Month: September 2024

Learners being creative

Scott Grason-Taylor

Learners class have enjoyed some brilliant art lessons this week. On Wednesday we enjoyed a wonderful afternoon being artists. We explored painting and making different patterns using watercolours to see how different brushstrokes created different effects. Inspired by our focus artist Wassily Kandinsky, we listened to music while we painted. The classroom was focused and peaceful, as we enjoyed painting. Our sketchbooks are looking amazing and we are looking forward to sharing these with families at Parents Evening next week.

This week in English, Learners have been putting their finishing touches to their non-chronological reports around Global Goals. Learners have been passionate about the goals and have spent a lot of time understanding and clarifying meaning of each goals’ target. This depth of understanding is evident in the amazing pieces of writing produced throughout this writing topic. Well done Learners.

In science, we have been looking closely at the weather and have been filling in our own weekly weather chart. Thursday definitely provided a talking point as the rain was nothing sort of torrential. 

Learners are looking forward to sharing their achievements with families this week during Parents Evening. I certainly have many successes to share with you!

Learners love too learn 🙂

 

All Around Our Site

Scott Grason-Taylor

The Pioneers made great use of our magnificent school grounds this week. We took a trip to the forest to look for signs of seasonal change and forage for acorns. There were none! we found a few cups from last year and lots of leaves. We pressed the leaves ready for use later. Apparently trees may be suffering from a drought three years ago or may be tired after a bumper crop last year.  We matched colours with our colour cards too. We did some recording of the litter we found to add to detail to our reports on the Millenium Development Goals.

All of the Pioneers coped well with their outdoor kit and the wellies all went home to the right house!

On return to the classroom we looked at Not Lost, a book about a little rabbit who takes risks. We discussed the risks in our forest and how to stay safe. We also did a spot of painting inspired by David Hockney.

 

Seasonal Change

Scott Grason-Taylor

The weather has turned autumnal outside this week. Learners have enjoyed learning more about the different seasons in science. This week we enjoyed selecting clothes we would wear in summer and comparing these to the clothes we would select to wear in winter. Our choices reflected the change in weather throughout the seasons. We had lots of fun trying on different clothes and were able to transfer our knowledge to draw and label pictures to show our learning.

Elsewhere in the classroom, learners have been working really hard in maths and have been focusing on Place Value. We have been partitioning and flexibly partitioning numbers to 100 this week ad have been able to use our knowledge to answer some problem questions too.

We welcomed our families into L:earners class on Wednesday. They were able to share in our current learning around Global Goals. We were delighted to share what we knew.

In history this week, we identified the changes that could happen over time and recognised that museums, artefacts and people could help us to understand more about how things have changed. We are looking forward to our trip to Whitby Museum inn a few weeks to consolidate our learning.

Learners have enjoyed listening to poems by Brian Moses this week. Our favourite being “Walking with my Iguana’.

Learners enjoy learning and are always so excited to see what we are learning next!

Everybody is Writing

Scott Grason-Taylor

Writing has been happening all over the place this week with Pioneers making signs and filling in tick-sheets with their families during our open morning. We have been out on the field taking inspiration from the trees to build sentences using adjectives. There is great excitement around writing out new letter shapes each day and the progress is wonderful to see. 

The Pioneers are to be congratulated for their superb efforts and outcomes in writing this week.

Happy Learning

Learning About Our Site-In and Out of the Classroom

Scott Grason-Taylor

We have been in and out of the classroom, developing fieldwork skills and looking at our school site. We collected data, deciding if areas were friendly to nature or not. We worked on how to record our findings on a table. 

After reading Six Dinner Sid, we discovered that he had visited many places on our site. We experimented with positional language to describe where Sid had been. We used on, behind and next to. 

We used an online compass to find out about north, south, east and west and drew some amazing field sketches of what we could see when we looked north. There were lots of questions about what to include and we discussed the things that were always there and the things that moved.

We read our story about Sid in Sleights, identifying locations in our village and describing these. Sid visited the bus stop. The bus stop is opposite Botham’s. We spotted road signs and lots of letters on shop signs. We had some great chat about the telephone box and how things had changed over time! 

There are some amazing pieces of work on the walls now-story maps and field sketches and collections of data.

The Pioneers should be very proud of how they have worked this week. Their kindness and perseverance has led to a wonderful week for all.

 

 

Setting New Goals

Scott Grason-Taylor

This week Learners have been looking closely at the Global Development Goals. We are working on writing our own non-chronological report around these aspirational targets that will make the world a better place.  We are excited to welcome families into school on Wednesday to  explore these goals further.

In PE this half-term we are focusing on developing key multi-skills. This week have been throwing, sending and receiving a ball by rolling and catching. Learners showed lots of control and precise hand eye co-ordination and balance. Next week in PE we will be exploring and evaluating different ways to jump. We are looking forward to attending a local school multi-skills event in October, where we can showcase our skills.

This week in Science we have been exploring that the days are longer in the summer than the winter and drawing pictures of the activities we like to do in different seasons.

In art we have been getting to know our focused artist, Wassily Kandinsky. We used iPads to research some background information about him. We found out he was a Russian painter who loved to listen to music as he painted. He used his emotions to guide his creativity and painted using colour, shapes and lines. His style of painting was called ‘abstract’. 

Learners have enjoyed reading our brand new fluency reading books this week. Please support your child at home by reading regularly and recording in their reading record. This really does make a difference!.

Thank you for your support.

Pioneers Get Sorting!

Scott Grason-Taylor

We hit the ground running in Pioneers and everyone worked together to get organised and into the swing of learning together.

We have been sorting all sorts of things-houses,cutlery,bricks and our favourite gems and buttons.

We have discussed our rules for sorting and we have become highly observant when looking for differences-two holes or three? Smooth or wavy edges?

Tidying in a new classroom adds a whole new level of complexity to sorting and this has gone really well too!

The Pioneers also managed PE and sorting their own sets of kit.

Very Happy Learning

A brilliant first week in Year 2.

Scott Grason-Taylor

Learners have had an amazing start to the new school year.

We have settled wonderfully into the the routines of Year 2.

On our first day back, we were delighted to be able to watch the Tour of Britain go by school. There were lots of waves and cheers of support as the cyclists whizzed by.

Back in the classroom, we have been enjoying the book ‘Small steps, big change’ by Anne-Marie Cool. We identified th sustainable goals within the book and had some great discussion around the small steps we can make at Sleights to create big environmental change. We all agreed that ‘lots of people doing little things achieves more than one person doing everything’.

We have been finding out about how to stay safe online in computers this week and keeping our personal information online to ourselves.

In maths we have been counting in tens and ones in order too learn about place value.

Most importantly, we have come into school smiling and ready to learn, which is wonderful to see after 6 weeks away from the school routine.

Learners love to learn and we are all excited for the year ahead.

We will be swimming on Tuesday afternoons this half-term. Please bring your Learners swimming kit on Tuesday mornings.