Potter Class

Welcome to Potter

Class Teacher:

Mr G. Byrom-Jones

Teaching Assistants:

Mrs H. Feeney

Miss J. Geoffroy

Mr. I Carter (2 Days)

July 2022

Well I cannot believe we have come to the end of an the academic year. We have really enjoyed the summer term and this year. We particularly enjoyed the visit to Lytham .

Thank you for all your support this year . Have a lovely summer break and will see you in September.

Pupils who are with Mr Byrom-Jones next year, it would be lovely if you could email any photographs of the summer to gbjones@moorhey.lancs.sch.uk

W/C: 27th June 

This week we have been to Wild Adventure in Wrea Green , learnt about seaside holidays in the past , undertaken some data handling activities and had a Julia Donaldson day on Friday 1st July 

English / Phonics 

This week we have redrafted our seaside poem using our senses . Some of us enhanced our poems further by using adjectives . The poems were great and are on display for all to see.

 We have also been learning about instructions . After identifying why we need instructions and some of the features we produced our own instructions ( linking to seaside theme) on how to build a sandcastle . We remembered to use dynamic ‘bossy ‘ at the start of our instructions and the illustrations to accompany the instructions were great . We also applied our understanding of instructions when made ‘Gruffalo Crumble’ linking to Donaldson day .

  The sound this week in phonics has been ‘ear’ .

Maths 

Our Maths focus this week has been on Data Handling . On Tuesday we were given some images to sort on a Venn Diagram and considered some ways to sort the information. Once established the pictures could be sorted into items you find in a garden / on the beach , we were all able to sort the information confidently / correctly . Well done!! On Thursday we revisited pictograms and produced pictograms on favourite ice cream flavours . We followed the keys given and some of us were even  challenged further  with  1 ice cream representing 2 people ! Therefore we worked out that 1 person was half an ice cream . 

Topic 

It was lovely to hear about seaside holidays in the past ! This week we visited the Victorian Era with the aid of the Magic Grandad to series. We learnt about bathing machines , swimming / bathing costumes and how it was perceived as rude ( especially for women ) if skin was exposed ! We also learnt that children would have played with metal buckets and spades ( which would have rusted ) , Punch and Judy and that there was no such thing as sun cream ! Therefore items such as parasols were used as protection from the sun . On Thursday afternoon we made our own sandcastles using sand and tubes . Don’t they look great ? 

PSHCE 

We have continued to learn about road safety and created some road safety posters .

Donaldson Day

We really enjoyed leaning about Julia Donaldson and linked the story of ‘The Gruffalo’ to Science and in English . After learning some facts about Donaldson we read ‘The Gruffalo ‘ together . We then produced some ‘Beware ‘ posters and then considered how the Gruffalo was adapted to his woodland environment . ideas included having fur to keep him warm and orange eyes to see in the dark ! We concluded the day by analysing and following instructions to make ‘Gruffalo Crumble’.  It was delicious !

Wild Discovery 

What a fantastic day we had at Wild Discovery for our end of year visit . We saw lots of interesting animals including monkeys , tortoises , deer  birds , otters , goats and reindeer . 

Next Week:

Science week 

Monday 4th July - Visit to Lytham

Thursday 7th July - Transition Day

Have a lovely weekend 

Potter Class 

WC: 20^th June

Another busy week in Potter Class. This week we enjoyed role playing a visit to the seaside and using our money skills to purchase chips and ice cream at our role-play seaside café.

English / Phonics

This week we have concluded our unit on nursery rhymes and focused on ‘The Old Woman who swallowed a fly’, we really enjoyed this as not only did we have to remember the order of animals, but we found it really funny! Learners activities linked to the rhyme included a news report, colourful semantics and writing our own verse were she swallowed a different animal! As the week progressed we planned a seaside poem based on our senses linking to our role-play (see below).

 In phonics we most of us have been learning about the ‘oi’ sound.

Maths

We have continued to learn about money and giving change. We consolidated our learning in a real life context when we had to purchase snacks / drinks (at differentiated levels) and check we had been given the correct change. Well done everybody!

Topic / PSD

On Thursday we took advantage of the weather and role-played the seaside!  We pretended to catch the train to the seaside and once at the seaside we went crabbing and played in the sands with our buckets and spades in the sand. We then used our money skills to buy some seaside treats. We had lots of fun! 

 We have also been learning about  safety at the seaside and used Barnaby Bear to support us with our learning.  We talked about the importance of keeping the beach tidy and clean and the meaning of different flags and when it is safe and unsafe to swim.

In other areas of the curriculum…

• We had a wonderful sports day and well done to everyone taking part.
• We have continued to learn about road safety with Mrs Stewart
• On Friday we had a Spanish day at school, and learnt about the flag, greetings and culture.

Next week:

• Visit to Wild Discovery (Monday 27^th)
• Donaldson Day (Friday 1^st)

W/C: 17th June

This is what we have been learning this week:

English

We have continued to learn about Nursery Rhymes and have completed lots of activities around them. On Monday we recited the nursery rhyme 'Little Bo Peep' and completed a lost sheep poster. We really enjoyed this activity especially making sheep with the cotton wool. On Tuesday we did all about 'Humpty Dumpty' and Mr Byrom-Jones did an attention builder were we sang Humpty Dumpty and pushed different eggs off the wall , with some of the eggs being hard boiled and some not! We then wrote newspaper reports about the event . Some of used colourful semantics to build the sentence. We concluded the week with 'Little Miss Muffett' and created wanted posters for the spider. We even made hand print spiders. 

  In phonics most of us have been learning about the 'ow' sound .

Maths 

This week we have continued to learn about money. We have played shop and played board games and differentiated levels to develop our understanding of coins and adding them together to make totals.

Topic (including music)

We are really enjoying our topic 'We're all going on a summer holiday'.  On Monday we sang the seaside town 'Oh I do like to be beside the seaside' with some of  us even choosing to participate in a solo. On Wednesday we made a seaside in a shoebox! We really enjoyed this activity and the seaside scenes look fantastic! We concluded the week with some sand art. 

In other areas of the curriculum:

In PE we have been getting ready for sports day

In PSHCE we have started to learn about road safety with Mrs Stewart and are looking forward to applying our knowledge when out and about in the local area.

Have a lovely weekend

Potter Class

WC: 6^th June

Welcome back. We hope you had a lovely half term and enjoyed the Jubilee Celebrations. This is what we have been up to this week.

English / Phonics

This half term the focus of our lessons is around Nursery Rhymes, poems and instructions. We started off the week with Mr Byrom-Jones asking us what nursery rhymes we knew, Whilst at first we thought we did not know many, when we listened to them we were surprised how many we actually knew. One of our favourite nursery rhymes this week was the ‘Queen of Hearts’. To support our learning we made our own tarts in class before making missing posters for the tarts and a wanted poster for the knave. We have also written about and shared our holiday news. It was lovely to hear all about the jubilee celebrations with some pupils attending a street party.

In phonics most of us have been learning about the ‘ur’ sound – with words including ‘burn’, ‘turn’ , ‘fur’ and ‘burger’.

Maths

This week in Maths we have been learning about money. Some of us have been making amounts using pennies,  whilst some of us have been making different amounts to 10p, 20p and 50p. We have participated in lots of practical activities to support our learning including playing shop.

Topic /PSHCE

Our topic this half term is “We are all going on a summer holiday!”  Mr Byrom-Jones introduced the topic by asking us what we think we may find at the seaside. Once established we then completed a seaside a collage by using images which we liked from  holiday brochures.

 In PSHCE we learnt about sun safety with Mrs Feeney

In other areas of the curriculum:

PE – The focus of this half term is athletics. In preparation for sports day we have developing our athlete skills by differentiating between jogging, running and sprinting and participating in relay races with our peers.

RE – We have started to learn about Yom Kippur in our RE lessons.

Homework

We plan to make seaside dioramas  in class, therefore we are asking for each pupil to bring in a shoebox / box for Tuesday 14^th June  We would also like to see photographs / images of a holiday a pupil has been on. This can be sent in on Tuesday or emailed to gbjones@moorhey.lancs.sch.uk.

Have a lovely weekend

Potter Class

W/C: 23rd May

We are ready for the half term break. This is what we have been up to this week.

English /Phonics 

This week we have concluded our work on the Wizard of Oz. On Monday we compared the book to the film by completing a Venn Diagram ( the shoes in the original story are actually silver !) and on Tuesday we retold the story with the aid of picture whilst some of us built sentence about the plot using colourful semantics . We finished the week by creating our own tornado poems . First we watched some  tornado video clips and listened to some audios and thought about lots of adjectives to describe the sound, the damage they cause as well as considering our own thoughts and feelings . We also participated in a tornado drill like they do in some parts of the USA and hid under the table when they heard the siren ! Using the adjectives we turn created the tornado poem . Mr Byrom-Jones , Mrs Feeney and Miss Geoffroy were very impressed !!

 In phonics some of us have continued to build CVC words from phase 2 whilst most of us have been identifying and writing words with the /ar/ sound . We were quite surprised how many there were . 

Maths 

This week Maths we have been learning about weight . We have physically been feeling items to see which was the heaviest / lightest with some of us learning that the weight is not always dependent on size.

Science 

In Science we have concluded our work on the seasons . We picked some twigs on the school grounds and each of us made four trees , each representing the 4 seasons . We then produced some lovely art work to illustrate the four seasons . Don’t they look great ? Well done Potter  Class ! 

Topic 

This week we have completed our topic ‘Manchester to Mumbai . On Tuesday we recapped on our knowledge of Mumbai , before learning about rangoli patterns ( with a vast majority of the population of Mumbai being Hindus ) . We looked at some rangoli patterns and learnt about how they were created to welcome visitors and bring good luck , particularly during Diwali . We then had a good a chalking our own on the school playgrounds as well as colouring in our own . We even tried to make them symmetrical ! In continuation with our topic we also sampled some Indian cuisine - curry , rice , poppadoms, naan bread and Bombay  potatoes . We consolidated our understanding of Manchester and Mumbai by competing a Venn Diagram to highlight the similarities and differences . We discovered that Manchester is a diverse and cultural city .

In other areas of the curriculum :

PE - We have continued with our Bollywood dancing 

Communication - we have learnt some Makaton signs to support teaching and learning in the classroom . They have included ‘First’, ‘Next’, ‘Help’ and  ‘Toilet’. 

It was lovely to see some parents  / carers at the school’s jubilees celebrations . We hope you enjoyed yourself .

Have a lovely half term and enjoy the jubilee celebrations

W/C: 16th May 

Another busy week in Potter Class. This week we have continued to learn about the 'Wizard of Oz', melted witches, made pizzas as part of Mathematics and learnt about Mumbai. We have also done some preparation to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee next week.

English / Phonics 

We have continued with the fantasy text 'The Wizard of Oz'. Some of us started off the week by drawing the wizard from actual descriptions from the text, whilst some of us made a Wicked Witch of the West Wanted Poster. On Tuesday we had lots of fun by making model witches out of bicarbonate soda and green food colouring before 'melting' her using vinegar! We have also thought about if we had a magic pair of shoes where would they take us, with examples including New York, Blackpool and Nanna's house.

 In phonics some of us have continued to build words from phase 2 whilst most of us have been learning the 'oo' sound in phase 3.

Maths

This week we have been learning about fractions and recognising fractions as two equal halves. Some of us practiced our halving skills by cutting up fruit and on Tuesday we practiced our halving skills by making pizzas and splitting them into two equal parts. Another group have been finding half of shapes, made and halved pizzas before finding half of quanities. 

Topic 

For our topic 'Manchester meets Mumbai'. We have been learning about Mumbai itself. After watching a video about Mumbai, we found out that it was previously called Bombay and is a very diverse city. After colouring in a map of India and identifying Mumbai on a map we made a Shanty town like the ones found in Mumbai, out of junk modelling.

In other areas of the curriculum

- We have participated in Bollywood dancing, undertaken some crafts for the Jubilee and sang 'Bringing us Together' during our music lessons.

Have a good weekend 

Potter Class 

It has been a while since we have updated this page however normal service has been resumed! Mr Byrom-Jones teaches Potter Class full time, and we are helped by Mrs Feeney, Miss Geoffroy and Mr Carter (2 days).

During the past few weeks Mr Banks has taught us Place Value  in Maths and Indian folk tales in English. With Mr Byrom-Jones we have been learning about multipication and the fantasy story ‘The Wizard of Oz’. We have also been learning about Manchester and it’s history during the topic ‘Manchester meets Mumbai’ as well as learning about the Manchester artists L.S Lowry (making our own L.S Lowry scenes) and drawing and painting some Manchester landmarks. Next week we will be focusing more on Mumbai and making comparisons between the two cities.

 We had a French Day in school on Thursday 5^TH May and on 12^th May we had a Rosen day – in honour of the children’s author / poet Michael Rosen, who one of our primary classes are named after.

 During our French day we  located France on a  map, collaged a flag , learnt the names of French colours( and participated in the party game ‘corners’ to support our learning), learnt and played boules before having a French food tasting session in the afternoon. We had lots of fun!

For Rosen Day Mr Byrom-Jones read us Rosen’s poem ‘Chocolate Cake’ before we watched him performing it. We found him to be quite funny and animated! After that we worked collaboratively to make our very own chocolate cake! In the afternoon we got to taste and we had to use lots of adjectives and create sentences about the chocolate cake with some of us using colourful semantics.  Please have a look at our photos below:

What a busy 2 weeks ! Below you can find out what we have  been learning since the 28 February.

W/C: 28th and 7th March 

English 

During the past two weeks we have been learning about the fairy take ‘Sleeping Beauty’. During the past 2 weeks we have listened to the story , made Christening invitations , written character descriptions , newspaper reports , retold the story , watched the Disney version and acted it out ! Phew! We have have also incorporated our own learning targets into our work . Next week we are going to look at the original version of the story and it is quite different ! 

 We also explored graphic novels as part of World Book Day and undertook lots of activities relating to superheroes including making our own city scapes, scavenger hunts and superhero puppets. 

 In phonics most of us have been learning about the ch and sh sound whilst some of us having been using magnetic letters to build CVC words from phase 2 phonics . 

Communication 

We have been incorporating lots of communication activities in our lessons . We have really enjoyed learning the song and signs to ‘Long, long ago ‘ with the aid of signing hands ( see below ) as well learning the makaton signs of weather , linking to our Science topic . 

Maths 

In Maths most of us have been finding the difference between two numbers and have used concrete aids such as unified cubes and Numicon to support our learning  This week we have all been learning about money . Some of us have been counting pennies and some of us have been making different amounts to 10p and 20p using different coins . We have participated in lots of activities to support our learning , which have included the use of 

computer software , bingo  and practical activities such as shop role play to support our learning . 

Science 

In Science we have been learning about weather . Some of us have been matching pictures to different types of weather to pictures whilst some of us have been illustrating different types of weather and using vocabulary associated with it. We have also been learning the Makaton signs for weather (see below). Why not have a try at learning these at home?

Topic 

In topic we have been learning about Elizabeth I. We listened to a lively song (see below)  to support our learning and drew a portrait of her before colouring them in with oil pastels. 

PSHCE

This week it was International Women's Day and to celebrate we drew a picture of an important person in our life. However prior to this we were surprised to learn that women were not always treated the same as men in the past! For example they couldn't vote and their career choices were very limited. 

Have a lovely weekend

Dahl Class

W/C: 21^st February

We hope you had a lovely break.  We have welcomed  Rosie into our class next week. Here is what we have been up to this week.

English / Phonics

This week we wrote about our half term. It was lovely to hear what we have all been up to, including walks in the park. We then produced two leaflets about our roleplay experiences linking to our work ‘On the Continent’ with one leaflet about South America and the continent of Brazil and another leaflet about the African continent Kenya (see below).

 In phonics most of have been learning about the ‘qu’ sound and have undertaken lots of practical activities to support our learning including our favourite sound hunt outside.

Maths

This week in Mathematics most of us have been learning about the difference between two numbers and we found this a bit tricky at first! To support our learning we decorated biscuits with two different amounts of smarties. After decorating them we had to compare the amounts and find the difference by saying how many more. Later in the week we used cubes / number lines to help us find the difference. Another group also made biscuits but had to add one each time (up to 8)

Science

We have revisited seeds and plans and discussed what they needed to grow. We then decorated our own egg shells, put cress seeds in them , soaked them  in cotton wool  and put them in a sunny place. We are looking forward to egg and cress sandwiches this week! We have also put some cress seeds in the cupboard to see if the dark has any affect.

Topic

In our topic ‘On the Continent’ we have visited Africa and Australia. For Africa we focused on Kenya and roleplayed a safari. We really enjoyed seeing all the animals on the interactive board and even got squirted by an animal (Mr Byrom-Jones with a toy elephant and a spray bottle). We then roleplayed a Kenya village and ate  rice and flatbread. We also learnt that Kenya was hot and dry.

 For Australia we located it on a map and remembered that it was the smallest continent. We also had the opportunity to look at an Australian didgeridoo (it was quite difficult to play). We roleplayed the plane journey on Quantas and once in Australia we saw the Sydney Opera House, Ayers Rock, and got wet again when visiting the Great Barrier Reef. We later sampled some Australian food which was fairy bread and vegemite on toast with the latter not being very popular.

PSHCE

This week has been a whole focus on ‘Speaking out to say safe’ and Dahl class recapped on appropriate and inappropriate  touching. Using resources from the NSPCC we coloured in a body map on appropriate places others can touch and inappropriate places that can’t be touched. Well done Dahl! You were all very sensible and mature.

Have a good weekend

Dahl Class

Next Week:

Sleeping Beauty

Comparing Numbers

Weather in Science

Topic – The Crown

W/C: 7th February

Another busy week in Dahl. We are certainly ready for the half term. Here is what we have been learning this week.

English / Phonics:

This week we have continued to learn about the continents of North and South America (see below) and written postcards / leaflets about our roleplay experience. Once again, some of us have use the Purple Mash software to create postcards.

 In phonics we have been continuing to work on our different phases. Phase 2 have been build words with the aid of the letter sounds s a t p, whilst another group have recapped on the /z/ and /zz/ sound as well as completing a comprehension exercise based on the phonic sounds we have been learning and recapping on so far. We concluded the week with a phonics treasure hunt and once again had a go at writing the words based on the picture. 

Maths:

The focus of Maths this week has been on time. Some of us have been sequencing pictures of daily events, as well as sorting different pictures into different groups relating to time, such as:

-Activities we do during the day / night

-Activities we do before school / after school 

-Activities we are doing now / next.

Another group have been answering questions based on their school timetable and a fictional tv guide , as well as measuring activities they can do in a minute (e.g singing the alphabet and writing their name) and reading the time at hourly intervals.

Science:

We have continued to learn about plants. Some of enjoying exploring the tuff tray to see what was in the soil, where we found leaves, twigs, seeds and (rubber) worms! Another group have been doing some leaf printing and talking about their properties whilst another group have revisited lifecycles and illustrated the life cycle of a plant on a paper plate using actual seeds.

Topic:

During our topic work we have 'visited' the continents of North and South America. For North  America we roleplayed a visit to Florida and once in Florida we roleplayed a visit to Disney World and had breakfast with Snow White! For breakfast we had pancakes with maple syrup and they were delicious.

 For South America we 'visited' Brazil'. For Brazil we learnt about the statue Christ the Redeemer  and listened to the sounds of the rainforest. We learnt that the rainforest was home to lots of plants and wildlife and that whilst it was very hot it also rained! We tried some fruit associated with Brazil. which include mango, passion fruit, papaya and coconuts. We concluded our Brazillian experience by roleplaying the carnival with the carnival masks which we made earlier on the week. 

PSHCE:

This week we it has been Children's Mental Health week. We started the week off by reading a 'A huge bag of worries'. Mr Byrom-Jones modelled what it was like to carry your worries around with you all the time and that it wasn't very nice. We then thought about what our worries might look like, and after everyone made their worries into a monster (like in the story) using playdoh, we squashed our monster after sharing them. By doing this we said that talking about our worries can 'be squashed' if we share them with other people and talk about them.

 On Thursday we focused on self-esteem and read the story ' The Dot'. The girl in the story did not believe in herself until her teacher told her to draw a dot. The dot  and the experimental drawings with dots showed that Lashvi in the story needed to believe in herself as it showed imagination and creativity and thus inspiring others in the story. Mr Byrom-Jones told us all to draw a dot on their paper and to be creative by turning the dot into something else! We really enjoyed this activity with the dot being turned into different pictures such as transport, faces and flowers! We we very proud of ourselves.

Have a lovely half term. 

Dahl Class 

W/C: 31^s January

This week we have caught up on our ‘On the Continent ‘ work and have visited two continents. Here is what we have been learning.

English / Phonics:

This week we have finished ‘Flat Stanley and the Magic Lamp. We really enjoyed the ending.  After listening to the story we wrote a book review,

 We have completed lots of literacy work as part of the topic which have included leaflets and postcards. On Tuesday it was Chinese New Year so we took the opportunity to visit the continent of Asia and the country of China. After visiting and exploring China we made a leaflet using our knowledge. On Thursday we explored Antarctica and on Friday we produced leaflets, with some of us using our computing skills and the software Purple Mash to produce a postcard about our Antarctica experience! (see below)

 In Phonics we have continued to work through the sounds of phase 2/ phase 3. We have continued to participate in our phonics corners game and on Thursday we participated in our sound scavenger hunt , with most of us revising the /z/ and /zz/ sound. We then wrote the words on the whiteboard.

Maths:

We have been learning about Position and Direction this week. To help us understand positional language we have participated in some dancing to help us. Songs with danced to and followed the directions to include ‘The Cha Cha Slide’, ‘Hokey Cokey’ and ‘The Pinocchio’. Activities in our differentiated groups to support our understanding of position and direction have included putting the dolly in different places when asked, putting pegs in a peg board and some of being introduced to some simple co-ordinates.

Topic:

In our topic work ‘On the Continent’ we have ‘visted’ and explored the continents on Asia and Antarctica. We looked at Asia on Google Earth and remembered that Asia was the largest continent and found other countries including india and Pakistan before concentrating on China. We used the Chinese New Year Celebrations to support us with our learning and after ‘flying’ to Beijing we looked at the Chinese landmarks of ‘The Great Wall of China’ and ‘Terracotta Army’ before ‘visiting’ a Chinese restaurant. At the restaurant some of us chose to try noodles, prawn crackers and fortune cookies. We also made tiger masks as it is the year of the tiger.

 On Thursday we ‘visited’ Antarctica’ and we remembered that it was bigger than Europe and that nobody lives there. We roleplayed a boat journey to Antarctica (as there are no airports on the continent)  The  journey was wet and cold!! Once in Antarctica we saw penguins, sea lions and whales before settling down to watch the Southern Lights. We even had hot chocolate to keep us warm!

PSHCE:

In PSHCE we have been learning about wants and needs and what is essential to human life. We recapped and learnt that shelter, clothes , food  are essential , whilst computers and Lego weren’t and therefore are wants.

RE:

During RE lessons we have continued to learn about ‘Why Jesus was a good friend’. We watched some clips from the ‘Beginners Bible Animated Bible’ which were about Jesus’ Miracles. We learnt that he was a good friend by turning water into wine and feeding 5000 people with bread and fishes!

Have a good weekend

Dahl Class

No blog last week as it was a strange week with absences . However this week we have revisited the Flat Stanley series, organised data in maths and learnt about Spain . 

W/C:  Monday 24th

English / Phonics 

This week we recapped on the story of ‘Flat Stanley’. Mr Byrom-Jones , Miss Clare and Mr Carter we’re all impressed on how much we remembered ! In this week’s story ‘ Flat Stanley and the Magic Lamp’ and meets a genie who grants him wishes  such as doing his homework , making him fly and accidentally wishing for a liophant!! We used this to think about our own own wishes as well as designing our own animal crosses! We had Tiraffes! , Bearaffes , Crinos and Cears! We had lots of fun blending animals and blending words to give them new names . By the end of the week we reviewed the story and all of us liked it !! 

 During phonics some of us have been working on phase 2 phonics and some of us have been working on phase 3. We have participated in lots of fun activities to support our learning which have include the phoneme corners game and a phonics treasure hunt  game outside .

Maths 

This week in Maths we have been learning about data and collecting and recording data as Venn Diagrams and Pictograms.  Some of us have used toys such as  card and farm animals , whilst some of us have had to sort items / toys in different ways such as farm animals / zoo animals  and cars / not cars. Towards the end of the week we moved on to Venn Diagrams with over lapping rings and had to identify a common denominator. Well Done Joshua for identifying the pictures could be sorted to land animals , aquatic animals or both ! We concluded the week by making pictograms by counting the colours of jelly babies in a bag with some of us answering questions about our data. 

Science 

We have continued to learn about plants in Science and looked at seeds and seed dispersal . We worked in differentiated groups with some of us collecting seeds to make a flower mosaic with the seeds , some of us identifying plants in the environment and some of us beginning to learn about the life cycle of a plant .

Topic 

We have been contrasting another European county with England this week and have been learning about Spain . We have learnt the colours of the flag , the language , the climate and the food before completing a fact file . We also identified  Europe /Spain on Google Earth and an Atlas . Towards the end of the week we role played a visit Spain ! We got our passport and boarded the flight to Spain . Once in Spain we used the lingo , saw some landmarks and tasted some delicious Spanish food  including churros , chorizo and sangria ( cranberry and orange juice with sparkling water !)

PSHCE 

In PSHCE we have been learning about individual needs and that some needs are different to others  and some of the needs are the same . Examples of needs discussed include food , shelter , safety etc .

Next Week :

More Flat Stanley stories 

Position and Direction 

Visit to Asia and  Antarctica 

Sharing our homework 

W/C: 10^th January

This week we have been reading ‘Flat Stanley’ and we roleplayed a visit to London and had afternoon tea with the Queen! Please see below:

English:

We started the week by listening to Mr Byrom-Jones read ‘Flat Stanley’. We all really enjoyed and all made our own playdoh models of Flat Stanley after making some sensible predictions and talking about the advantages and disadvantages of being flat. Later in the week some of us worked in their groups to write a newspaper report about Stanley catching some thieves , whilst some of us drew and wrote about an event in the story, which included being used as a kite and sliding under doors much to the envy of his brother Arthur! We concluded the week by retelling the story as a storyboard. We look forward to more Flat Stanley adventures next week.

 We have also completed phonics activities in our differentiated groups.

Maths:

This week we have continued with number with some of us identifying everyday examples of number use and completing missing numbers up to 20, whilst some of us have been writing numbers in figures and words as well as writing and competing numbers to 100 on a hundred square.

Topic:

We are continuing with our topic ‘On the Continent’. We recapped on our continents song and took turns to identify Europe and England on Google Earth. We then roleplayed a journey to London and got the train from Preston to London  and ‘visited’ some London landmarks . They included: 10 Downing Street, Tower Bridge and Buckingham Palace. Mr Byrom-Jones played some noises to emulate how busy London is.

 When we visited Buckingham Palace we met the Queen! We had to bow / curtsy to the Queen before we settled down to a traditional afternoon tea, which included cucumber sandwiches, scones (with jam and cream) and tea. We had lots of fun! Next week we are going to visit another European country.

Science:

In Science we are learning about plants. After listening to a song some of us sorted and differentiated between plants and trees  some of us made playdoh flowers and labelled it, whilst some of took photographs of  plants , trees and leaves around school.

PSHCE:

This half term we are learning about rules and the importance of rules.  We thought about what it would be like if we did not have rules before thinking about the different rules we have in school.

RE:

Our focus this half term is 'Jesus' as a friend. We learnt about Jesus' disciples and the story of Fishers of Men. We learnt how Simon and his brother trusted Jesus as a friend before Jesus helped them with their catch. We then thought about our own friends and why they were our friends. 

Have a lovely weekend 

Dahl Class 

W/C 3rd January 

Welcome back and a happy new year ! We hope you enjoyed the break . Mr Carter will now be helping us full time in Dahl. Below is what we hard been up to in this short week .

English / Communication:

This week we started off by playing the turn taking game of Jenga. During the game we talked about what we got for Christmas , food we enjoyed as well as thinking about some New Years resolutions . Some of us said they wanted to get better in subject areas whilst some of us said they wanted to get make good behaviour and lifestyle choices .  On Thursday we revisited letter writing and wrote thank you letters to Santa, with some of us incorporating our personal targets such as using description and finger spaces . We have also completed some phonic activities which included word building and phoneme identification. 

Maths:

This week we have undertaken lots of differentiated number games . Activities have included bingo , Tenpin Bowling  and Tin Can Alley. 

Topic:

Our topic this half term is ‘ On the Continent ‘. We started off by discussing what the topic is going to be about before listening to a song about the 7 continents . We have also displayed and labelled the continents on a paper plate as well as making a passport for when we visit each continent in the coming weeks ...

W/C: 29th November 

Another busy week in Dahl. This week we have welcomed a new member of our class , Ruairi. 

English

This week we have continued with letter writing. We started the week off by recapping on the features before writing a letter to our friend about our weekend.  On Tuesday we imagined we were living in 1666 and thought about how we would have felt if we had been involved in The Great Fire of London. We thought about lots of adjectives to describe how we would have felt if our home / business had been destroyed, with examples being 'sad', 'worried'  and 'angry'. We then devised a letter to King Charles expressing our feelings and that the new buildings should be made out of brick and stone and not built close together. We all did a good job and made the letters look old by staining them with tea!

 We have also followed instructions to do some baking as well as participating in phonic games.

Maths

We have been learning about money this week and have had  lots of fun. Some of us started the week by identifying different coins whilst some of us have been counting pennies to given amounts. All activities have been practical which included counting the pennies in the piggy bank , playing shop and buying items in Dahl Cafe.

Topic

We have continued to learn about 'The Great Fire of London' and supported our learning by watching The Magic Grandad series. We also recapped on how the fire started and made bread from the time as well as using playdoh to make traditional food which we find in a bakery today. Most of us liked the bread although it was a bit salty!

RE

In RE we have continued to learn about the Christmas story and thought about the gifts Jesus' received and thought about the presents a Christian baby would have nowadays.

PSHCE

During PSHCE we recapped on the importance of telling an adult when we have a problem. We started off the lesson by asking our peers if we had permission to touch each other when we participated in our peer pizza massage. We found it really relaxing!  We then talked about that it is ok to say no when something makes us feel uncomfortable and that our bodies are our own. We supported this by watching the animation 'Pantasaurus' before designing our own

We have also talked about staying safe online and have practicing 'Step back into Christmas'

Have a lovely weekend

Dahl Class

W/C: 22nd November 

Another busy week in Dahl . This week we have been learning about lists , letters and sharing / division in Maths. We have also found the time to practice ‘Step back into Christmas’ . 

English 

This week we started off by writing letter from the Fox in the Gingerbread Men , aplologising to the old man and lady for eating him up! Mr Byrom-Jones modelled an example on the board and we used this structure later on in the week to write our letters to Santa  after we had written out Christmas wish list . When writing our letters to Santa we were encouraged to use the connective ‘because ‘ with most of us staring that we had been good  because we had been helping our families at home. We hope to post next week.

Maths 

Our focus this week has been on sharing / diving . This week we have been dividing / sharing quantities between two , with examples being sharing the fish between the 2 x fishbowls and sharing the toppings on pizzas ! Another group have been counting and finding half of different amounts . We concluded the week by making our own pizzas  by sharing the toppings  . They were very tasty !!!

Science 

This week we recapped on materials , their origins and their properties before undertaking a science investigation - to see which material was the best for a waterproof welly . Prior to the activity we designed our own Wellington boots before testing different materials to see which were waterproof. The materials we tested were paper , plastic , rubber  and fabric . We found out that plastic and rubber were waterproof, with some of us being introduced to the terms permeable and impermeable .

Topic 

We have continued to learn about The Great Fire of London and finished our houses out of clay ( even though at the time they were made of wood). We emulated the fire by using tea lights. For our classroom display we also did some marbling in topic to create the fire back drop and made some houses out  of lolly sticks. They look impressive!

In other areas of the Curriculum:

RE - We have produced a simple storyboard to retell the Christmas story.

PSHCE -  We have talked about and identified people who help us when we have a problem.

Have a lovely weekend

Dahl Class

W/C: 14 November 

Another busy week in Dahl . This week we have started to practice our Christmas Production in class . More details to follow.

English:

This week we have continued learning about stories with repeating patterns and revisited an old favourite- ‘The Gingerbread Man’. We started off the week by designing and labelling our own gingerbread person , before retelling the story , writing a list of the necessary ingredients for a gingerbread person before baking and decorating one ! They were delicious.

Maths:

In Maths we have been learning about doubling and multiplication and have completed lots of practical activities to support our learning , with some of us games and doubling my painting and folding , whilst some of us have been introduced to arrays .

Topic

This week in topic we have continued to learn about the Great Fire of London , before making  our own Stuart style home out clay . Prior to the lesson we found out that the fire started in a London bakery in Pudding Lane and that the fire spread rapidly because of the houses being built close together , the wind and the fact that the houses were made from wood .  We hope to paint our houses next  week and use tea lights to emulate the fire .

RE:

This week we have been revisiting the Christmas Story in preparation for our upcoming RE work .

In other news :

We have been practicing our parts for the Christmas production which is entitled ‘ Step into Christmas ‘. More details to follow ..

On Tuesday we went to the Flower Bowl Cinema and watched ‘Paw Patrol’. We were a credit to our school and a good time was had by all . 

Have a good weekend 

W/C:  7th November

Another busy week in Dahl.

English :

This week we have been learning about stories with repetitive patterns with the story being ‘Not Now Bernard ‘ by David  McKee . After reading the story we thought of lots of words to describe Bernard and the monster and some of us put these into a sentence using ‘and’ . After retelling the story we planned and created our own story with a monster and a repetitive pattern . They were great and we are looking forward to sharing our stories with the  Donaldson / Rosen next week .

Maths:

In Maths this week we have been learning about doubling and have completed lots of practical activities to support our learning with examples being doubling spots on bugs , doubling scoops of ice cream ( using cotton wool ) , doubling the apples on trees and doubling smarties on biscuits . We have also played some differentiated games to support our learning .

Topic:

This week we introduced our new topic ‘London’s Burning’ and looked at what London was like now in comparison to modern day.

Science:

We have continued with our work on materials . Earlier on the week we recapped  on the origin of different materials before being given the opportunity to explore different materials using our senses . Words to

Identify the properties included hard , soft , flexible , rough , smooth with some of us using the terms transparent and translucent. To support our learning we also wrote some materiel riddles .

Friendship Week (PSHCE) 

This week is anti bullying week . We took a positive stance on it and on Friday we had a friendship carousel day in the primary department ( Rosen , Dahl and Ion) with activities being  friendship biscuits , bracelets and friendship biscuits. 

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W/C: 1st November

Welcome back! We hope you had a lovely half term. Here is what we have been learning during our first week back.

English:

Most of our learning this week has centred around the Gunpowder Plot and Bonfire Night , however on Monday we wrote and shared our holiday news. It was lovely to hear what we had been up to and what we dressed up as for Halloween. On Tuesday we watched an animation about 'The Gunpowder Plot' and produced a wanted poster for Guy Fawkes. We learnt that Guy Fawkes and his friends were planning to commit treason, which was a serious crime against a monarch. We then retold the story as a storyboard and on Thursday we produced some informative firework safety posters. Prior to the poster making we discussed some ideas relating to bonfire safety, which included

- Stay well back from bonfires

-Wear gloves if holding sparklers 

- Don't play with fireworks

-Keep pets indoors.

We concluded the week by roleplaying a bonfire. We put on our coats , drank hot chocolate and tasted parkin and treacle toffee, as well as holding our (edible) sparklers, watched the fireworks on the whiteboard and made firework noises by standing on bubble wrap. We then used the roleplay to write a bonfire poem using our senses with some of us using a simile! Well done everybody!

Maths:

This week in Maths we have been learning about ordinal and cardinal numbers. Some of us started the week by identifying and completing a pattern in the order given, before identifying different positions , whilst some of have followed instructions which included 'colouring in the first , 4th, 7th etc'. Another group have played games such as tenpin bowling and Snakes and Ladders to develop their understanding of ordinal language. 

 We concluded the week with some bonfire themed addition. 

Topic:

This week we have linked our history focus ' Events beyond Living Memory'  to The Gunpowder Plot and Bonfire night. Throughout the duration of the week we have produced  some fantastic bonfire pictures using the natural materials of twigs and leaves for the bonfire and dish brush marks  for the fireworks, as well as making edible sparklers and firework biscuits. We have also made our own rockets with film cannisters, water and fizzy tablets! we had lots of fun.

 We have also learnt the Makaton signs for 'bonfire', 'bonfire night', 'fireworks' and 'Guy Fawkes'. 

Science:

The focus on Science this half term is 'Everyday Materials'. We started off the week by naming some everyday materials before considering were they came from. We found out (and remembered) that paper came from trees,  glass comes from sand ,metal came from rock and plastic from oil! We then produced a sorting activity before trying to identify some different materials around school. 

Have a lovely weekend

Dahl Class

W/C: 18th October

Another busy week in school. We are ready for half term! This week we have learnt about Black History and Halloween, as well as reading 'George's Marvelous Medicine' in English and measuring in Maths.

English:

This week in English we have been reading Roald Dahl's 'George's Marvelous Medicine' . We started off by listening to Mr Byrom-Jones read the story and we wrote character descriptions for George and his Grandma. We found out that Grandma wasn't very nice to George and was quite scary! Later on we roleplayed the different ingredients which went into the saucepan before writing the recipe. Some of us had to choose pictures from what we remembered and some of us had to write the recipe with bossy words! We concluded the weak by thinking of ingredients for our own medicines before watching the Jackanory version of the story! Most of said our favourite Roald Dahl story this half term is 'The BFG' and 'The Twits'.

Maths:

This week in Maths we have been learning about measure - with a Halloween focus! We started off the week by making playdough witch noses and using comparative language to order and compare them. We concluded the week with some of us ordering  pictures of witch lengths and some of us identifying the smallest and biggest Halloween icons. 

History:

On Tuesday we celebrated 'Black History Month' in school. In Dahl Class we found out how black people have been treated differently because of their skin colour before learning about a famous woman called Rosa Parks. In America in the 1950s black people had to give up their seat on a bus for white people, until one day Rosa Parks refused! Rosa was arrested but she changed the course of history forever, which eventually put a stop to the segregation on buses.  We also listened to an African version of Rapunzel, made an African inspired Rapunzel peg doll, listened to reggae music  and made African masks!

Communication :

In Communication we have been learning the Makaton signs for Halloween and applied our learning to a Halloween corners game.

Topic:

We have been learning about Halloween and it's origins and completed some arts and crafts to decorate our classroom on Friday.

Have a lovely half term

Dahl Class