictures of us enjoying our learning in the sunshine.

In RE, we finished our topic ‘New Life’ with a ‘Respond’ led by 4 children. We reflected on our learning from the topic and considered how we could spread the Good News at school and at home.   

In French, we recapped the parts of the face that we learnt last week then showed that we understood the vocabulary by reading some descriptions of faces in French and drawing to match.

In Science, we learnt about the volume of sound and how volume is affected by the distance from the sound source. We related it to practical examples from our lives, for example, the ice cream van sounds louder when it gets closer!

In PE, we practised our net / wall skills. First, we tried bouncing a tennis ball gently on our tennis rackets. Then we practised returning the ball to our partner. Take a look at us in action!

In Geography, we created our PowerPoints highlighting the impact of climate change on our local environment.  We made ensure they were informative, bright and colourful and include geographical vocabulary.

In PSHE, we started our new topic by posing the question - How can our choices make a difference to others and the environment? We watched a short film about ocean plastic pollution and the effect on our world environment. Then we defined single use, limited use and extended use plastic. Finally, we placed different plastics into these different categories

As it is half term, there is no Home Practice. However, please try and

• read every single day as this really helps to unlock your learning
• practise your times tables and number bonds

You can practise times tables and number bonds using Hit the Button / timestables.co.uk and White Rose 1 Minute maths.

We hope you have a great half term break and look forward to seeing you again on Monday 5^th June 2023.

The Year 4 Team

Year 2 Blog Friday 26th May 2023

Date: 26th May 2023 @ 1:33pm

Summer is definitely here and the children have enjoyed spending a lot of time outdoors doing PE, Forest School, gardening, painting and we even took a trip up to the pond. Make sure you have a look at the gallery. Year 2 deserve a well-earned break for working so hard and giving one hundred percent effort in their quizzes. Have a happy holiday with your family and friends and I look forward to hearing all about it when we get back to school.

Reading

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

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

Reading resources:

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

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

Username: sto2

Password: 1234

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

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

Spelling

These are the spellings you will be learning after Half Term - Friday (09.06.23). A sheet will go home every Friday with the spelling list on. This is for home practise only and can be kept with you.

You will have a Sumdog challenge on these words to complete by Friday 09.06.23.

Spellings:

Adding the suffix ‘less’. Including two words from the Year 1/2 spelling list.

spotless              careless

mindless              helpless 

homeless             colourless

thankless             sure

painless                sugar

Maths

After Half Term, for our times tables quiz (Friday 09.06.23) we will be learning a mixture of x2, x5, x10 and x3 tables.

Count in 2’s, 5’s, 10’s and 3’s forwards and backwards, see how quickly you can go, but it must still be accurate. Try playing ‘Hit The Button’ game from the maths games listed below.

You will have a x2, x5, x10 and x3 tables challenge on Sumdog to complete by Friday 09.06.23.

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

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

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

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

(I believe this app is free to download.)

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

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

Sumdog

Log in at www.sumdog.com

Have a lovely Half Term Holiday.

Year 2 Team.

Reception Blog - Friday 26th May 2023

Date: 26th May 2023 @ 1:20pm

We have had a fantastic week learning all about animals. The children have really loved this topic. For Writing we have been writing lists of animals we saw at the zoo and writing Who Am I? clues for everyone to guess the animal, we had lots of fun doing this.

In Maths we have been sharing amounts, using money in our own little shop and we have been recapping 2D shapes that we could see in our classroom.

In French this week, we talked about the points of the compass and why they are useful. Then we played games to reinforce the vocabulary in French. 

Our Understanding the World has been a lovely topic as we have looked at habitats. The children have all done a collaborative collage of different habitats, including; jungle, desert, arctic and oceans. We all talked about what we would expect to hear, feel, see and touch in those habitats before we made our collage. Then we made our own animal pictures to go within those habitats. We have also looked at animals from the past that are not here anymore, specifically a woolly mammoth and a sabre toothed tiger! The children loved learning about these extinct animals and used great vocabulary.

For Come and See we started our new topic of Friendship. We all spoke about what makes a good friend and how we can help each other.

Finally, we have been doing outdoor learning, creating our own obstacle course. The children worked very well together and took part in each others courses!

We hope that everyone has a great half term. We can't wait to come back for the final half term with our new topic, journeys!

The Reception Team

Year 3 Friday 25th May 2023

Date: 25th May 2023 @ 3:04pm

Welcome to your Friday Blog and Happy Half Term holiday!

This week we have loved reading the BFG. We have been comparing the book to the cartoon and live action film and using these to help us create some lovely pieces of writing. Have a look in our galleries.

On Thursday we had our latest Wonderful World assembly. We read the Little people, Big Ideas biography on David Attenborough. We discussed how we can look after our world and the creatures that we share it with. Our Wonderful World scrap book looks brilliant now. Have a look at our gallery.

In Maths we have been looking at differnt strategies we can use to add and subtract. We also looked at some number sequences and used our number knowledge to solve some problems.

In Science, we completed the plants topic by looking at seed dispersal and the whole life cycle of plants. The children demonstrated their learning by finding dandelions at each stage of the life cycle and putting the plants into order. They annotated the poster with all their learning from the last few weeks. Great job, Year 3!

On Thursday, we went out into our outdoors and created some stick art. We collected some sticks and decorated them using cotton and natural materials. We learned how to tie a simple knot and showed great perserverance when things got tricky. You can see some of our work in our gallery.

We also moved onto the next step of our 3D clay models in Art. We created some miniature models of Egyptian Gods using joins with our clay and experimenting with surface patterns and textures.

Continue to read everynight and spend a little time practising your maths and spellings on Sumdog.

We hope you all have a lovely half term break in the sun.

The Year 3 Team.

Year 1 Blog - Friday 26th May

Date: 24th May 2023 @ 5:34pm

Welcome to your final Friday blog of this half term. We have really enjoyed the lovely weather this week. We also enjoyed having our class photo taken - we showed great listening.

English

We continued our learning through the story of The Enormous Crocodile. We discussed the story and expressed our opinions about the story. We wrote a book review, taking care with our spelling, handwriting, full stops and capital letters.

We made a card to say thank you to all the staff at Martin Mere for our fabulous trip last week. We wrote some lovely messages and produced some beautiful pictures.

We planned and wrote our own version of The Enormous Crocodile using some of our own very imaginative ideas.

Phonics

Some of us learned ere as in hemisphere. Some of us continued to learn about split digraphs, such as a-e in cake.

Split a-e song Split e-e song More phonics songs

Maths

This week Miss Forshaw taught us our last lesson learning about positional language. Then we started some new learning about telling the time, starting with o'clock . Practise telling the time with your child.

We also practised counting in 2s, 5s and 10s.  Ask your child questions such as, what's 5 more/less than 45?, 10 more/less than 40?, 2 more/less than 48? to see if they can apply what they have been learning. If your child seems confident ask 10 more/less than 47?and so on. Keep to numbers less than 100.

P.E.

We practised our throwing, hopping, running and rolling of a ball. 

R.E.

We had a fun lesson learning about how the Disciples felt when Jesus ascended and the Holy Spirit came to them. We decorated paper plates with different emotions,

Science

We learnt about the different parts of a leaf and went on a hunt to find our own in the nature area. Then, we sketched our favourite leaf and identified the different parts that we could see.

P.S.H.E.

We talked about people that we trust and how certain people have special jobs. This could mean that we are supposed to trust them more than others (for example a policeman). Then we identified the people that we trust in our lives, such as our parents and teachers.

Computing

We continued helping Scrat get to his acorn on the code.org website. We learnt about 'debugging' and how to fix our mistakes when coding.

Art

We painted our final seaside picture in our sketchbooks. We copied pictures from the iPad and really took our time!

French

We we continued to try and memorise clothes vocabulary with a song, story and games.

Forest School and Outdoor Learning

This week some groups made pancakes. Some groups used a new method of cooking, a Dutch Oven, to make soup. Some of us tried to use a flint and steel to start a fire. This was 1 to 1 with Mrs Corbett. The children found out it was more difficult than it looked! Some children succeeded in starting a fire but all the children who tried showed great determination and perseverance. They will keep on trying hard!

Home Practice

Phonics - split a_e OR suffixes

Maths - time

Please wash your child's P.E. kit over half term and return it to school on the first day back.

Keep reading every day - we are seeing how much of a difference it makes.

Have a great week off and we will see you all on Monday 5th June.

Year 6 Blog Friday 26th May 2023

Date: 24th May 2023 @ 1:59pm

Welcome to the final blog of this half term. It has been a busy 5 weeks but the children have been brilliant, showing their resilience and persevering through a challenging time.

Thank you to everyone who created a speech this week. Every single pupil did a brilliant job of standing in front of the class and speaking for around two minutes. I learnt a great deal about a whole range of topics: Rome, Pendle Witches, Democracy on Ancient Greece, holidays, favourite food, range of sports, dragons and unicorns and even about Eurovision. 

Also, Year 6’s learning this week:

In Maths, we have been learning about circles: what radius, diameter and circumference mean. We then used our knowledge of circles to interpret pie charts with percentages.

In English, we have finished our novel, Skellig, and discussed how Michael was affected by the characters around him. We also read one of my favourite stories, Mr Bunny’s Chocolate Town, and created speeches for the very sensible Debbie and the rude Mr Bunny.

In PE, we used our skills of bowling, batting and fielding to play a small game of ‘Dynamos Cricket’.

In Geography, we learnt the 5 regions of Brazil: North, North-east, West-central, South-east and South. We discussed what each region may be like and how that effects population. We then introduced new physical geography terms: The Amazon Basin, The Pantanal and the Brazilian Highlands. We looked at how these areas have different landscapes and what effect that has on the country.

In Music, we have been learning the songs for our Oliver production.

In French, we recapped the Cafe menu and how to say they liked or didn't like items from the menu, using the first person (Je) and 3^rdperson (Il/Elle). Then we began to learn the French song which will form part of their leavers' celebrations. Homework - keep listening and singing along. There are a lot of words and it's fast so practice is the only way to master it! The song is on YouTube. It's called On ecrit sur les murs by Kids United.

In Science, we learnt how fossils are formed. There was a lot of discussion and questions. Then we looked at some real fossils and used them as evidence to work out what the animal or plant might have looked like, where it might have lived and what it might have eaten. We thought about whether there was weak, moderate or strong evidence to back up our ideas. Fossils can tell us a lot about life on Earth millions of years ago, but there is also a lot that they cannot tell us which scientists have to work out from other sources. The children did some lovely observation drawings of their fossils too. Well done y6.

Home Practice

Read a good book over the holiday (aim to keep changing it every week).

Learn the Oliver production songs by the 5^th July. You have been given a second copy to take and keep at home (it is best to use YouTube or Spotify to sing along with the songs).

Have a super half term Year 6 – you deserve it!

Year 5 Blog Friday 26th May 2023

Date: 24th May 2023 @ 9:29am

Happy Friday and welcome to your Friday Blog

We have had a fantastic week this week.

In English we have continued reading Varjak Paw. We are really enjoying this book, it is so exciting. This week we have been writing more setting descriptions. Our focus has been to describe the city that Varjak goes to in two different ways. The first is the city when varjak first arrives. It is an exciting place with lots going on. The second is the city as night time approaches. Varjak begins to feel scared of the city. We have made sure that we have shown these two feelings in our descriptions - excitement and fear!

In maths we have been learning about improper and mixed fractions. 

An improper fraction is a number greater than one whole. 

A mixed fraction is a whole number and a proper fraction combined.

We have been lucky enough to have two lessons with Gareth the sports journalist this week. In our first lesson we wrote all about the paralympics, we were so inspired by the incredible athletes.  

Please keep up with reading and practising times tables over half Term. 

Have an amazing Half Term and see you for the final half term of the year! 

Online Safety Update - Roblox

Date: 23rd May 2023 @ 12:10pm

We have noticed a growing number of children from all classes accessing this platform and so here is a guide on how to use the platform, including what potential risks come with allowing your children on Roblox.

Below you will find a link to join the National Online Safety platform and gain free access to a huge range of videos, resources and support, incuding filtering and the best ways to monitor your child's online activity.

http://nationalonlinesafety.com/enrol/st-oswald-s-catholic-primar-school-pr45eb

Year 2 Blog Friday 19th May 2023

Date: 19th May 2023 @ 4:35pm

Another extremely busy week of learning in Year 2, but the children rose to the challenge and made me very proud of all their efforts, behaviour and hard work, well done everyone. In English, we worked on how to spell tricky words and also looked at two poems. The children read, Tell it to the Dog and The Magic Pebble. They wrote down things they would moan to their pets about and planned a poem about a pebble that granted any wishes. In Maths, we moved on to telling the time. We learnt five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five and thirty minutes past the hour. Please practise telling the time at home with your child. During Art, the children painted their Tiddalik the frog clay models which looked amazing. Hopefully not too many of them broke when they took them home today! The children did so well in their Sports Day, the video will be available to watch soon. In PE, we practised overarm throws and played mini-rounders games.

Reading

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

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

Reading resources:

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

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

Username: sto2

Password: 1234

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

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

Spelling/Maths

There will be no spellings/times tables or Sumdog to learn next week as we will be busy doing the rest of the Year 2 Quizzes in Reading and Maths. Please continue to read with your child and make sure they are well rested and ready for our busy week ahead.

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

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

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

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

(I believe this app is free to download.)

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

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

Have a lovely weekend.

Year 2 Team.

Year 6 Blog Friday 19th May 2023

Date: 19th May 2023 @ 3:33pm

Welcome to our Year 6 blog.

This week has been another busy one following our SATs week. On Thursday we attended church to celebrate the Ascension of Jesus, led by Year 6. This Friday, we had a visit from the CEO of the Foxton Centre in Preston who gave us a talk about their fantastic charity work for the homeless community. 

Also, Year 6’s learning this week:

• In Maths, we have learnt about line graphs, how to interpret them and draw various continuous data. Next week, we will learning more about pie charts and how to interpret them. 
• In English, we have learnt how to improve our persuasive writing through planning and creating a persuasive letter to one of the Skellig characters on why they should try home school or state school.
• In PE, we focused on our athletics skills: running, throwing and jumping, as we prepare for our last Sports Day at St Oswald’s. Also, we prepared our ‘mini coaching’ sessions by designing them and practising each activity with other groups.
• In Geography, we introduced our new topic, Brazil, through mapping work of South America and learnt the bordering countries surrounding it.
• In History, we learnt about the Maya rule and how this compares to the Anglo-Saxons at the same period (8^th to 10^th century).
• In PSHE, we discussed our responsibilities around school, and how we can use what we have learnt from them as we begin transitioning to high school.
• In RE, we began our new topic, ‘Witness’, where we learnt how our beliefs and values affect what we do when being a witness.

Home Practice this week.

This week I have a different task for you to complete. Part of our speaking and listening area of the English curriculum is to give presentations on a variety of topics. Doing this individually though, will be great practice for any future activities you undertake in high school. Therefore, this weekend, I would like you to create a two-minute speech to present between next Monday to Friday. It can be:

• About any topic you wish
• About a talent you have
• About a skill you developed
• About any holiday you have been on
• About your pet and how to look after it
• About absolutely anything.

Year 4 Blog - Friday 19th May 2023

Date: 19th May 2023 @ 1:18pm

Year 4 Blog

Friday 19^th May 2023

We have had a very busy week in Year 4! Here’s a brief overview of what we have been learning:

In English, we continued to explore noun phrases and tried to write our own which also included a prepositional phrase. In order to write an expanded noun phrase we:

1. Chose a noun - for example,  cookie
2. Added a determiner - The cookie
3. Chose 2 adjectives - The tasty, crumbly cookie
4. Included a prepositional phrase - The tasty, crumbly cookie with the marshmallow pieces
5. Finished the sentence - The tasty, crumbly cookie with the marshmallow pieces fell on the floor.

Next week we hope to include some noun phases / expanded noun phrases in our writing.      

In Maths, we compared and ordered angles.  We also identified vertical and horizontal lines of symmetry in shapes, completed symmetrical figures and named and identified the 3 different types triangle.   

In RE, we listened to the story of Paul and discussed how he changed. Following this, we learnt about some of the places Paul visited to spread the Good News, and how the Holy Spirit gave Paul new life and happiness.  

In French, we practised spelling number words to 12 using our phonics to help. Then we moved on to learning the vocabulary for parts of the face.

In PE, we took part in some athletic activities in preparation for our sports day.

In Science, we experimented with our home-made string telephones. We investigated how they worked, how the sound travelled and what stopped the telephone from working. We also tried to make improvements if needed. Well done Year 4 – you can see some pictures of our science investigation here.

This week we also attended the parish mass on Monday morning. Following this, we enjoyed juice and cake in the school hall as part of our First Holy Communion Celebrations. You can see some pictures here. In addition, we attended the Ascension Day Mass on Thursday afternoon.

The CEO of the Foxton Centre in Preston also visited on Friday morning.  He gave us a very interesting talk about how they help the homeless community of Preston. 

Home Practice

Reading

Please read out loud to somebody for 20 minutes each evening.  Please discuss what you have read with the person who has listened to you read.

Spellings

Next week our spellings are all homophones – words which sound the same but are spelt differently. You will be tested on these words next Friday. (26^th May 2023).

The words are:

weather       whether      who's      whose     medal     meddle

missed      mist       there      their     they're     

aloud       allowed      groan      grown

Counting

This week, please practise counting in 11’s

Start at 0 and count up to 132 and back again

0   11   22    etc             132   121   110 etc

Start at 20 and count up to 141 and back again

20   31   42   etc          141    130   119   etc

(TIPS - When counting up, add on 10 and then add another 1

When counting down, subtract 10 and then take away another 1)

Times tables

You will be tested on your tables target next Wednesday (24^th May 2023). Please practise every day. Remember you can practise your tables playing Hit the Button and timestables.co.uk

Please also practise the ‘Multiplication Tables Check’ on timestables.co.uk

Sumdog challenges

You have been set 3 challenges on Sumdog:

• A spelling challenge based on the spellings above
• A symmetry challenge
• A times tables challenge based on the 6, 7, 8 and 9 times tables

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

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

The Year 4 Team

Year 3 Friday 19th May 2023

Date: 19th May 2023 @ 12:57pm

Welcome to your Friday Blog

We have had a lovely week in Year 3

We have started our new book, Roald Dahl's BFG. We have been using to book and exploring Dahl's writing style to create some great desriptive pieces of writing. We have described The Witching Hour, from chapter one and been drafting a character description of the BFG himself.

Next week we will be watching some clips from the live action movie which has a PG rating. If you don't want your child watching the movie, please notify the school office and we will provide an alternative.

In maths we have been doing some tricky learning on column additon and subtraction. We have been looking at how to exhange and estimate to help us check our answers. We have set some new maths challenges on Sumdog to practice our maths skills and improve our number fluency.

Reception Blog - Friday 19th May 2023

Date: 19th May 2023 @ 11:51am

This week we have visited Blackpool Zoo for our school trip. The children loved seeing all of the animals and learning all of the facts of what the different animals eat and where they live. Every child had beautiful manners and were spotted by lots of people. Big well done Reception!

Year 5 Blog Friday 19th May 2023

Date: 18th May 2023 @ 11:13am

Happy Friday and welcome to your Friday Blog.

We have had an amazing week this week. 

In maths we have been drawing and measuring different types of angles. Everybody has done such a fantastic job. The things we focussed on to make sure we were accurate included ensuring that the protractor was exactly on the base line, counting round from 0 degrees on the protractor, and calculating the difference between 360 degrees and a given angle. 

In English we started our new class novel. It is Varjak Paw by S.F.Said. We are loving it! This week we have written a description of the garden that Varjak goes into for the first time in his life. We used:

Expanded noun phrases

1. noun - tree
2. noun phrase - The tree
3. expand with an adjective - The leafless tree
4. expand with a relative clause - The leafless tree which was taller than the house...

Adverbials for place

Beyond the wall...

Behind the shed ...

Above the dark clouds ...

On the ground ...

In history we have been learning all about the Shang Dynasty. We looked at how the Shang Dynasty started, where it is on a timeline in comparison to other civilisations, and we learnt the vocabulary we are going to need throughout the topic. We found it so interesting and can't wait to learn more! 

Here are some of the new words we learnt:

Dynasty - a succession of rulers from the same family or group

Confederate - joined or united by an agreement or treaty

Emperor  - the male ruler of an empire

Fertile - being able to produce abundant growth of farm crops

On Thursday afternoon we attended Ascension Day Mass at church to remember the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven. 

On Friday the CEO from the Foxton Centre visited our school to collect all our donations and to deliver an assembly to Key Stage 2. We felt so proud knowing that our donations will help the homeless community of Preston. 

Home Practice

Reading

Read out loud every day for 20 minutes. Look for good descriptive words (adjectives). 

Spelling

Here are your spellings this week:

burglary          dictionary          necessary          primary          voluntary          

occur          opportunity          parliament          persuade          physical          prejudice          privilege          profession          programme          pronunciation

Counting

Count back to calculate:

When you get to zero, the next number back would be -1 (negative 1):

7 - 12

3 - 20

6 - 18

Times Tables

Please practise your tables every day. You are all doing such a fantastic job!

Sumdog

Times Tables Challenge

Spelling Challenge

Maths Challenge 

Have a happy sunny weekend :) 

Year 1 Blog-Friday 19th May 2023

Date: 18th May 2023 @ 10:10am

Welcome to your Friday blog!

We are enjoying Miss Forshaw being in our class. She is learning how to become a teacher and we are all helping her.

English

This week, we have been reading the story of 'The Enormous Crocodile' by Roald Dahl. We have absolutely loved learning about the crocodile's clever tricks (that did not work) and how the jungle animals saved the children each time. We read most of the book and predicted how it might end. We focused on adjectives this week. We highlighted the many adjectives in the story, wrote a beware poster to warn children and identified the crocodile's clever tricks.

We then wrote a recount of our school trip to Martin Mere, describing what we did during the day.

Phonics

Some of us have been learning about the spilt digraph e-e as in Steve and complete.Some of us have been learning about ear in earth and or in work.

Click here to sing some phonics songs.

Maths 

We have been learning about positional language. The learning included the words above, below, between, on top of,in front of.

We have also been counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. Try counting from different starting numbers. Count in 5s starting at 2. Count in 10s starting at 12.

R.E.

We focused on the words that Jesus spoke to His disciples as He ascended up to Heaven. We spoke about His promise to send the Holy Spirit and we wrote what was said in speech bubbles.

History

We learnt about the various forms of entertainment that were seen at the seaside in the past and in the present day. We examined some real life photographs of the seaside in the past and identified any entertainment that we could see. We spotted Punch and Judy shows, people seabathing, swimming and making sandcastles on the beach. We drew and described two examples of past activities in our books.

Science

We have learnt about the different parts of the plant and the very important jobs that they have. We made our own collage pictures identifying each part and then pretended to be a plant with our bodies - we stretched out tall like the stem and opened our hands wide like the leaves!

Art

We made our final digital seaside picture using Paintz.app. They were absolutely amazing! So much so, that Mrs Robinson came in to see them.

Computing

We had our next lesson using code.org. We learnt to drag and drop instructions so that Scrat could eat the acorn. We did some amazing learning and sharing!

French

We began to learn the vocabulary for clothes with the story Je m'habille et je te croque followed by some games to reinforce the new words. 

Outdoor Learning

This week our fire session was making pancakes. We made the batter and watched as it changed from a liquid into a solid. We noticed the change in the colour of the pancakes as they cooked. We ate them with lemon,sugar, cinnamon or apple sauce.

Our other session was making obstacle courses. We used logs and came up with really imaginative ways to use them.

Martin Mere

We had an amazing trip to Martin Mere. There was so much learning! We saw so many different plants and creatures. Have a look at the photos in the gallery section.

Home Practice

Phonics - split digraph o_e OR ear in dear

Maths - turns

KEEP READING EVERY NIGHT!

Even more children are changing their reading books more often and it's having a great impact on their progress.

Don't forget to keep reading the Tricky words and if your child recognises them on sight they could learn how to write them.

Year 2 Blog Friday 12th May 2023

Date: 12th May 2023 @ 4:53pm

Year 2 have had a very busy week of learning and fun activities. In English, the children worked on their spellings with the suffix - ful and also wrote a diary entry from Princess Jasmin’s point of view, using great openers, conjunctions and adjectives that end – ful, like colourful, beautiful and thoughtful. They also had a mini-debate (should Jasmin trust Aladdin, yes or no?) and created freeze frames from the story, with interview questions about how the characters would have felt at that moment. In Maths, we have continued our work on fractions but linked it to position and direction so the children made full turns, half turns, one/three quarter turns. We discussed right angles and compared these to the quarter turns we made. In Science, the children drew diagrams and labelled the crocus bulbs we grew earlier in the year. During Art, the children made Tiddalik the frog clay models. They learnt to use the tools and techniques necessary for making clay creations. Have a look at the Tiddalik art in the Gallery section. We will be painting them next week. In French, we continued our French phonics learning with some new sounds and actions, focussing on the sounds in the numbers 0 to 5. We then recapped the vocabulary for clothes with a story (Je m'habille et je te croque) and game. Our new History topic is King, Queens and Castles. Year 2 did a fun activity gathering information from around the classroom about different Kings and Queens. In PE, we practised for Sports Day. It’s on Tuesday 16^th May – looking forward to a lovely sunny afternoon of running, throwing, obstacle races and more.

Outdoor Learning

This week four groups cooked on a fire. We used wood and charcoal this time and cooked in the embers of the fire . We rolled bread dough into balls and cooked it in the fire-it was delicious!

We also cut a slit in the skin of bananas and put chocolate buttons in the slits. We then wrapped the bananas in foil and baked them in the embers of the fire. They were so yummy, the chocolate melted and the bananas went soft.

The last group will do this on Monday.

We also chose to build shelters and our own play fires which we could pretend to cook on. Some of us were still very interested in making mouse traps !

Cooking on a Fire

Reading

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

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

Reading resources:

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

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

Username: sto2

Password: 1234

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

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

Spelling/Maths

There will be no spellings/times tables or Sumdog to learn next week as we will be busy doing the Year 2 Quizzes in Reading and Maths.

Please continue to read with your child and make sure they are well rested and ready for our busy week ahead.

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

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

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

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

(I believe this app is free to download.)

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

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

Have a lovely weekend.

Year 2 Team.

Year 3 Friday 12th of May 2023

Date: 12th May 2023 @ 4:03pm

Welcome to your Friday Blog

This week has been jam-packed with exciting learning opportunities in our classroom. We finished reading the thrilling mystery story, 'The Deathwood Letters', and were inspired to write our own news reports about the kidnapping case. We put our writing skills to the test as we used evidence from the letters to build our case.

In maths, we have been focusing on telling time and solving time-related problems. We learned about the different parts of a clock and how to read both analogue and digital clocks. We also worked on calculating durations and figuring out how much time has passed between different events. We are proud of our progress in this area and excited to keep practising.

In art, we learned about the technique of shading and used it to make our drawings appear three-dimensional. We were amazed at how much depth and realism we could add to our artwork simply by adding shadows in the right places. We can't wait to continue exploring this technique in future art lessons.

In our swimming lessons, everyone is doing very well. We have been working on building our confidence in the water and refining our swimming strokes. We are all excited to show off our skills to our families and friends.

In History, we delved into the fascinating topic of how Ancient Egypt was invaded. We learned about the different groups of people who invaded Egypt and the challenges that the Egyptians faced in trying to defend their land. We discussed the importance of understanding the past and how it shapes the world we live in today.

Finally, in Science, we went outside to explore the natural world around us. We found different kinds of seeds and recorded our observations in our nature journals. We discussed the different ways in which plants reproduce and the role that seeds play in the life cycle of a plant.

Overall, it has been a busy and rewarding week. We are proud of all that we have accomplished and are excited to see what the next week will bring.

Home Practice

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

In maths practice counting forwards and backwards. See our previous blog posts. Everyone is showing great improvements with their knowledge of the number system. Keep it up!

On Sumdog, have a go at the challenges. We have set a Times tables, Time and Spelling challenge.

Your spellings this week are...

windy

second

fifteen

fourteen

own

something

carry

along

alongside

story

between

remember

describe

away

answer

potatoes

although

Have a lovely weekend and we will see you on Monday

The Year 3 Team

Year 6 Blog Friday 12th May 2023

Date: 12th May 2023 @ 3:48pm

This week Year 6 completed an exam week of SATs for Spelling, Grammar, Reading and Maths.

You have all worked incredibly hard with revising, the work in class and all the home learning you completed. You should be so proud of yourselves for persevering through this week.

No home learning is set, so please enjoy yourselves and rest this weekend – you deserve it!

Reception Blog - Friday 12th May 2023

Date: 12th May 2023 @ 12:54pm

We have had another great week learning all about dinosaurs!

This week we have continued to look after the eggs that we had delivered last week. When they hatched, they were dinosaurs! We have written letters explaining how to look after the eggs and the baby dinosaurs.

In maths we have been looking at more/less and playing an interactive game to find the missing numbers. We have also looked at the numbers from 11-20 and how many tens and units make that number.

Year 4 Blog - Friday 12th May 2023

Date: 12th May 2023 @ 12:46pm

Year 4 Blog

Friday 12^th May 2023

Another very busy week in Year 4! Here’s a brief overview of what we have been learning:

In English, we investigated contrasting settings. We read two descriptions of the grotto of the fire fiend and considered how the words and phrases described the setting. We also explored noun phrases and had great fun writing sentences which included interesting adjectives.    

In Maths, we subtracted two numbers with one decimal place using the formal written method. We needed to be confident with our number facts and this is something which some of us need to practise a little bit more. We also started our new topic - 2d shape.  We started by identifying acute and obtuse angles and understanding what these words meant.  (An acute angle is less than a right angle. An obtuse angle is larger than a right angle, but less than a straight line.)

In RE, we learnt how the Holy Spirit gave courage to Peter and John. We hot seated Peter and John, and this helped us to understand how the Holy Spirit confirmed their faith in Jesus and gave them the courage they needed to speak out about the Good New, even when they were threatened.

In French, we produced the grand finale of our Matisse project.  We described our picture in French, remembering to put the adjectives after the nouns and make them agree. (A feminine noun needs a feminine form of the adjective etc). Well done Y4 - these will be on display now to show everyone your amazing French!

In PE, we continued with our striking and fielding topic.  We learnt how to bat off a tee and then played mini games of ‘cricket’ which involved all the players on the batting team running and all the fielders throwing and catching to each other.  This ensured everyone was actively involved in the game.

We also perfected our hymns and words for the parent assembly.  We all worked really hard to make sure we could be heard clearly, didn’t rush when we were speaking and knew exactly when we needed to speak.  Well done to everyone in Year 4 you were fantastic.

Thank you also to everyone who came to our Parent Assembly, we hope you enjoyed it.

Home Practice

Reading

Please read out loud to somebody for 20 minutes each evening.  Look carefully at any descriptions – what makes them descriptive? Can you use any of the words in your own writing?

Spellings

Next week we will be revising apostrophes for possession, including singular and plural, therefore there will be no words to learn.  We will be practising this each day in class and you will be tested on this rule next Friday. (19^th May 2023).

Counting

This week, please practise counting in 9’s

Start at 0 and count up to 108 and back again

0   9   18    etc             108   99   90 etc

Start at 20 and count up to 146 and back again

20   29   38   47          146  137   128   119   etc

(TIPS - When counting up, add on 10 and take one away

When counting down, subtract 10 and add one back on)

Times tables

You will be tested on your tables target next Wednesday (17^th May 2023). Please practise every day. Remember you can practise your tables playing Hit the Button and timestables.co.uk

Please also practise the ‘Multiplication Tables Check’ on timestables.co.uk

Sumdog challenges

You have been set 2 challenges on Sumdog:

• An acute and obtuse angles challenge, including comparing and ordering angles
• A times tables challenge based on all the times tables

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

AS YOU ONLY HAVE 2 SUMDOG CHALLENGES THIS WEEK, PLEASE TAKE SOME MORE TIME TO PRACTISE YOUR TABLES !

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

The Year 4 Team

We hope you all have a wonderful weekend and enjoy your First Holy Communion Celebrations.  

Year 5 Blog Friday 12th May 2023

Date: 11th May 2023 @ 7:07pm

Happy Friday and welcome to your Friday Blog.

We have had a great week in year 5.

We finished writing our own version of The Highwayman poem. We then perfomed our poems in small groups thinking about how we could change our tone and volume to have an effect on the audience. Everybody did such a fantastic job and felt so proud. 

In maths we have been looking at co-ordinates and translating shapes. Translating a shape means that the shape stays exactly the same but moves to a different position. 

In history we looked at an overview of the earliest civilisations. We noticed that they all thrived by being near to a river and having the ability to grow crops and farm animals. Next we are going to learn all about The Shang Dynasty. We can't wait! 

Click here to see some videos all about The Shang Dynasty 

In French, we practised the subject pronouns (Je, tu, il, elle etc) before moving on to reading some paragraphs in French about sports with opinions. The children were able to read and translate these very well. We discussed what to do if we come across a word we don't know. The strategies are the same as meeting an unknown word when reading in English - read on, use the context, take a good guess at what would make sense. Well done, year 5. 

On Thursday afternoon we did PE and computing. In PE we have been practising our cricket skills and playing mini games. Mrs Cookson has been very impressed. 

On Friday afternoon we did some map work to celebrate the Eurovision. We had a great time listening to some of the songs and located the countries on a map. We also spoke about capital cities, surrounding seas and oceans, and bordering countries. 

You can see us in action here. 

Home Practice

Reading

Read out loud every day to somebody for 20 minutes. Talk about what you have read. 

Spelling

Here are your new spellings. Practise every day. 

accident          accidental          centre          central          nature          natural          medicine          medicinal         

arrive          arrival          magic          magical          survive          survival 

Times Tables

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

Counting

Count out loud in:

6s from 0 to 72 and back again.

0, 6, 12, ...

7s from 0 to 84 and back again.

0, 7, 14, ...

12s from 0 to 144 and back again.

0, 12, 24, ...

Sumdog

Spelling Challenge

Times Tables Challenge

Geometry Competition 

Year 1 Blog 12th May 2023

Date: 11th May 2023 @ 10:29am

Welcome to your Friday blog!

We are enjoying Miss Forshaw being in our class. She is learning how to become a teacher and we are all helping her.

English

This week, we have been reading the story ' There's a tiger in the garden'. We had some great discussions about whether the tiger was real and also about what we could infer from the story. We created our own story map of the main events in the story.

Phonics

Some of us have been learning about ir in girl and er in her. Some of us have been learning to read words such as shrink, plank, frost.

Click here to sing some phonics songs.

Maths 

We have been learning about finding halves and quarters of shapes and amounts.

We have been counting in 2s,5s,and 10s. Start on different numbers and count forwards as well as backwards.

R.E.

We focused on the term 'Holy Day' and how they are special days that are celebrated. We recapped all the days that we have learnt about, focusing on the Easter story, and then chose one to draw and write about in our books.

P.E.

We had our final sports day practise on Wednesday. 

Thank you to everyone who came to watch us take part in our sports day. The children we absolutely amazing, showing great determination, resilience and physical skills.

P.S.H.E.

We started to think about safety and who keeps us safe. We explored different job roles involving safety (police, fire fighters) and other people like parents and teachers who want to keep us safe. We then drew pictures of them and talked about what they do to help us.

History

We had such a fun lesson learning about past and present seaside clothing. We looked at what is the same and what is different and then we got to try some clothes on from the museum loan box!

Art

We made a great tiger craft each in choosing time using lolly sticks.

Then in our learning, we planned our perfect seaside picture in our sketchbooks ready to paint our final digital seaside picture next week.

French

We practised numbers to 15 and adding two numbers with a game. We recapped weather phrases, then moved on to begin to learn some clothes vocabulary with a story - Je m'habille et je te croque. 

Music

We played the boomwhackers. We really had to concentrate so that we played our note at the right time.

Outdoor Learning

This week four groups cooked on a fire. We used wood and charcoal this time and cooked in the embers of the fire . We rolled bread dough into balls and cooked it in the fire-it was delicious!

We also cut a slit in the skin of bananas and put chocolate buttons in the slits. We then wrapped the bananas in foil and baked them in the embers of the fire. They were so yummy, the chocolate melted and the bananas went soft.

The last group will do this on Monday.

We also chose to build shelters and our own play fires which we could pretend to cook on. Some of us were still very interested in making mouse traps !

Cooking on a Fire

Home Practice

Phonics - ear words OR split e_e

Maths -  quarters

KEEP READING EVERY NIGHT!

Even more children are changing their reading books more often and it's having a great impact on their progress.

Don't forget to keep reading the Tricky words and if your child recognises them on sight they could learn how to write them.

Please return your trip slip on Monday if you haven't already!