Reception Autumn Term Week 9

Welcome back! We hope you all managed to have a restful half term.

Reception have been very busy learning about Diwali, the Hindu festival of light, this week. They learnt about some of the customs and traditions used to prepare families for this special celebration. The children heard the story of Rama and Sita and learnt about the symbolic meanings behind the religious artefacts that Hindu families use. Reception then went on to make some of their own objects, including Rangoli and Mehndi patterns and diva lamps.  Did you know that the word Diwali means ‘rows of lighted lamps’?

Reception have also been learning about Guy Fawkes Night and why we commemorate this event in Great Britain every year. The children have enjoyed making their own firework paintings and models and even constructed a large bonfire to use in their role-play.

On Wednesday, we held our first ‘Come and Read’ session. This is a new initiative that will continue to take place every Wednesday at 3pm and is simply an opportunity to share a book with your child. Younger siblings are also invited and if you are unable to attend, grandparents or aunts and uncles are also very welcome to come in your place. Please do not feel any pressure to attend however- we understand that many of you have work commitments. Your child will still be able to enjoy a book with one of the class adults.

On Thursday, Reception had the opportunity to plant some bulbs, ready for the springtime.

On Friday, we had our first gymnastics session with Mr Dugan from Dame Alice Owen School. The children had lots of fun exploring different ways of rolling. If your child does not wear black trainers to school as part of their school uniform, please send in a pair of plimsoles or trainers for them to change into. Thank you.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Theo and Mrs Gymer

 

Week 9: 8th November, 2019

This week the children have been working hard in many areas of their learning.

In English, they have begun their new unit on Mythical Magic which will be focusing on Roman Myths.  They wrote about their own Gods and Goddesses and will be using these as a writing resource next week.


In Maths the class have been looking at arrays and skip counting.  Using a hundred square they have been discovering patterns when skipping in 3s and 4s and describing the patterns using words such as diagonal, column and row.  The children have also been using the Think 10/100/1000 strategy in answering maths calculations.

In Science they looked at finding patters between the volume of sound and the pitch.  In PE they continued with the focus of invasion games looking at the skill of dribbling.  I can confirm that their skills in this area were fabulous to watch!

In Music the children have continued with Kaz and learnt to follow a round of beats.  Well done to Mia, Lola and Aidan who were chosen to be the leaders when performing this round.

In RE the focus has been on Judasim where the children have learnt about the Torah being the sacred text of the Jewish people and how the Torah refers to the five books of Moses. They also spent time to understand what festivals are connected to the Torah and learnt about Simchat Torah. Simchat Torah celebrates and marks the conclusion of the annual cycle of public Torah readings, and the beginning of a new cycle.

Homework for this weekend is Mathletics and Spag.com.

We have a Class Mass on the theme of the Eucharist next Tuesday and invite you to come and celebrate this with the children.

Have a lovely weekend.

Ms Varga and Mrs McNamara

PS: Have you checked out our class video on the Extraordinary Month of Mission?

 

 

 

 

 

Year 6 – 08/11/19

Well done, Year 6, for a beautiful class mass on Wednesday. Your reading, singing and participation was wonderful and you made me very proud.

This week has been both Parliament Week and Judaism Week. For Parliament Week, we discussed the current political climate, then the children wrote about what issues are important to them and what they would implement if they were Prime Minister. Next week, we will debate some of these issues in front of the House of Commons backdrop.

For Judaism week, we learned why the Torah is the most sacred part of the Jewish Bible and looked at ways Jewish people observe the sacredness of the Torah.

Our maths has been focused on using mental strategies to work out calculations efficiently, as well as using estimation as a checking tool for more complicated calculations.

In science, we made observations about the mould-growing experiment that we set up before half-term. We were very intrigued as to why some of the bread had turned red!

In art, the children learnt how to mono-print their self-portraits and in PE we carried on with football training, this week practising how to receive the ball well.

This week’s home learning (due Tuesday 12th November ) is as follows:

English You have each been given a sheet with your writing targets on and a story starter underneath. Your task is to write another paragraph of the story whilst focusing on your targets and attempting to use two of the hyphenated spelling words below.
Spellings Using hyphens to join compound adjectives to avoid ambiguity:

man-eating

little-used

rock-bottom

wide-eyed

pig-headed

tight-fisted

cold-hearted

stone-faced

green-eyed

short-tempered

Maths

Times tables

(online) Mathletics tasks on estimating and using mental strategies.

 

Continue to revise all times tables.

Reading Daily reading and recording in Reading Records.

 

How to complete your reading record

As you’re reading, take notice of the language used then. When you’ve finished reading, choose an aspect of language that you really liked, write it into your reading record, and then explain why you found it effective.

Things you might comment on:

·         Effective use of personification;

·         An effective metaphor;

·         An example of ‘show don’t tell’ ;

·         Good use of the semi-colon;

·         Hyphenation;

·         Direct speech that develops the characterisation;

·         Formal language;

·         A new word whose meaning you worked out from the context.

Enjoy your weekend.

Miss Donatantonio

Year 2 Blog Week 8

In November we pray for the people we love who are no longer with us. This week Year 2 created a beautiful display of poppies for our sacred space. The children also wrote the names of people they are praying for on poppies and hung them from our prayer tree.

This week was UK Parliament week and Year 2 had great fun role-playing in the The House of Commons and The House of Lords. There were some great candidates for the role of Speaker!

In P.E. this week we started gymnastics. The children had great fun on the mats perfecting their forward rolls and their log rolls! There are definitely some talented gymnasts in our midst!

We thought about ways to care for our Common Home and give back to the Earth. We planted some bulbs and we await to see the flowers in Spring.

Home Learning: Spellings Wk 5

knee, know, knock, gnat, gnaw, knit, gnome, knot, known
Mathletics: Number line order
Have a lovely weekend,
Miss Davey

Autumn 2, Week 1

We have had a busy week, learning about and planning our our Willow Pattern fables in English. We have also completed online adverb activities using spag.com and explored when to use the words a or an. The children all did very well in their adverb spelling tests – thank you for supporting their learning at home.

In maths we have been estimating and exploring measurement and mass. We have been working hard to read and interpret scales. Next week, we will be regrouping using cherry models to add and subtract. Please click on the link below to see and example of the activities we will be doing.

year 3 maths

Year 5 visited us on Thursday to discuss parliament and the snap election that is taking place in December – next week we will be making information posters to share with year 5.

In science we have made our our fossils, using shells and clay. We also investigated how fossils are formed.

During art, we have learnt to use water colours and created remembrance day collages.

Home learning:

Mathletics and spag.com activities have been set.

Please read and sign reading records.

spelling: creating adverbs using the suffix ly. When the root word ends in y we change it to an i and add ly e.g. happy becomes happily

happily, angrily, lazily, easily, busily, greedily, messily, wearily, cheekily, clumsily.

 

Autumn 2 Week 2

It has been wonderful welcome the children back this week and hear about their half term breaks.
This week was UK Parliament Week. The children built on their learning from last year about the structure of Parliament to understand General Elections. We discussed the upcoming election and why it is happening. The children will be watching out for campaign leaflets that will be coming through our letter boxes soon to learn more about who wants to represent our constituency. We also spent some time using the resources sent from the Parliament Education Service to understand how a bill becomes a law.
This week was also ‘Other Faith Week’ and our focus was on Judaism. As it is the Year of the Word, we have been learning about the Torah. We discovered what it is and its connection to our own Bible. After learning about how sacred it is, we looked at ways the Jewish community express respect and show importance of the the ancient text.
In PE, we welcomed Harry back for more football training. This week the key skill was receiving.
Home learning this week is on mathletics and spag.com. Children are also expected to complete 5 tests on readtheory.org.
New spellings for this half term will be given out on Monday.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Mrs Lines

Autumn 2 – Week 1

We have had a great week of learning! In Maths we have been been adding by making 5 and some more. We call it think 5.  We have been using counters and tens frames.

In English we read the story Voices in the Park By Anthony Browne. We drew wonderful story maps to retell the story.  Can you find books at home written by Anthony Browne?

In Religion we have been learning about Judaism, we looked at their special book called the Torah. We made scrolls with Hebrew writing on to show what the Torah looks like.

 

We planted daffodil bulbs to put things back into our world as we are continuing to think about Pope Francis’ message about caring for our common home.

Home Learning – Spellings, Mathletics and a book review.

Have a lovely weekend!

Mrs Carey

Mission Rosary