Year 3 21.1.22 - "Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning" - William Arthur Ward

It’s been a jam-packed week for us in Year 3! Today we finished our class novel as we read and unpicked the final chapter together. We have had drama and debates as we have come to learn more about Tom and how he learnt to handle his emotions. The children have had to think deeply to understand the reasons for Tom’s actions, something which proved to be a bit of a challenge to begin with. I have been so impressed with their creative minds when constructing their sentences, we really do have many super writers!

We have continued to be curious and active learners, this week with the help of our wonderful parish priest, Father Peter. He joined us for a special virtual call and the children asked him different questions that they have been curious to wonder about. The children loved seeing Father Peter and listened with such interest to his wise words.

Let’s Celebrate!

A Focused and Enthusiastic learner : Gabriella

You have had a super week! It has been so nice to hear others in our class notice your kind actions throughout the week. During our class council one of your class friends shared how you had made them feel special by smiling at them during lunch time and playing so nicely with them. You have also been trying SO hard to focus during our lessons and we have really noticed this, particularly in your writing!

An Enthusiastic learner : Ola

What can we say Ola?! You are such an enthusiastic learner. Watching you during your music lesson this week was just wonderful, your enthusiasm was shining so brightly! You have shown this same excitement towards your writing by listening carefully, participating during our discussions and getting fully immersed in our drama, acting out scenes from our novel. Well done Ola, keep up the great work!

Notices…

• We are starting to get a collection of water bottles in class with no name on. Please could you make sure all bottles and snack pots that children bring in have their names on, it really does help to send them home if they get left.

• Homework is given out on a Friday and due in again on a Thursday- there are a number of children who are not completing this, please could you encourage this at home, many thanks.

Finally, once again in music the children have been so enthusiastic (our little Bobby bees!) and are desperate to share with you another piece of music, this time they have had to focus carefully listening to the beat of the music.

Our Solar system

I can’t believe the learning that has been taking place in nursery this week. We have started to learn about the planets in our solar system, and wow I am amazed1

Click here for the solar system song

Click here for the planets song

We have written a poem map about the planets. We were inspired by Pie Corbett’s ‘Talk for writing’ concept. In talk for writing Children learn to tell a story off by heart. They tell the story with expression and actions. Once a story is learnt the children are encouraged to adapt it to make it their own, for example by changing the characters or the setting. We have very nearly learnt our poem off by heart.

Now we have our ‘map’ we are going to write an alien story next week. Watch this space! Be prepared for us to scare your socks off!

Key Person blog

Wow, what a rate our brains have been grown at this week! Our astronauts have boarded their rockets and crash, banged into our Solar System. We have listened to and learnt poems and songs and used this planet knowledge to create a super display in nursery. We are such a creative bunch!! More rockets have been made, (continuing to spot our 3 primary colours!), sparkly stars have been glued and glittered, and some of us have even started to design our very own planets. We have also continued to develop our scissor skills by giving some aliens a hair cut…a great one to try at home!

Outside we have been playing box monster, making aliens with stretchy blue sand and launching asteroids across the garden. Tin foil wrapped around a small soft ball, (with streamers dangling off!!) was perfect for practising our over arm throw!  

We have danced again to ‘Cherry Tots’ and met ‘quiet and mad’ this week. Can you remember how we moved to these pieces of music?

Worship- I am special

This week we have continued developing our understanding of the importance of valuing ourselves and others. We played the ‘I am special’ game. We had a golden box and inside there was something so special that there is only one in the whole wide world!

We looked inside the box to discover what could be so very special. Can you guess what we saw? Mmmmmm…you will have to ask your child to find out what it was!! Take a look at our pictures.

Throughout the day we all tried to be a little bit more like Jesus and to fill our hearts full of love for everyone.

We also visited the chapel again on Tuesday. It is fast becoming our favourite place.

We are still finding out about shapes in our environments. Here are a couple of games to try at home.

Click here for the shape pattern train.

Click here for the symmetry shape game.

Lastly, could we say a big thank you to you for supporting your childs learning at home. You are fantastic! Have a good rest this weekend but don’t forget Purple Mash, there is work set for the children to do!

See you all on Monday

Barbara

Year 6 Home Learning - Wednesday 19th January 2022

Spelling - Silent letter spellings.

climb, ascent, crescent, handkerchief, sandwich, consign, character, archeology, breathe, ghost, thumb, plumb, would, knight, wrapper, silhouette, autumn, wrinkle, guilty, yolk

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Maths - Can you complete these calculations in your homework book?

SHORT DIVISION

LONG DIVISION

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English - IXL ENGLISH - HH1 and HH2 - Modal verbs -
This is a revision and based on the grammar discussions that we had this week in class.

Are you learning your ROMEO and JULIET lines at home?

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Science - EVOLUTION

What is evolution? What are the basic principles? Using the buttons below, lift out the main ideas from the text and create a poster to illustrate your findings. This has been set for you on Purple Mash.

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Year 4 blog. Friday 14th January. 'The meaning of life is to find your gifts. The Purpose in life is to give them away.' (Pablo Picasso)

We have had a very inspiring week in Year 4. We began on Monday morning with our very first swimming lesson together. Thank you so much for being so prompt. Children did so well getting changed on their own and showed such bravery - as I know many of them have struggled to get to any swimming lessons due to Covid! It is a favourite lesson of mine because children always make such progress at these lessons.

RHE

This week we have been focusing on the story of Jairus’s daughter and this has led us onto discussing why God put us here - what is our purpose? We have learned that our purpose is to love, to be loved and to make a difference. We have been thanking God for making us unique and giving us so many gifts.

In class council this week, children are putting together ideas for a new item of play equipment outside. We have made a class design which Angel and Matilda will put forward to the school council.

In other news:

We have been learning in maths how to be ‘efficient’ and choose the most effective and quickest way of calculating, depending on the numbers in the calculation. Next week, we will be beginning to learn about Perimeter. We are also going over those important times tables - this week we are doing the 2x and 5x tables. Please enocurage your child to practise these daily so they are second nature.

In English, we have started our topic on Folk Tales and have met the mischievous character of Brer Rabbit! Children are already loving these amusing tales of trickery and cunning! In Science, we have been learning about the states of matter: solids, liquids and gases - through many investigations and children have shared their knowledge by making videos about the 3 states. In computing, we have started our lessons about Animation. I know children did some super animations last year!

Let’s Celebrate!

This week, our certificate winners are as follows:

A Tommy Turtle certificate goes to Anncia for being a brave learner and for asking for help when she needs it. You always listen to my advice Anncia and you are making so much progress.

A Sadie Spider certificate goes to Nicola for putting maximum effort into all she does. Nicola you try so hard and you are always ready quickly to get on with your learning.

A Lizzie Ladybird certificate goes to Christian for always listening to advice and enjoying the process of learning so much. You are striving to improve each day Christian and you are such a focused student.

French stars this week were: Evan, Franek and Tabby.

Music stars this week were Nicola and Jay.

Notices

If you received a letter this week regarding extra classes after school, please could you send me an email to let me know if you will be taking up this offer, at the earliest opportunity: a.lyons@ourladystarofthesea.lancs.sch.uk

WELLIES! On Mondays we need to have our breaktime on the field when we get back from swimming so that we can maintain distance from the other classes. It would be so helpful if children have wellies in school for this, so that they are not getting damp and muddy shoes.

Please remember to pay for our school trip on Parentpay if you have not already done so.

Have a lovely weekend

Kindest regards,

Mrs Lyons, Mrs Mather and Miss Woodrow.

Year 3 Home Learning 14.1.22

Spellings:

Our spelling strategy this week is to use S.U.S:

Study the word.

Underling the difficult part.

Say the word carefully focusing on each syllable.

Our spelling this week are based around adding -ation to the end of a word. Remember the rule that if the verb ends in ‘e’ we must drop the ‘e’ before adding ‘ation’.

1. limit - limitation

2. sense - sensation

3. adore - adoration

4. prepare - preparation

5. admire - admiration

6. explore - exploration

7. inform - information

8. observe - observation

Ongoing Maths:

Please continue with the IXL strands: E1- E8 under addition one digit

During our Maths lessons it is clear that some children need extra work and practice with their number bonds to 10. Children should see that the pairs of numbers make 10 instantly and need consistent practice at this. Please could you practice these at home and can be done any time said out loud, maybe quick fire as you are travelling to and from school, while you are brushing your teeth, anywhere! There is also this great website which some children will be practicing on in the mornings- they even do an app for this game for tablets and phones:

Follow the link below, click on ‘number bonds’ and then ‘make 10’. children should be encouraged to stay on this game and try and beat their score against the clock every time.

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

PE

During PE we have started our striking and fielding unit of work. We started our first lesson this week, focusing on the underarm throw. We need more practice to make sure that we are passing the ball effectively and accurately in to the persons hands. Please get outside (where the weather allows) and get throwing different size balls underarm, furthering the distance of these passes as they get more confident.

There is also many different games you can play to develop accuracy , control and power when throwing this way, why not try them:

• Throwing balls in to different size containers

• Throwing the ball against a target on the wall

• put a ball on top of a bucket and try to knock it off with a smaller ball

• rolled up socks are good to use if the weather is bad, throwing them in to different sized containers.

Have fun with it, make it in to a competition!

We need to remember the following points when throwing underarm:

• stand in the direction of the throw

• one foot in front of the other

• bring arm straight back

• swing arm forward and release the ball

• fingers point at the target

This week....

The children’s learning at the moment knows no bounds. We are all amazed at how much we have found out about space travel and the moon!

Did you know?

There is nothing but stars and darkness all around in space.

It takes four whole days to reach the moon.

When the astronauts get there they have to climb into a little spaceship.

To go outside the astronauts have to put on a special suit.

The spacesuits carry are so they can breathe.

The Moon is silent and dusty.

There are huge mountains and big holes.

There are no trees, water, animals or people on the moon

On the moon, you feel very light and floaty, when you walk around you take big bouncy strides!

Astronauts sometimes go exploring in Moon buggies. They collect moon rocks to bring back home.

You can see our world from the Moon.

Our Wow space words include:

Gravity

Asteroids

Craters

Oxygen

Shooting star

We have also found out about the new James Webb telescope sent into space in December. It’s looking for the oldest star.

Click here to see a rocket launch!

Key Person’s blog

This has proved to be another amazing week here at Nursery. There have been lots of discussions about space and the children have asked many questions asked including.... what do Astronauts eat? How many astronauts can fit into the space shuttle? How wide is the capsule? We discovered that it is 2.7 meters wide and we measured it out on the floor using masking tape. It was a squash and a squeeze for three people!!! How do the astronauts manage???? 

We have created rockets using a variety of materials and many space puzzles have been completed including pictures of planets, space shuttles, moon buggies and the moon. The children have all decorated and cut out their own rocket for our super display. Using their existing rocket knowledge some children accepted the challenge to create a replica rocket using only certain materials. This included the three primary colours....can your child name them? Click here to watch the video we liked!

The children created their own obstacle course in the garden, and we have also been practicing our throwing skills using ‘Moon Rocks’ instead of balls! There has also been some hopping, jumping and Alien splatting! What a busy week! 

Hope you have a lovely weekend. 

Michelle, Frances, Colette, Hannah, and Justine. 

Here is a small collection of this weeks learning at nursery!

We have started to look at shapes in our environment. We sang the shape song and then went on a shape hunt!! We really did want to find a dodecagon!!!! Perhaps you could go on a shape hunt at home this weekend. Click here for the shape song.

We have also been focusing on the sound ‘n’ with Geraldine Giraffe. Click here. How many things can you find at home that begins with ‘n’?

Next week we are starting to find out and be curious about the planets in our solar system.

Worship

This week focused on helping the children learn that they are uniquely created by God and special because they are made and loved by Him. We explored our uniqueness and what that means. We celebrated difference as well as individual gifts, talents and abilities.

Click on the button below to see the slides.

Finally, I have a few words from Michelle and Justine. They have had a fabulous couple of weeks getting to know the children and yourselves. Thank you for being so welcoming.

The have written a few words about themselves for you to get to know them better.

Hello everyone,

I am so excited to be here at Our Lady Star of the Sea Nursery with all your wonderful children. I’ve seen some of you this week but I thought I should introduce myself properly.

My name is Michelle and I have many years experience working in local nurseries. I have been a Preschool Room Leader, a Childcare Manager and a Nursery Manager and I hold Early Years Professional Status, a BA Honours degree in Early Childhood Studies and an NVQ Level 3 in Early Years Care and Education.

I live in St Annes and I have 2 grown up children. In my spare time I enjoy listening to live music, eating out and trying to tame the wilderness that is my garden.

I am passionate about ensuring children have the best possible start to their education and I am really looking forward to seeing your child grow and develop into the best version of themselves.

Michelle

Hello, my name is Justine and I am enjoying being a member of the Nursery team at Our Lady Star Of The Sea. Both the nursery and school have such a lovely, friendly, welcoming and hardworking ethos and I feel like a member of a huge happy family.

I have worked with children of all ages for over 23 years being a Teaching Assistant and also a Family Learning Mentor, but my favourite setting of all is by far working with the Nursery children.

My family and I moved from Manchester to sunny St Annes in 2010 and love living in such a beautiful little town so close to the sea. My husband is a keen kite surfer and I enjoy the more relaxing paddle boarding with my 2 children, (I say children but they are now 21 and 22, but they are ALWAYS your babies!)

I also enjoy playing golf, travelling, swimming, art, gardening, and going on lovely long walks with our dog Bluebell.

I’ll make an effort to wave and smile at you all (albeit from behind a mask, but trust me I am smiling) and just want to say thank you for having such adorable, funny and incredibly bright children that make our jobs an absolute pleasure.

Justine

It just remains for me to say, have a restful week and we will see you all on Monday to start learning about the planets!!!

Barbara