St Oswald's Catholic Primary SchoolOur blogs
Year 4 Blog Friday 8th December 2023
Date: 6th Dec 2023 @ 5:21pm
Welcome to your Friday blog
Home practice
Reading
Please read for 20 minutes each evening to an adult at home. Reading every night will help you read more fluently and with understanding.
Spellings
Here are your spellings for next week
caught experiment increase particular separate
certain extreme interest peculiar special
complete famous island potatoes thought
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 90 etc
Times tables
Please practise your individual tables target for your test next week. You can practise your tables on Hit the Button and timestables.co.uk
Number facts
Please practise your number facts on Hit the Button
It is crucial that you learn all of your table facts and your number facts as this will help you with many aspects of maths.
Sumdog challenges
- A spelling challenge
- A times tables challenge
- A multiplication challenge
English
We retold a chapter of the novel in the first person – as if we were the Iron Man.
Maths
We consolidated our learning of the grid method and revised mental strategies of multiplication.
RE
We discussed how Christians prepare for the coming of Jesus in December.
History
We wrote about life in the Roman Army using historical vocabulary which we learnt whilst on our trip.
On Friday, South Ribble Sports Coaches visited and taught each class a dance. Have a look at our dance moves on St Oswald's TV.
Please look in our gallery at the pictures of our Reconciliation on Monday and Wednesday's trip to Lancaster City Museum.
It's the Santa Dash on Monday - remember to bring your Santa hat!
Please remember your cardboard box and any decorations your need for DT next Friday. Please don't bring these items in before Friday 15th December.
Have a lovely weekend
The Year 4 Team
Year 1 Blog - Friday 8th December 2023
Date: 6th Dec 2023 @ 11:11am
Home Practice
Phonics - wh words OR ea (e sound) words OR oi words
Maths - counting in tens
Counting - Practise counting in 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s, forwards and backwards from different numbers. For example, start at 20 and count in 5s to 50: 20, 25, 30...
Reading - Please try to read each night, it makes a big difference!
English
We read the story of Traction Man Meets Turbo Dog. We have written sentences about the story.
Phonics
Some of us have been revising w as in win and learning wh as in whizz. Some of us have been learning ea in bread and the short uh in after.
Maths
We have been learning about fractions of a whole.
We have been counting in 2s, 5s and 10s from different starting numbers.
R.E.
We have recognised the importance of the advent wreath and the liturgical calendar.
Science
We have identified what animals need to survive.
Forest School
We made a Christmas decoration using a piece of willow. We made it into a triangle shape and fastened it together with wire. We persevered as sometimes tying the knots was tricky. While we were making our decorations, we made hot chocolate with marshmallows in the Kelly Kettle.
Year 2 Blog - Friday 1st December
Date: 1st Dec 2023 @ 4:18pm
We have had a great week of learning in Year 2. We have been working hard to learn all our songs for the nativity – we have some brilliant singers. We have had a big focus this week on reading at home. Well done to the children who have read more than their 3 weekly books this week. It makes such a huge difference to the children’s learning reading every night. Keep it up! In English the children have been writing non-chronological reports about Cats and Owls. In Maths, we have continued our statistics topic, looking at different tables and graphs and how number is shown using these tables and graphs. The children have also learnt how to complete a tally chart. In DT the children have constructed, painted and designed their Tudor houses – they look fab! In Science we wrote about autumn and also spoke about what you would need to survive on a trip to Mars. You’ll be pleased to know a lot of children said ‘mum and dad’! Yesterday we had a fire satefy lesson from Penwortham Fire and Rescue team. The children listened really well to the talk and did brilliant role play in a fire situation.
Forest School
We made clay faces. First, we collected natural items in the nature area. We found berries, twigs, leaves, stones and moss. We worked the clay into a circle shape and found a tree with rough bark as we discovered the clay stuck better to these trunks. We designed our own clay face. There was great imagination and creativity shown.
In our second session we chose our own learning. We built shelters and hammocks, designed and made booby traps, cooked some delicious muddy food and tied knots. we didn't mind the very cold weather. We showed amazing imagination, teamwork, perseverance, resilience and determination.
Reading
In Year 2, children should read for at least 15 minutes every night and discuss the book with an adult. This will help with understanding the text and learning new words.
Reading books are changed every Monday. However, if you need to change a book another time, we will change it as needed.
For every book your child reads they will receive 10 DOJOS in class.
Please 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.
Spelling
Please practise these spellings for your quiz on Wednesday. A sheet will go home every Wednesday 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 next Wednesday.
This week’s spellings are (30.11.23): these will be last spellings for the term.
Again Christmas
Half Mr
Money Mrs
Parents everybody
Sure even
Maths
At home, count forwards and backwards in 2s to 24. Start at different numbers each time. For example, start counting forwards from 12 or backwards from 20. Look at how this relates to the 2x table.
Practise 2-, 5-, 10- and 3-times tables on a game called Hit the Button. Follow this link: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button
You will have a graphs, charts and tables challenge on Sumdog to complete by next Friday.
Sumdog
Log in at www.sumdog.com
Reminders:
Santa Dash - wear Santa's hat, beard or coat on Monday 11th December. Fill in your sponsor form and bring it back to school.
Raffle tickets, £1 a ticket or £5 a booklet.
Year 2 are making a 'yellow' class hamper. If you have anything yellow to donate, please bring it in to school.
Have a great weekend.
Year 2 Team.
Date: 1st Dec 2023 @ 4:09pm
Welcome to your Friday Blog!
Well done to everyone for their fantastic Advent Assembly! Everyone spoke and sang so clearly. What a lovely way to start the Advent season.
This week we finished our Journey stories. The children worked so hard on these, making their writing look beautiful and making their sentences flow together. Year 1 and Year 6 were amazed when we visited them. We got some great tips from Year 6! Super effort by everyone. Have a look in our gallery.
In Maths we have been learning to use the grid method to multiply teen numbers. Year 3 have shown great understanding with this. It is so important that we know our times tables fluently. It really helps with applying our new strategies when we know them! Keep practising!
In history we have been learning a little more about life during the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods. We explored some Mesolithic artefacts and talked about the difference between geologists and archaeologists. Have a look at your knowledge organiser below. We will be meeting all theses facts in the coming weeks.
This week in French, we continued with learning the numbers to 20. The children remembered these very well! We recapped numbers to 10 using the Learn French Through Music song, which got faster each time. We also matched the numbers 11-20 to the correct word and listened to the Alain le Lait song to help us.
In music, we sang We will rock you, the Stone Age song, accompanying with rhythms on stones. We sang the song from last lesson, Hey Ho Nobody home, and clapped the rhythm from notation, using Ta, Ti-Ti and Ta-ah. We practised our Carols for Christmas – Starry Night and O little town of Bethlehem. We finished with a new rhythm game – Don’t tap this one back.
On Monday we investigated some new mechanisms and designed a new one using 2 loose pivots and one fixed pivots. We also learned how to use a bridge to improve our linkage.
Home Practice
Continue to read regularly and talk about what you have read.
You can access all our counting songs by clicking on the view all blogs on the class 3 page. This week we have set a x8 times table challenge and a multiplication challenge for you to practise. You will know a lot of these already. Try and remember the trickier ones!
Your home spellings this week all end in -il or -al. There isn't a specific rule for these so see what patterns you can spot. We have been very impressed with the improved spelling this term.
gerbil, devil, evil, anvil, pencil, fossil, medal, metal, coastal, material, hospital, animal
Have a fantastic weekend
The Year 3 team
Year 4 Blog - Friday 1st December 2023
Date: 1st Dec 2023 @ 1:14pm
Welcome to this week’s blog.
Year 4 Notices
Year 4 Reconciliation Day – Monday 4th December. Parents are invited to attend the service in church at 2.15pm.
Class Hamper – each class has a colour theme to make up Rainbow Hampers for the PTFA Grand Christmas Raffle. Please donate what you can over the next 2 weeks. Year 4’s colour is blue – please donate anything blue that you can eat, drink, blue luxury items etc.
Trip to Lancaster City Museum – Wednesday 6th December. Please bring a packed lunch in a named carrier bag, but please do not send lunch boxes or flasks as all waste will be disposed of after lunch. Full school uniform must be worn together with a coat or jacket.
Please also read the weekly newsletter which has lots of information about upcoming events before Christmas. Many thanks
Year 4 Learning
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 cover was the most effective in helping us with our predictions.
In Maths, we partitioned numbers to mentally multiply
Eg 45 x 3 40 x 3 = 120
5 x 3 = 15
120 + 15 = 135
We then learnt how to double any number up to 4 digits using partitioning.
Finally, this week, we revised the written method of multiplication – the grid method. Many of us understood the method very quickly, however we need to make sure we can recall our times tables quickly and accurately.
In RE, we started our new topic ‘Gift’ during which we will explore God’s gift of love and friendship in Jesus. We started the topic by listening to a story and writing our own ‘recipe’ which showed what we look for in our ideal friend.
In French, we started our new topic of ‘At my house’ = ‘Chez moi’ and focused on describing where we live. We learned ‘Où habites-tu?’ = Where do you live? / ‘J’habite’ = I live / ‘dans une maison’ = in a house / ‘dans un appartement’ = in an apartment / ‘en ville’ = in a city / ‘à la compagne’ = in the countryside / ‘à la mer’ = by the seaside / ‘à la montagne’ = in the mountains. We then matched the correct pictures to each phrase.
In Music, we continued to learn Au Clair de la Lune on our recorders. We then practised the Carols for Christmas – Starry Night and O little town of Bethlehem. Following this, we sang our class song Mama Mia and completed the Silver Challenge which involved listening and playing back what we heard on our recorders. Finally, we attempted to play We wish you a Merry Christmas on the Boomwhackers.
In History, we learnt more about the Roman Army and the reasons why it was so successful:
- They only accepted the strongest soldiers
- They had advanced and effective equipment
- They used fighting formations
- They had top training
- They never accepted defeat
In PSHE, we learnt about discrimination and inclusion.We defined the words, gave examples of each, and discussed how we feel when these things happen.
In Science, we focussed on creating a simple circuit with the challenge of using different components (for example a buzzer, motor or bulb). We then drew a diagram for each one in our books. We also discussed reasons why a circuit might not work and the steps to follow to check all of the components.
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In our dance session in PE, we worked with a partner to create a superhero sequence. In handball, we combined all invasion games skills to play games in teams. We especially focussed on passing and defending.
We also enjoyed some outdoor learning on Thursday afternoon. We used leaves and other natural items to make various different creations – from leaf letters to leaf Christmas trees. Have a look at our leaf gallery.
Year 4 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 and 25’s.
For example, start at 0 and count up to 48 and back again
0 4 12 16 etc 48 44 40 etc
Now have a go at counting in 25’s
Start at 0 and count to 250 and back again
0 25 50 75 etc 250 220 200 etc
Times tables
Please practise your individual tables target for your test next week. Ask someone at home to test you on your tables – can you recall them quickly and accurately?
You can practise your tables on Hit the Button and timestables.co.uk
Please also practise your number facts. It has become evident that many of you are finding this tricky when you have been completing your written addition and subtraction.
You can practise your number facts on Hit the Button
It is crucial that you learn all of your table facts and your number facts as this will help you with many aspects of maths.
Spellings
Here are your spellings for next week
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 4 and 8 times tables
- A challenge based on multiplying 2 and 3 digits by 1 digit
(eg 32 x 8 30 x 8 = 240 2 x 8 = 16 240 + 16 = 256
Use the grid method which we have practised in class this week for 3 digit multiplications)
Please make sure you log on and have a go! Little and often is the key to success!
The Year 4 Team
Reception Blog - Friday 1st December 2023
Date: 1st Dec 2023 @ 12:59pm
We started our week with our new story, Supertato. We made our own Supertato's using potatoes and playdough. Later in the week, we made our own stories with these. During drawing club this week, we have created our own plan to catch the evil pea. The children have had lots of fabulous ideas!
This week, we have also looked at different kinds of vegetables, we have talked about what they are liked and we peeled and chopped them to help with our fine motor skills. We then used the ingredients to make our own soup. It was delicious and warmed us up after our frosty winter walk!
In phonics this week, we have been learning the digraphs ff, ss and ll.
In maths, we have been looking at number bonds to 5. We have used the numicon to help us explore the different ways.
This week in French, we recapped and practised numbers 1-6. We used the KidsTV123 Numbers Song in French to sing along and introduced the numbers up to 10! We made the song slower and faster to join in. We also counted the pirate’s treasure and identified the numbers on the flashcards.
In Music, we have continued to learn the songs for our Christmas Nativity. Now we can sing all of them.
We were lucky this week to have two visitors to come in school. A big thank you to Mrs Webb for coming in and talking to the children all about being a detective, and to Farmer John, for coming in with his tractor and talking to us all about being a farmer.
On Friday we had Yoga and Forest school. During yoga with Hannah, we went into a snowy forest and learnt mountain breathing. In Forest School with Mrs Corbett, we made bird feeders using apples and bird seeds.
Lastly, during RE this week, we have looked at the Nativity story, specifically the part where the Angel visits the shepherds and the shepherds visiting Jesus. The children did some beautiful pictures of this.
Year 6 Blog Friday 1st December 2023
Date: 1st Dec 2023 @ 8:23am
Welcome to our Year 6 weekly blog.
This week, we were visited by fire fighters who gave a talk to Year 6 about:
Fire safety – we learnt to:
Not to play with matches, how to stop, drop and roll, electrical safety and the importance of having a fire plan at home.
Road sense – Always:
Look out for cyclists, be visible to other road users, wear seat belts and cycle helmets.
REMINDER:
Please bring in your spare trainers and socks for our cross-country session next week.
Our learning this week:
- In Maths, we learnt how to add and subtract fractions with various denominators. We are using our times tables knowledge to become much quicker at these.
- In English, we learnt how to write a persuasive letter, to try to persuade Mr Mears to have extra play. We used formal sentence openers, emotive language and a range of modal verbs.
- In PE, we began our cross-country topic. The children did a super job of running the full distance. They will be working on improving their personal best time over the next few weeks.
- In Music, we continued to play Bacharach Anorak on the glocks, improvising at the right time. We composed with the song ‘Meet The Blues’ using notes C Bb G and F on the glocks. We sang the song Jazz is cool, discussing the texture and singing in groups. We finished by practising the Carols for Christmas – Starry Night and O little town of Bethlehem.
- In French, we caught up with our Cultural Understanding Project. With our groups, we started researching our chosen topics for our Christmas in France presentation. This will continue next week and should be ready to present to the class the following week.
- In Science, we completed a fair test to see which exercise would increase our heart rate the most. We discussed the results and learnt how to conclude our findings.
- In RE, we learnt that Advent is a time of joyful expectation. They wrote their own Advent expectations which were turned into an Advent wreath. We also started our Advent calendar, where each child wrote a prayer or an act of kindness that everyone in Year 6 must do during this festive period.
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 challenge words)
- answer, favourite, bruise, actually, build, guarantee, certain, guard, definite, library, difference, muscle, exercise, doubt, environment.
Maths challenges:
- Counting:
- This week we have been counting in fractions.
- Draw a line with some marks on it like I do in class.
- Start with these numbers: 2 1/4, 14 3/4, 5 1/5 and count up 10 times then back again in two quarters:
2 ¼, 2 ¾, 3 ¼, 3 ¾, etc
and in three fifths:
5 1/5, 5 4/5, 6 2/5, 7, 7 3/5etc
- 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 (Square numbers)
- Remember that multiplication can be shown thrown arrays. When an array makes a perfect square (2 by 2, 3 by 3, 4 by 4, etc) then we have a square number (4, 9, 16, etc). Try to work through these questions quickly, which will help for next week’s learning.
Year 5 Blog Friday 1st December
Date: 29th Nov 2023 @ 4:59pm
Happy Friday and Happy December.
Welcome to your Friday Blog.
On Wednesday, we brought home a sheet of paper with a list of things that we need for our DT work.
Our DT brief is to design, make and evaluate a Greek snack.
We have decided as a class to make pitta breads. School will provide the ingredients for everybody to make the pitta bread.
Most children decided they wanted to include something along with the pitta bread. This is what they need to bring in from home, for example: feta cheese, olives, salad, tzatziki, etc. The children also wrote a list of utensils we will need. Anything that we can borrow would be much appreciated, but if not, don't worry.
We will be making our Greek snack in school on Monday 4th December.
In Geography this week, we used maps and our knowledge of the UK to plan a trip for somebody coming to England. Our trip had to include a flight to our closest airport, a visit to our local area and some local attractions, and finally a visit to the closest capital city to us and some points of interest. Everybody's knowledge of the UK was very impressive and we came up with some exciting sounding trips.
In History, we have been learning about the Anglo Saxons. We discussed why we thought the Anglo Saxons settled in Britain. Some of the reasons we discussed included:
They settled in Britain to fight the Britons after they were left weak.
They were invited to help out when the Romans left the Britons vulnerable to attack.
They came because the land in Britain was better for growing crops.
They came for a better life where there would be more opportunity to earn money.
In RE we have started our new topic Advent.
Advent is a time to remember God’s promise to send a Messiah. It is about waiting in joyful hope for the coming of Jesus at Christmas.
In Maths we have been naming, measuring, and drawing different angles including:
Acute angles - between 0 and 90 degrees.
Right angles - 90 degrees.
Obtuse angles - between 90 and 180 degrees.
Reflex angles - between 180 and 360 degrees.
Home Practice
DT
Don't forget to bring in anything from home that you want to use in DT.
We will make our pitta breads on Monday 4th December.
Reading
Please read out loud every day for 20 minutes.
Counting
Count out loud in:
9s from 0 to 108 and back again 9, 18, 27, ...
90s from 0 10 1,080 and back again 90, 80, 270, ...
25s from 0 to 500 and back again 0, 25, 50, ...
Visnos angles
Test somebody at home on their angles knowledge.
Times Tables
Please practise your tables target every day.
Next week in maths we will be using our times tables - you will find it much easier if you are quick and confident with your tables.
Spellings
Your spellings will be uploaded onto the blog next week. In the meantime, they are on the Sumdog challenge and on the sheet you brought home on Wednesday, so try to practise every day.
Sumdog
Spelling Challenge
Times Tables Challenge
Maths Competition
Have a happy weekend, enjoy your Advent calendars
Year 1 Blog - Friday 1st December 2023
Date: 28th Nov 2023 @ 6:19pm
Welcome to your Friday blog.
English
We started learning through a new book, TRACTION MAN IS HERE by Mini Grey. Traction Man goes on all kinds of adventures around the house.
Will he escape the clutches of Evil Professor Spade?
Will his trusty friend Scrubbing Brush come to the rescue?
What happens when the Scissor Shark reaches them?
We discussed all the very detailed pictures in the book and drew the characters-even the most ordinary scrap of bacon in the sink is a character in this story! Traction Man wrote us a letter and asked us about our favourite parts of the story.
We made puppets and used different voices. We told part of the story to our class using the puppets.
We wrote sentences describing what was happening in the pictures. We read our sentences out to the class. We are trying so hard to include finger spaces, capital letters and full stops in our writing.
Listen to and watch the story here.
Tricky word song. Click here. Practise writing these words.
Phonics
Some of us have been revising oo as in zoo and learning ue as in glue.
Some of us have been learning ow in snow, and ie in chief.
Maths
We started the week by investigating how we could sort objects by different criteria. We learnt the phrase 'in common' to see what was the same about each group.
Then we started our fractions topic. We learnt the words 'part' and 'whole' in the context of fractions, rather than number. We made a house, which was our whole, then identified the windows, doors and roof as being parts of the whole house. We even learnt the word 'denominator' which was quite hard to say! We focused on sharing equally between two people, which meant that we were finding a half.
R.E.
We had a final baptism respond session to celebrate all of the learning that we have done this half term. We recapped why baptisms are important, the symbols used in a baptism and listened to the Bible passage about Jesus' baptism again. We coloured in a picture of a baptism and took them home.
History
This week, we explored the toys that our caregivers (parents and who looks after us) used to play with when they were younger. We looked at Polly Pockets, Tamagotchi, Trolls and Hungry Hippos to name just a few. We thought about whether we would want to play with them now or not. Then we got the chance to play with some toys from the museum. We recognised that these toys were older than our parents' toys because they were made out of wood.
If your child was in the history lesson this week, they will have come home with a sheet to fill out with your help. This is all about their older relatives' (Grandmas/Grandads) favourite toy when they were little. We will be exploring even older toys next week.
Please only fill this out if you can. Do not worry if you will not be seeing grandparents before next Thursday.
Science
Year 1 were so lucky to have Mrs Robinson teach our science lesson this week! She was so impressed with how much everyone has grown up.
We learnt about lifecycles and how animals change and grow over time. We focused on the lifecycle of a butterfly and drew pictures of the changes.
D.T.
We made our own simple slider using the story of The Gingerbread Man. The characters from the story could chase the gingerbread man!
Art
We used pencils to draw flowers onto the foreground of our handprint pictures. Then to make them stand out, we went over our lines with sharpies and whiteboard pens.
Computing
We had a technology safety lesson all about how to behave when using the laptops and iPads in school. We made our own posters to teach others about what to do and what not to do.
French
This week in French, we recapped the colours we learned in last lesson.The children remembered these very well and some children remembered that the t in vert and violet, the c in blanc and the s in gris are not pronounced. After watching and saying which colour parrot flew past, we coloured in the pictures of the parrots and feathers on the pirate hats to show the right colour. We finished the lesson with a game of Splat! Fastest person to point to the colour we heard.
Music
We continued to learn the songs for our Christmas Nativity. We played the rhythms on the claves and wood blocks.
Forest School
We made clay faces. First, we collected natural items in the nature area. We found berries, twigs, leaves, stones and moss. We worked the clay into a circle shape and found a tree with rough bark as we discovered the clay stuck better to these trunks. We designed our own clay face. There was great imagination and creativity shown.
In our second session we chose our own learning. We built shelters and hammocks, designed and made booby traps, cooked some delicious muddy food and tied knots. we didn't mind the very cold weather. We showed amazing imagination, teamwork, perseverance, resilience and determination.
Thank you for all the items which you have sent in for the orange Christmas hamper-it's looking like a great prize already!
Home Practice (Sumdog)
Phonics - ue words OR ow (oa sound) words OR ow words
Maths - halves
Counting - Practise counting in 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s, forwards and backwards from different numbers. For example, start at 20 and count in 5s to 50: 20, 25, 30...
Reading - Please try to read each night, even for just five minutes, it makes a big difference!
Year 6 Blog Friday 24th November 2023
Date: 24th Nov 2023 @ 4:07pm
Welcome to Year 6 weekly blog.
We have had a fabulous week getting back to our curriculum, following Robinwood last week. On Thursday, we were invited by Reception to meet Mr Brown, a paramedic, who came with his ambulance to show the children what his job entails, how he helps people in the community and what equipment he uses.
On Friday morning, Father invited Year 6 to Mass. Father Michael was wearing red to celebrate the Mass for the Feast of the Martyrs. Thank you for the invite, Father!
Also, two teams competed this week: Volleyball team and another Football team. It was our first ever volleyball competition and the 8 that took part did a super job representing the school with two wins and two losses – an excellent achievement for our first time. As for the football team, they were unfortunate to win a game at Priory High but had a great time working together.
Our learning this week:
- In Maths, we learnt how to compare and simplify fractions using multiples and factors. We then learnt to use common multiples and factors to quickly find equivalent fractions.
- 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 began our indoor athletics topic focusing on finding a baseline of the standing long jump, triple jump, vertical jump and speed bounce. We will be working on our techniques to improve our personal best.
- In History, we continued our topic of ‘Crime and Punishment’. This week, we learnt about the Anglo-Saxon period and as there was no police force back then, every group of 10 people in the village were named a ‘tithing’ and if anyone within that tithing committed a crime, it was up to the other 9 to bring them to the ‘trial of ordeals’ – even chasing them down the street. Also, if one person in the tithing group did not chase, then they were sentenced to the ‘trial by ordeal’ too.
- In Science, we created a fair test to see which exercise would increase our heart rate the most. We discussed the variables, what we would keep the same, our predictions, method and results.
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 6 -ough words)
- though, although, rough, tough, through, cough, nought, brought, ought, thought, fought, plough, dough, enough, thorough
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 4)
- Sumdog (Common multiples)
- This challenge will help to practise the learning we have done this week. Try your best to use your times tables knowledge to answer them quickly.
Year 3 Friday 24th November 2023
Date: 24th Nov 2023 @ 3:44pm
Welcome to your Friday Blog
We have had a fantastic week of learning this week in Year 3.
In English, we have started writing our own versions of the Journey, story by Aaron Becker. We have been focusing on presentation this week as well as sentence structure. Next week we hope to take our stories to year one and year six and publish them to the website.
In maths, we will be learning new multiplication strategies, including using partitioning to help us with trickier problems. Everyone is showing great understanding with this this is down to great listening and concentration in class. Well done Year 3!
In music, we started with a new song, Hey Ho Nobody home. We looked at how the rhythm was written and clapped the rhythm from notation. We learnt to sing thethird verse of We will rock you, the Stone Age song, accompanying with rhythms on stones. We discussed the different parts of the song – verse, chorus and instrumental. We played a rhythm game – Forbidden Rhythm. We began to learn carols for Christmas – Starry Night and O little town of Bethlehem.
We have also been practising our assembly this week. We have given out everyone a line to practice over the weekend. We are looking forward to to perform on Friday.
In art, we have been completing our collages based on the story journey by Aaron Becker. Have a look at our gallery which shows some of our artwork and the pictures we have used for inspiration.
This week we also completed our RSHE and RE topics. In RSHE we looked at friendships and how we can mend broken ones. We also finished our Baptism learning. Next week we will begin our topic on Advent and Preparations.
Home Practice
Continue to read every night. We have seen amazing progress in everyone's reading this term. Well done Year 3!
All the spellings this week have the le or el spelling pattern. Remember to use all your strategies to help you spell your words independently.
apple, bottle, candle, middle, bubble, giggle, vowel, tunnel, squirrel, tinsel, travel, camel
We have set 2 Sumdog challenges this week. One will cover number facts and the other will be to practice your multiplication strategies.
Have a lovely weekend
The Year 3 Team
Reception Blog - Friday 24th November 2023
Date: 24th Nov 2023 @ 11:15am
We started our week using our bodies to make art, using our hands. We had to paint our hands and print them onto the paper. Later in the week, when the paper was dry, we drew flowers over them in black pen. Our pictures look fantastic and we have stuck them up in the butterfly room.
For the Drawing Club this week, we have done the story Farmer Duck. We talked about what we might see on a farm, learnt about what a farmers job is and designed our own tractor.
In phonics this week, we have been learning the new sounds f and l.
In maths, we have been looking at one more and one less than a number. To do this we have played a game, moving our tokens down the line, talking about which we could see that was one more than a number and one les than a number.
This week in French, we recapped the colours. Rouge = red, bleu = blue, jaune = yellow, orange = orange, vert = green, and rose = pink. We could say all of the colours and point to the right ones!
We continued to learn the songs for our Christmas Nativity. We sang the first five songs again and started to learn the next two, then played the rhythms on the maracas. Please see the school newsletter about all information regarding the nativity. There will be two performances in Church and we provide the costumes.
In PSHE this week, we have continued to talk about healthy foods after the visit from Freddy Fit. We looked at the green rainbow drop eating his fruits and vegetables to make him big and strong and how to have a balanced meal. Having sweets and sugar as a special treat.
We were lucky this week to have Mr Brown come and visit us with an ambulance. The children learnt all about his job and how he helps people. We also got to go into the ambulance and see all of the equipment he uses.
For PE this week we have done some throwing and catching and jumping and balancing. Then we continued with Tots on Tyres with Mrs Cookson.
On Friday we had Yoga and Forest school. During yoga with Hannah, we went back over the colour monster, using our feelings to help us.
In Forest School with Mrs Corbett, we made bird feeders using apples and bird seeds.
Lastly, during RE this week, we have looked at the whole Nativity story, talking about who came to see Jesus when he was in the stable. The children enjoyed ordering the pictures from the story.
Year 2 Blog Friday 24th November 2023
Date: 24th Nov 2023 @ 11:11am
Year 2 had a wonderful time at the library. The librarian read three Christmas stories and the children got to vote for their favourite, there was a clear winner! They also made Christmas cards and explored the library, choosing books that they would like to borrow. Everyone had lovely manners and were very respectful. In English, we did a drama workshop in the hall with Mrs Wood. We have a lot of budding actors and actresses and it was lovely to see everyone joining in with confidence and being creative. The nativity play is going to be amazing this year! In Maths, we have started our new topic - graphs, charts and tables. The children have been reading, understanding and answering questions about pictograms and block charts. It has been RSHE week, we learnt about communities, how to keep safe and meeting God in our community. In History, the children completed The Great Fire of London by making a timeline (chronological order) of everything they have learnt. In Art, we learnt about printing and produced some lovely prints. The count down to Christmas is definitely starting, learning Christmas songs, practising for the Nativity play and getting ready for all the Christmas fun.
Forest School
This week we cooked bread on a stick. We remembered our rules about how to keep safe around the fire. Mrs Corbett had already made the dough out of flour, sugar and water. We had to find a suitable stick that was long enough and strong enough to hold the dough. We rolled our ball of dough into a long sausage shape and wrapped it securly around our stick. We cooked the bread in the embers of the fire. We noticed it changed colour as it was cooking. We had to be patient.When it was cooked we put jam, chocolate spread or butter on it. It was delicious!
All of us had a go at the cooking and some of us had an extra session. We chose our own learning in the nature area.
Reading
In Year 2, children should read for at least 15 minutes every night and discuss the book with an adult. This will help with understanding the text and learning new words.
We had a great time at the library. Everyone, spotted books that they would like to borrow. Maybe, you could visit the library again and borrow the books you saw.
Reading books are changed every Monday. However, if you need to change a book another time, we will change it as needed.
Please 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.
Reading resources:
Oxford Owl – This resource has an exciting range of carefully levelled eBooks to help children learn to read and really enjoy it.
Go to https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/ and login. Explore the site and enjoy reading 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 Wednesday. A sheet will go home every Wednesday with the spelling list on. This is for home practise only and can be kept with you.
It is useful to write the words down on the spelling sheet, but also to call the words out and spell them out loud using the letter sounds or names. Other ideas include breaking the words up and writing them down in different colours (people). You could look for words within words (whole)or think of your own ways to remember the word for example, spell it aloud using a tune or song.
You will have a Sumdog challenge on these words to complete by next Wednesday.
This week’s spellings are (22.11.23 – 29.11.23):
could many
would clothes
should busy
whole people
any water
Maths
At home, count forwards and backwards in 3s to 36. Start at different numbers each time. For example, start counting forwards from 12 or backwards from 30. Look at how this relates to the 3x table.
Practise 2-, 5-, 10- and 3-times tables on a game called Hit the Button. Follow this link: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button
You will have a graphs, charts and tables challenge on Sumdog to complete by next Friday.
Sumdog
Log in at www.sumdog.com
Reminders:
Santa Dash - wear Santa's hat, beard or coat on Monday 11th December. Fill in your sponsor form and bring it back to school.
Raffle tickets, £1 a ticket or £5 a booklet.
Year 2 are making a 'yellow' class hamper. If you have anything yellow to donate, please bring it in to school.
Have a great weekend.
Year 2 Team.
Year 4 Blog Friday 24th November 2023
Date: 24th Nov 2023 @ 8:55am
Welcome to this week’s blog.
Year 4 Notices
Reconciliation - 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.
Year 4 Reconciliation Day – Monday 4th December. Parents are invited to attend the service in church at 2.15pm.
Class Hamper – each class has a colour theme to make up Rainbow Hampers for the PTFA Grand Christmas Raffle. Please donate what you can over the next 3 weeks. Year 4’s colour is blue – please donate anything blue that you an eat, drink, blue luxury items etc.
Please also read the weekly newsletter which has lots of information about upcoming events before Christmas.
Year 4 Learning
In English, we discussed the 4 different types of sentences - statements, questions, commands and exclamations. We then wrote questions about a chapter of the novel. We tried our best to ensure that the questions were punctuated properly (using capital letters where appropriate and question marks) and required more than a ‘yes or no’ answer. In addition, we planned a book review of the novel Kensuke’s Kingdom. We will be writing this next week.
In Maths, we revised multiplying by 10 and 100. We then used this knowledge to multiply using related facts.
Eg 3 x 40 3 x 4 = 12 So 3 x 40 = 120 as it is 10 times larger
6 x 900 6 x 9 = 54 So 6 x 900 = 5400 as it is 100 times larger
When a number is multiplied by 10, all the digits move one place to the left
When a number is multiplied by 100, all the digits move two places to the left.
In addition, we learnt how to multiply using compensating (eg using 20 x 6 to help calculate 19 x 6).
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 Science, we started the lesson by identifying some electrical appliances and what they use electricity for: heating/cooling, light, movement or sound. We then constructed a simple circuit and named the parts. We discovered that to make a simple circuit work, the components needed to be in a loop. We also drew a diagram of this in our books.
In P.S.H.E., we continued with our Relationships unit of 'Play the Right Way and Inclusion'. This session was about the right to privacy. We started the lesson by discussing what we thought this meant and checking our ideas against the given definition. We then discussed some situations where a confidence or secret should be kept and where it should not be kept. Finally, we discussed when it is the right thing to tell a trusted adult.
The right to privacy means - the right not to have one’s personal matters disclosed or publicised / to be left alone / for certain things not to be disclosed
In P.E., we started our rotation of Rugby and Dance. We used our previously taught Invasion Games skills and tactics to play some games of tag rugby. We also explored movement and communicating a character to portray a superhero. We focused on facial expressions and gestures to communicate emotions.
Year 4 Home Practice
Reading
Please read for 20 minutes each evening to an adult at home. Many of you are still not doing this and reading really is the key to unlocking learning.
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.
English
Next week, you will be writing your own book review of Kensuke's Kingdom. We have already planned this in class. However, over the weekend please jot down some interesting describing words you would like to use in your writing. This will make your review more interesting to read and showcase some vocabulary of your own.
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
Please also count in 3’s
For example, start at 30 and count upto 60 and back again
30 33 39 etc 60 57 54 etc
Times tables
Please practise your individual tables target for your test next week. Ask someone at home to test you on your tables – can you recall them quickly and accurately?
You can practise your tables on Hit the Button and timestables.co.uk
Please also practise your number facts. It has become evident that many of you are finding this tricky when you have been completing your written addition and subtraction.
You can practise your number facts on Hit the Button
It is crucial that you learn all of your table facts and your number facts as this will help you with many aspects of maths.
Spellings
Your spellings next week are from the Year 3 / 4 Statutory list
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 3 and 6 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!
The Year 4 Team
Year 1 Blog - Friday 24th November 2023
Date: 23rd Nov 2023 @ 12:16pm
Welcome to your Friday blog.
English
We continued to write our own story about Bob, the astronaut. We used our story plan to write a book. Every author needs an audience so we read our books to the children in Reception and Year 3. They gave us some great feedback which we can put into practise to improve our writing even more. We really tried hard with our handwriting and to write in complete sentences.
Please practise writing your tricky words correctly.
Phonics
Some of us were learning oy as in toy and oi as in coin, igh as in night and ie as in tie, ou as in sound and ow as in cow.
Some of us have been learning g in giant, u in human and some more high frequency words such as mouse, many and because.
Maths
This week we have been counting groups of objects in 2s and 5s. Practise counting in 2s and 5s forwards and backwards from different starting points.
We have also been learning about repeating patterns and making our own.
We have revised some of our previous learning about 2D and 3D shapes. We named the shapes and recalled their properties.
Play Level 1 of the shape reveal game.
R.E.
We have had our RSHE week. We talked about how our families and God love us and what they do to show their love. We wrote thank you sentences to the special people in our lives.
Science
We learnt all about the different diets that animals can have. We recapped the words carnivore, herbivore and omnivore from reception, then sorted different animals into each group.
D.T.
We started our Autumn term DT topic of mechanisms - how parts move and work together. We explored different books to see how they move. We read pop-up books, books with sliders and books with levers.
P.E.
All of year one were absolutely amazing in PE this week. Each group created half of their robot dance, which had to include robot movements that we could all do at the same time. We had some great ideas!
Computing
We continued practising our typing skills, both on laptops and iPads. We wrote simple sentences that had to include a finger space, this was so we could practise using the spacebar key on the keyboard.
History
After playing with our present-day toys last week, this week we talked about the toys that we had as a baby. We identified our favourite toy and stated whether this had changed since then, or remained the same. We also learnt that our baby toys are usually made of safer materials, such as wood, compared to our present-day toys which tend to be made of plastic.
If your child was in the history lesson this week, they will have come home with a sheet to fill out with your help. This is all about your favourite toy when you were little. We will be exploring toys from before they were born next week.
Art
We started to produce our final printing piece of work. We printed our handprints onto cardboard ready to be decorated next week. We learnt about the difference between background and foreground of a picture and how they need to compliment each other.
Forest School
This week we cooked bread on a stick. We remembered our rules about how to keep safe around the fire. Mrs Corbett had already made the dough out of flour, sugar and water. We had to find a suitable stick that was long enough and strong enough to hold the dough. We rolled our ball of dough into a long sausage shape and wrapped it securly around our stick. We cooked the bread in the embers of the fire. We noticed it changed colour as it was cooking. We had to be patient.When it was cooked we put jam, chocolate spread or butter on it. It was delicious!
All of us had a go at the cooking and some of us had an extra session. We chose our own learning in the nature area.
Thank you to everyone who has already donated items for our Christmas hamper. Our class colour is orange so if you can, please donate any items that are orange (chocolate orange, orange shower gel etc). Thank you!
Home Practice (Sumdog)
Phonics - igh words OR oy words OR g (j sound) words
Maths - counting in fives
Counting - Practise counting in 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s, forwards and backwards from different numbers. For example, start at 20 and count in 5s to 50: 20, 25, 30...
Year 5 Blog Friday 24th November 2023
Date: 21st Nov 2023 @ 11:02am
Happy Friday and welcome to your Friday Blog.
We have had a super week this week.
As you know, this week we did our RSE lessons. We talked about changes that males and females go through during puberty including physical and emotional changes. The children were extremely mature and sensible, and asked lots of questions. The children said they felt happy to learn about the changes they are experiencing or will experience in the future, and said that it was good to know that it is all normal.
In English we continued reading our clas novel Room 13, we have nearly finished now and it is getting very exciting. We have really enjoyed this book and can't wait to find out what our next novel is.
This week we have been focussing on starting our sentences in different ways so that our writing is more interesting for the reader. We found sentence starters in some books and pieces of writing and then tried to use these in our own writing. Here are some that we came up with:
Adverbials of time
At the stroke of midnight,
Eventually,
Suddenly,
Adverbials of place
The abandoned house...
Out of the darkness...
Somewhere in the distance...
Adverbials of manner
Hesitantly,
Carefully,
In maths we have been using bar charts, tables and line graphs to answer questions. We know that before answering questions we need to first look at the graph to learn:
What is it about?
What steps are the axes counting in?
In science we planned and carried out a fair test to investigate the amount of friction on different surfaces. We chose 5 different surfaces and measured how far a toy car could travel on each surface.
In order for our investigation to be a fair test, we knew we could only change one thing, and everything else would have to stay exactly the same.
We then made our predictions by stating which surface we thought would produce the most friction and which surface would produce the least and why.
We carried out our investigation in groups, recording our results in a table. Finally we wrote a conclusion where we stated whether our not our prediction was correct and how we could make the investigation more accurate. We also spoke about anything that surprised us.
Everybody did an amazing job at working scientifically.
In PE we did some rugby skills and also some handball skills. In rugby we learnt how to throw and receive a swing pass, and then we played some games to put our new learning into practice.
Home Practice
Angles
Next week in maths we are going to be measuring and identifying different types of angles. Please go on the Visnos website to have a go at measuring angles and deciding if they are acute, right angle, obtuse, or reflex.
Reading
Please read out loud every day for 20 minutes. Please write down any sentence starters that you find interesting to share with the class.
Spelling
Here are your spellings this week. Please practise every day.
incredible incredibly sensible sensibly reliable reliably respectable respectably aggreeable aggreeably enviable enviably awkward vegetable competition
Counting
Count out loud forwards in 1s from:
-7 to 17 -7, -6, -5, ...
-1 to 21 -1, 0, 1, ...
-51 to -31 -51, -50, -49, ...
Times Tables
Please practise your tables target every day. Make sure you know the related division facts too.
Sumdog
Times Tables Challenge
Spelling Challenge
Maths Competition in teams: Gryffndor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin
Date: 17th Nov 2023 @ 11:55am
Happy Friday everyone!
Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter are sleeping by the football pitch at PNE’s Deepdale Stadium this Friday 17th November. This is to raise money for a day centre called The Foxton Centre who provide food and warmth to the homeless people of Preston. Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter will sleep on cardboard and will only have with them what they can carry. This will give them an insight into how difficult it is for people sleeping on the streets, particularly as the nights are getting colder. We are all fortunate that we have food and somewhere warm to go to sleep every night, this is not the case for some people in Preston. Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter are asking for sponsorship, any donation would go a long way to help Preston’s vulnerable homeless community.
You can read more and donate here:
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 English we have been reading the Journey and Quest books by Aaron Becker. These books have no words so we have been writing the action to match the story. It has been very exciting. Next week we will be creating a comic book of the story, looking at bringing the pictures to life with our words. You can watch these stories in the videos below.
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In Maths we have been learning how to use our multiplication facts to solve problems. We looked at different arrays and used these to solve tricky times tables. We have set a Sumdog challenge to practice these strategies.
In this week’s French lesson, we learned how to count up to 20! We started the lesson by reviewing how to count up to 10 and used the Learning French Through Music ‘French Numbers’ song to remind us. We then learned up to 15, and then up to 20. We put some actions to some of the new vocabulary to help remember them and listened to the Alain Le Lait ‘French numbers 1 to 20’ song to help us. After this, we practised the numbers 10-20 by saying the number shown on the screen and by counting some items to say ‘Il y a ______’ = There are ________.
We have started our new DT topic this week. We will be looking at mechanisms, pivots and levers over the next few weeks developing ideas to make a moving picture. In Art we have been exploring drawing with scissors. We looked at some of Henry Matisse's art work and started to create out own pieces. We are using the amazing pictures from our Quest story books as inspiration. Check out our galleries.
We finished our geography learning on mapping and the UK. The children have really enjoyed learning about the geography of our home country. Next week we are beginning our Stone age history topic. We can't wait!
We continued with music based on our upcoming History topic, The Stone Age. We learnt to sing the second verse of We will rock you, the Stone Age song, accompanying with rhythms on stones. We revised the note – Ta ah from last lesson. We finished with a new rhythm game – Forbidden Rhythm.
Home Learning
Continue to read regularly and talk about what you have read with an adult.
Complete the Sumdog challenges, this week we are practising our addition and subtraction facts and our multiplication strategies. Below you will find a song to practice counting in 8s. Have a go!
Here are your home spellings for this week
decided, taking, serving, writing, making, driving, shaking , baked, giving, tiled, stored, using
Have a lovely weekend!
The Year 3 Team
Reception Blog - Friday 17th November 2023
Date: 17th Nov 2023 @ 10:51am
We started our week doing Art. This week it was using string to make the art. We had to put the strong into the paint and put it onto paper, we repeated this with different coloured paint and pieces of string, then we had to use another piece of paper to print the pattern.
For the Drawing Club this week, we have done the story Superworm. We learnt our new key words, zooming, couragous and indestrucable. We have talked about the setting and characters in the story, then we had to design our own superhero bug and describe its superpower. In phonics this week, we have been recapping our sounds so far and having a go at writing them in words.
In maths, we have been looking at capacity and weight. We have been doing lots of measuring using the vocabulary; full, half full, empty, lighter and heavier.
In this week’s French lesson, we learned how to say some colours in French. Rouge = red, bleu = blue, jaune = yellow, orange = orange, vert = green and rose = pink. We pointed to different things in the classroom when we heard the French colour being said and then played a few rounds of Splat, where we had to point to the right word and colour on the board.
In Music this week, we continued to learn the songs for our Christmas Nativity. We sang the first three songs again and started to learn the next two, then played the rhythms on the sand blocks, smooth blocks and bells
In PSHE this week, we have had a whole school focus for anti bullying week. Our topic has been kindness. The children have talked about what it means to be kind. We have also read the story 'Have you filled your Bucket today?' and each day we have tried to fill our pom pom bucket. This can be for manners, playing nicely with friends etc
For our understanding the world topic this week, we have taken a trip to the library and heard all about firemen and what they do to help us. We have also learnt about Vets and how important their jobs are. The children loved using this in their roleplay too, making all the animals better!
For PE this week we have enjoyed a session with Freddy Fit, we we did lots of exercises, games and even talked about healthy eating. Then we continued with Tots on Tyres with Mrs Cookson.
On Friday we had Yoga and Forest school. During yoga with Hannah, we did a new style of breathing for children in need, Pudsey Bear breathing!
In Forest School with Mrs Corbett, we listened to the story of "Robin's Winter Song" and discussed the seasons. We used strawberry laces to practise tying a simple knot.
We also started to talk about the Nativity story. We focussed on the first part of the story, the annunciation. We read from the bible all about how the Angel Gabriel visited Mary and told her she was going to have a baby. We then made our own puppets to act out the story.
And finally, Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter are sleeping by the football pitch at PNE’s Deepdale Stadium this Friday 17th November. This is to raise money for a day centre called The Foxton Centre who provide food and warmth to the homeless people of Preston. Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter will sleep on cardboard and will only have with them what they can carry. This will give them an insight into how difficult it is for people sleeping on the streets, particularly as the nights are getting colder. We are all fortunate that we have food and somewhere warm to go to sleep every night, this is not the case for some people in Preston. Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter are asking for sponsorship, any donation would go a long way to help Preston’s vulnerable homeless community.
You can read more and donate here:
Year 6 Blog Friday 17th November 2023
Date: 17th Nov 2023 @ 8:13am
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 here to see some of the pictures. Also, watch our Robinwood 2023 video on our YouTube channel, St Oswald’s TV, by clicking on the link.
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
Help the homeless
Foxton Centre Big PNE Sleepout Friday 17th November
Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter are sleeping by the football pitch at PNE’s Deepdale Stadium this Friday 17th November. This is to raise money for a day centre called The Foxton Centre who provide food and warmth to the homeless people of Preston.
Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter will sleep on cardboard and will only have with them what they can carry. This will give them an insight into how difficult it is for people sleeping on the streets, particularly as the nights are getting colder. We are all fortunate that we have food and somewhere warm to go to sleep every night, which is not the case for some people in Preston.
Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter are asking for sponsorship; any donation would go a long way to help Preston’s vulnerable homeless community.
You can read more and donate here:
Year 6’s learning continued on Thursday and Friday with:
- In Maths, we have continued our learning of chunking with three-digit numbers divided by 2 digit (414 divided by 23).
- In English, we learnt how to write a detailed letter so we could thank Robinwood for our fantastic time there.
- In History, we learnt about crime and punishment during the Roman times. They used the Twelve Tables as laws and gave severe punishments.
- In PSHE, as part of our ‘Antibullying Week’ we investigated different scenarios and discussed ways we can identify and support those who are affected by unkindness.
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 - Spellings A2 wk 3 (-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 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 3)
- This week's focus is on a mixture of x4, x7 and x8. Keep working on becoming quicker and more confident with your times tables.
- 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 today and will help with our learning next week.
Thank you to all those who gave money for Children in Need. Everyone looked amazing in their pyjamas!
Year 4 Blog Friday 17th November 2023
Date: 16th Nov 2023 @ 3:46pm
Help the homeless – Foxton Centre Big PNE Sleepout Friday 17th November
Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter are sleeping by the football pitch at PNE’s Deepdale Stadium this Friday 17th November. This is to raise money for a day centre called The Foxton Centre who provide food and warmth to the homeless people of Preston. Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter will sleep on cardboard and will only have with them what they can carry. This will give them an insight into how difficult it is for people sleeping on the streets, particularly as the nights are getting colder. We are all fortunate that we have food and somewhere warm to go to sleep every night, this is not the case for some people in Preston. Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter are asking for sponsorship, any donation would go a long way to help Preston’s vulnerable homeless community.
You can read more and donate here:
Welcome to your Friday blog
In English this week, we wrote a message in a bottle as if we were the character Michael. As space was limited, we had to ensure that we chose our words carefully.
In Maths, 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!
In Science we started our new topic - Electricity. At the start of the lesson, we tried to think of as many electrical appliances as they could, using the alphabet as a guide for ideas. We then discussed how all of these appliances get electricity, whether it is mains power or battery power. We then sorted some appliances into a Venn Diagram to show which type of electricity powers them, or whether they need both.
In RE, we finished our ‘Belonging’ topic by considering 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 also learnt about the work of Sean Devereax who was a missionary and aid worker in Somalia.
In Geography, we watched a video to investigate how people use a river. We found out that rivers can be used for a variety of purposes including helping to water crops, wash clothes and cooking utensils, make energy in the form of hydro-electric power and were vital for our survival.
In Art, following on from last week, we were given another ‘rule’ which we needed to follow. The rule involved drawing parallel lines and some shading. We were impressed with our efforts.
In French, we finished out Pets topic. To show our understanding of what we have learnt, we completed a listening activity, a reading activity and a writing activity. We did very well and we are ready to move on to our new topic of Home next week.
In Music, we continued to learn Au Clair de la Lune on our recorders, using the notes we already know – B A and G. We also started to practise some Carols for Christmas – Starry Night and O little town of Bethlehem.
In PSHE, as it was anti-bullying week, we watched the BBC Teach live lesson about this year's theme 'Make a Noise about Bullying'. We discussed what bullying is and learned how to speak out if it is happening. We also decided whether each scenario was 'banter or bullying' and gave reasons to show the difference. In addition, we discussed ideas of what we should say to someone if their joke isn't funny anymore and who our trusted adults are if we think we are being bullied.
We were also lucky to be put through our paces by Freddie Fit on Tuesday afternoon. You can see some pictures of us enjoying our fitness session here.
In addition, on Friday, we dressed in our pyjamas for Children in Need. Thank you for supporting this worthy cause. If you haven't brought in your £1, you can still bring it in next week!
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
Then practise counting in 60’s.
For example, start at 0 and down up to 720 and back again
0 60 120 180 etc 720 660 600 etc
Times tables
Please practise your individual tables target for your test next week. Ask someone at home to test you on your tables – can you recall them quickly and accurately?
You can practise your tables on Hit the Button and timestables.co.uk
Please also practise your number facts. It has become evident that many of you are finding this tricky when you have been completing your written addition and subtraction.
You can practise your number facts on Hit the Button
It is crucial that you learn all of your table facts and your number 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-.
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 6 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!
The Year 4 Team
Year 5 Blog Friday 17th November 2023
Date: 15th Nov 2023 @ 4:24pm
Help the homeless – Foxton Centre Big PNE Sleepout Friday 17th November
Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter are sleeping by the football pitch at PNE’s football ground, Deepdale Stadium this Friday 17th November. This is to raise money for a day centre called The Foxton Centre who provide food and warmth to the homeless people of Preston. Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter will sleep on cardboard and will only have with them what they can carry. This will give them an insight into how difficult it is for people sleeping on the streets, particularly as the nights are getting colder. We are all fortunate that we have food and somewhere warm to go to sleep every night, this is not the case for some people in Preston. Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter are asking for sponsorship, any donation would go a long way to help Preston’s vulnerable homeless community.
You can read more and donate here:
Happy Friday and welcome to your Friday Blog
We have had a very busy week this week. We spent a lot of time writing, practising, and perfecting our assembly which we performed for parents on Thursday. Everybody was extremely proud as it was all our own ideas and things that we felt proud of. It was nice to remind ourselves that – IT’S GOOD TO BE ME!
We had a visit from a familiar face on Tuesday, Freddy Fit. We always love our lessons with Freddy Fit where we learn about teamwork, resilience, and looking after our body as well as our mind. Freddy was impressed with everybody!
You can see us getting sporty in our gallery here.
This week has also been Anti-Bullying Week. The theme this year was Make a Noise About Bullying. We spoke about bullying online and offline and considered who we could speak to if we have concerns about bullying, advice we can give, and ways we can comfort and stand by each other.
You can see a film about Anti-Bullying Week here:
On Friday we all dressed in our pyjamas to raise money for Children in Need. It was great to see everybody come together for such a great cause.
Home Practice
Reading
Read out loud every day for 20 minutes. Look for different ways to start sentences, try to use them in your own writing.
Spelling
Here are your spellings this week, some spellings contain a hyphen, can you figure out why?
bruise yacht guarantee vehicle immediately co-operate co-own coexist co-ordinate re-enter re-emerge reinvent retell
Counting
Please count out loud in:
12s from 0 to 144 and back again 12, 24, 36, …
7s from 0 to 84 and back again 7, 14, 21, …
8s from 0 to 96 and back again 8, 16, 24, …
Times Tables
Please practise your tables target every day.
Sumdog
Spelling Challenge
Times Tables Challenge
Maths Competition
Year 1 Blog - Friday 17th November 2023
Date: 15th Nov 2023 @ 3:55pm
Welcome to your Friday blog.
English
This week we have been learning through another story about Bob and how he finds himself a best ever pet. We designed and described alien pets. We labelled a space theme menu- our ideas were great. We wrote sentences about what Bob likes to do with his pet. Then, we planned a story about Bob and today we started to write our books- we are authors! We will read our books to the children in Year 3.
Phonics
Some of us have been learning ou as in shout and revising ow as in cow.
Some of us have started to explore the alternative pronunciations that letters can make. We have been learning i in wild, o in both and in won, and c in face.
Maths
We've had a very busy week and we have done a lot of maths learning. First we completed four different learning checks to see how much we have learnt, we found these quite tricky but we persevered.
Then, we did some arithmetic questions together. We will be doing these once a week from now on so that we become more confident mathematicians.
P.E.
We all had a great time with Freddy Fit. We practised our throwing and did many different exercises to music. Freddy was very impressed with our listening and our participation.
P.S.H.E.
We read a lovely story about how we have different special people in our lives. We talked about how everyone is different and then drew pictures of what we do with our families, such as going to the park and eating out together.
R.E.
We learnt all about Jesus' baptism in the River Jordan. We read a story and wrote simple sentences about what happened.
Science
We learnt how to sort animals into groups using different criteria. For example, animals that can fly and animals that cannot. Miss Fisher even allowed us to write on the tables to sort them!
History
We had so much fun exploring our own modern day toys. We sorted them into groups and had a great time playing with them together.
Art
This week, we printed with different fruit and vegetables. We found that apples made a brilliant print and that broccoli was the trickiest to use.
French
We learned how to say some colours in French. Rouge = red, bleu = blue, jaune = yellow, orange = orange, vert = green, rose = pink, violet = purple, marron = brown, blanc = white, gris = grey, and noir = black. We then pointed to different things in the classroom when we heard the French colour being said and then listened to the Mr French ‘Les Couleurs’ song to help us.
Music
We started to learn the fourth and fifth songs for our Nativity. We revised the first three songs from last lesson, then clapped, tapped and played the rhythms on our instruments. We enjoyed singing our song Rhythm in the way we walk and discussing what a rhythm is.
Forest School
In our first session Storm Debbie was about so we stayed in the lodge. We practiced fastening sticks together by a technique called lashing. Some of us made the initial letter of our name. We also made forest eyes and other objects. We discovered that we had to keep the wool tight to securely fasten the sticks together. Super perseverance was shown.
We went into the nature area for our other session. We played a few games of "Hide the Hedgehog", then we chose our own learning. There was very busy learning including tree wrapping, tree climbing, cooking, restaurants, den building and games.
Help the homeless – Foxton Centre Big PNE Sleepout Friday 17th November
Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter are sleeping by the football pitch at PNE’s Deepdale Stadium this Friday 17th November. This is to raise money for a day centre called The Foxton Centre who provide food and warmth to the homeless people of Preston. Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter will sleep on cardboard and will only have with them what they can carry. This will give them an insight into how difficult it is for people sleeping on the streets, particularly as the nights are getting colder. We are all fortunate that we have food and somewhere warm to go to sleep every night, this is not the case for some people in Preston. Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter are asking for sponsorship, any donation would go a long way to help Preston’s vulnerable homeless community.
You can read more and donate here:
Home Practice (Sumdog)
Phonics - ou words OR or words OR split digraph o_e words
Maths - counting within 20
Counting - Practise counting in 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s, forwards and backwards from different numbers. For example, start at 20 and count in 5s to 50: 20, 25, 30...
Year 2 Blog Friday 17th November 2023
Date: 14th Nov 2023 @ 11:12am
Year 2 have had a great week, the highlight was probably today's pyjama day, everyone looked fabulous. Thank you so much for sending your charity money in. On Tuesday, the children got very active with Freddie Fit. They were so good at joining in with all the activities and the music was great to sing along to, the energy in the room was amazing!
In English, we have done a lot of writing. The children have retold stories, written character descriptions and instructions. Everyone is making a big effort to always make their writing look neat on the page, with finger spaces, lead-ins and letters on the line. More children are remembering to use capital letters and full stops and some children are even using sentence openers with commas and interesting joining words. Year 2 are getting very good at reading aloud in class or groups too. Please keep reading lots at home, it makes such a big difference.
Reading
In Year 2, children should read for at least 15 minutes every night and discuss the book with an adult. This will help with understanding the text and learning new words.
You could write down these new words in a word book and find out what they mean using a dictionary (practise alphabetical order). It is amazing to see the list grow, something to be very proud of, especially when children realise how many more words they can use and understand!
Please 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.
Reading books are changed every Monday. However, if you need to change a book another time, we will change it as needed.
Reading resources:
Oxford Owl – This resource has an exciting range of carefully levelled eBooks to help children learn to read and really enjoy it.
Go to https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/ and login. Explore the site and enjoy reading 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 Wednesday. A sheet will go home every Wednesday with the spelling list on. This is for home practise only and can be kept with you.
It is useful to write the words down on the spelling sheet, but also to call the words out and spell them out loud using the letter sounds or names. Other ideas include breaking the words up and writing them down in different colours (improve). You could look for words within words (hour) or think of your own ways to remember the word for example, spell it aloud using a tune or song.
You will have a Sumdog challenge on these words to complete by next Wednesday.
This week’s spellings are (15.11.23 – 22.11.23):
path hour
bath sure
move sugar
prove eye
improve who
In Maths, we are learning a lot of new vocabulary about multiplication. The children have been doubling, doing repeated addition and sequencing, looking at arrays and they have seen how this relates to times tables and multiplying.
Maths
At home, count forwards and backwards in 5s to 60. Start at different numbers each time. For example, start counting forwards from 15 or backwards from 45. Look at how this relates to the 5x table.
Practise 2-, 5-, 10- and 3-times tables on a game called Hit the Button. Follow this link: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button
You will have an array/repeated addition challenge on Sumdog to complete by next Friday.
Sumdog
Log in at www.sumdog.com
In RE, we have started our new topic, Preparations. The children talked and wrote about the different ways they prepared for Christmas at home, you do some lovely things during the Chrstmas season! We then thought about how Christians prepare for the coming of Jesus during Advent by lighting Advent Candles, opening Advent Calendars and some people make Christingles or go to Church more.
In PSHE, it was anti-bullying week. The children discussed bullying and what it means and learnt to make a noise if bullying happens!
In this week’s French lesson, we learned how to say some colours in French. Rouge = red, bleu = blue, jaune = yellow, orange = orange, vert = green, rose = pink, violet = purple, marron = brown, blanc = white, gris = grey, and noir = black. We repeated these words to help remember them and matched the correct word to the colours on the board. We then pointed to different things in the classroom when we heard the French colour being said and then played a few rounds of Splat, where we had to point to the right colour on the board. We also listened to the Mr French ‘Les Couleurs’ song to help us.
During Music, we started to learn the next two songs for our Nativity and played the rhythms on the tambourines and tambours. We practised the three songs introduced last lesson. We used the words rhythm and tempo to describe the music.
In Art, the children drew some very small objects in their sketch books. They looked very closely at the size, shape and details, which was quite tricky, but they produced some excellent sketches and really enjoyed the process. In D.T, we were exploring structures of houses and used straws and blu-tac to build our own 3-D structure.
We would really appreciate a few more boxes if you have any spare!
Forest School
In our first session Storm Debbie was about so we stayed in the lodge. We practiced fastening sticks together by a technique called lashing. Some of us made the initial letter of our name. We also made forest eyes and other objects. We discovered that we had to keep the wool tight to securely fasten the sticks together. Super perseverance was shown.
We went into the nature area for our other session. We played a few games of "Hide the Hedgehog", then we chose our own learning. There was very busy learning including tree wrapping, tree climbing, cooking, restaurants, den building and games.
Next week (23.11.23) we will be visiting the library.
The children may bring a favourite book in from home to read during quiet reading time next week.
Have a great weekend.
Year 2 Team.
Year 3 Friday 10th November 2023
Date: 10th Nov 2023 @ 4:02pm
Welcome to your Friday Blog.
We have had another great week in Year 3.
In English, we have written our own story based on the book Ice Palace, trying to use adjectives and similes for description and adverbs to make the story more interesting. The children have enjoyed finishing this complete with illustrations and cover page.
In Maths we have continued to work on addition and are now learning how to do subtraction using formal written methods.
In Art we have begun a study of L S Lowry’s painting ‘Coming from the Mill’ looking at shapes, lines and colours. We are going to use these to make a collage inspired by this painting.
In Geography we looked at the counties, rivers and hills in the North West of the UK and found where Preston was.
This week in French, we started our new topic of Numbers 0-20. We started the lesson recapping numbers 0-5 and then 0-10. We listened to KidsTV123 ‘Numbers Song in French’ to help count up to 10. We sang this faster each time! Our first activity was to find the correct number for the French words, our second activity was to count fruit, and our third activity was to say which number was missing. We also listened to Learn French Through Music ‘French Numbers Song’ which also got faster each time! To show we knew numbers 0-10, we drew the right number of fish in a fish bowl and the right number of spots on a ladybird.
Home Practice
On Sumdog there are spelling and maths challenges. Your spellings for this week are:
Playtime, birthday, background, ballroom, baseball, cupcake, doorway, eardrum, evergreen, chairman, patchwork, driveway.
Don’t forget to keep up with the fantastic home reading.
Have a lovely weekend!
The Year 3 team
Year 6 Blog Friday 10th November 2023
Date: 10th Nov 2023 @ 3:54pm
Welcome to the Year 6 weekly blog.
On Tuesday, Year 5 and 6 took a trip to Blackpool Theatre to see Frank Cotrell-Boyce, the author of the new book ‘The Wonder Brothers’. He told us all some great stories about how he became an author, showed off some magic tricks and even read from his new book. Everyone received a copy, which most of us started reading on the way back to school.
On Wednesday, 12 of our pupils were chosen to be part of the ‘Maths Team’ who went up against Our Lady and St Gerard’s, Mary Magdalen and St Teresa’s. It was a tough challenge but everyone worked really well as a team, helping us to achieve fourth out of 8. Great work team!
Throughout the week, the School Councillors have done a fantastic job of selling various items for the Poppy Appeal to every class. They would like to say thank you to anyone that bought or donated any money. They will count up and reveal the final amount soon.
This week’s learning in Year 6:
- In Maths, we have learnt and practised how to solve large division questions using mental methods (such as partitioning) and the chunking method. It is very important for everyone to keep practising their times and divisions so hopefully the overnight work has helped them become quicker.
- In English, we completed our novel Clockwork, which ended quite mysteriously. Then we introduced Private Peaceful, a story of two brothers who head off to France and Belgium in World War I. We will be learning about these complex characters over the next few weeks.
- In PE, we focused on using various tactics in volleyball: aiming at space, working as a team and serving. Outside, we began tag rugby, where we learnt the rules of passing back, turnovers and knock-ons.
- In PSHE, we discussed the word, ‘worry’, how we can see signs of it in our friends and created a range of strategies to overcome the feeling.
- In Geography, we completed our Mountains topic by creating an advanced PowerPoint on three tectonic disasters (volcano, tsunami and earthquake) using transitions and hyperlinks.
- In History, we began our new topic of ‘Crime and Punishment’. We learnt to chronologically order different periods over time, through BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era).
- In Science, ‘Circulatory System’ is our new topic. We began by learning how our circulatory system is responsible for transporting nutrients, water and oxygen to billions of blood cells.
- This week in French, we started our Cultural Understanding presentation project. We will be working on this every week in our groups with the aim to present about ‘Christmas in France’. This week, we created our groups, decided our roles within those groups, started sharing some ideas for what will be included in the presentation and what research we will need to do.
- In Music, we continued to learnBacharach Anorak on the Now we can play the whole piece and improvise. We sang the song Jazz is cool, discussing the texture and singing in groups.
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 SUITCASE)
- Bring a water bottle (you can refill this any time during your stay)
- NO LUNCH – Robinwood is providing ALL your food for the entire stay.
- Do not forget your coat!
Do not forget to check our twitter account, St Oswald's twitter account where you can see Year 6 having a super time.
Reading
- Try to do your best to read over the weekend. Enjoy a really good book – you could even read ‘The Wonder Brothers’!