Scott Grason-Taylor, Author at Sleights Church of England Primary School

Discoverers’ Home Learning – Tuesday 11th January 2021

January 11, 2021January 12, 2021 Scott Grason-Taylor

Hi there, Discoverers 😀

I am sorry that there were problems with Tapestry yesterday. I was very proud to hear that you were working through your home learning books, and managed to complete some alternative tasks too. Well done and thank you for keeping motivated!

Today, in maths, we are continuing with division. Have a go at the questions below, remembering that if you are unable to divide the 10’s equally, you can exchange them for 1’s. Let me know if you have any questions.

https://youtu.be/y-ChAhr4ixc

If you are completing maths in your home learning, today it is page 18 for year 3 and page 16 for year 4.

In English, we are going to be using the story ‘What We’ll Build’ for our key theme. For the next two weeks we will be building towards writing an explanation text. Each day I will set you a task which works towards this. Yesterday, or perhaps today, you will be able to listen to Sleights’ staff read What We’ll Build (This is in a separate post by Mr Grason). After listening to the story, you may have realised that the story talks about creation, and there are illustrations related to many tools. It would be great if today you could take a look at the example texts I have uploaded and tell me what they all have in common (key features). They are all examples of explanation texts from a book called Until I Met Dudley by Rodger McGough.
Here are a few questions to help you:
Do they all have illustrations?
Do they all have a title?
Are there any similarities in the language that is used?

When you have finished writing your list of key features, watch the video below, and see if there are any features that you have missed? https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/english-ks1-ks2-how-to-write-an-explanation/zh2kjhv

Finally, your task is to create a cairn. Cairns are man-made towers of natural stones, usually built as a landmark or a memorial. All you need to do is gather a range of flat rocks and pebbles in different sizes, and then stack them in order, with the largest at the bottom and the smallest at the top.
See if you can get your cairn to balance, and count how many stones high your structure can hold.
For an extra challenge, change the foundation of your tower to a smaller stone, and see if you can rebuild it.
If you don’t have any rocks or pebbles, you could get create and use small items around the home.

I hope you all have a wonderful day,

Mrs Taylor

Autumn 2020 Newsletters

December 18, 2020December 18, 2020 Scott Grason-Taylor

Each week, our school newsletter will be published here and emailed directly to our families. To join our mailing list, please get in touch with us.

1. 11th September 2020

2. 18th September 2020

3. 25th September 2020

9. 13th November 2020

10. 20th November 2020

11. 27th November 2020

12. 4th December 2020

13. 11th December 2020

14. 18th December 2020

The Gingerbread Man

December 7, 2020May 23, 2022 Scott Grason-Taylor

This week in Explorers we are reading ‘The gingerbread man’.We are looking at ‘dry’ and ‘wet’ this week so this morning with the children that have been in, we have looked at all the different ingredients used to make gingerbread. The children had a feel of the dry ingredients before we added the wet ones to bind it all together. The children then used the rolling pin and cutter to cut their gingerbread man out and once cooked, we are going to decorate them. We also have some gingerbread dough in the kitchen with some of the dry ingredients in pots so the children can make their own creations.

Prepare for Christmas

December 2, 2020December 2, 2020 Scott Grason-Taylor

We began our preparations for Christmas by discussing the meaning of Advent. We went on to look closely at the foliage and got going snipping,cutting,trimming and creating our own wreaths for our Prayer Space in the classroom. The Pioneers went foraging for some scented additions to finalise our creation.

There was some left over eucalyptus and holly so that has gone in a vase and the house is now topped with branches of fir and trailing ivy.

It smells like Christmas in our classroom.

Trying new food

November 24, 2020May 23, 2022 Scott Grason-Taylor

This morning we read Handa’s Surprise and looked at all of the fruits in our basket. Just before snack we took the basket of fruits to the table. Miss Idle took each one out and we looked at them to see if we could remember what they were called. We then had a guess of what colour the fruits may be inside. We passed each fruit around the circle to feel the texture and once Miss Idle had cut them in half we all smelt the fruits. After we had done that we had a taste of the delicious fruits at snack time. Today we tried banana, orange,passion fruit, pineapple, avocado, tangerines and mango. All of the children tried everything which was fantastic. We even had some empty plates and some children who asked for more!

Let There Be Light

November 8, 2020November 8, 2020 Scott Grason-Taylor

Shadows were of interest so we got out some filters and overlays,torches and mirrors to experiment with.

So much learning about sorting materials and new vocabulary-opaque and transparent,flexible,rigid and reflective.

Sorting and Comparing : Fruit and Vegetables

November 8, 2020November 8, 2020 Scott Grason-Taylor

Fresh vegetables were added to the Cat’s Kitchen. A question was asked,”Is it real?” and so a different investigation took place.

We sorted fruit and vegetables,real and plastic and wooden. We sorted again depending on how it grew-above or below ground,on plants or trees. Then we had a poke around inside to look for seeds.

Some liked this. Some were less keen!

Painting Pumpkins

November 8, 2020November 8, 2020 Scott Grason-Taylor

Some painted on paper. Some preferred to paint straight onto the pumpkin. Either way the Pioneers adapted their strategies to suit the tools and the canvas. Focus and energy. Patience and thought.

Great exploration.

Paint and Puddles

November 8, 2020November 8, 2020 Scott Grason-Taylor

Sometimes the best learning happens on the spur of the moment. The brushes were intended for painting but the puddle was too inviting to miss. The Pioneers discovered that they could make wonderful arcs of water spray when the waved the brushes around. They ran in big circles trailing the brushes behind them and of course they made the biggest waves possible in a small body of water.

The addition of powder paint was amazing and the effect was spectacular. The Pioneers were slightly concerned about the mess but they were reassured that everything would be fine when it rained.

Mr Grason agreed.

Kebabs and Mucky Pumpkins

October 31, 2020October 31, 2020 Scott Grason-Taylor

We had been using the chimebars in the classroom to experiment with rhythm. The beaters were repurposed and appeared in the Little Red Hen’s Kitchen in the form of Kebabs. This was a great new use for the sticks. The Pioneers were all interested in making kebabs and discussed that some may be having these at home in the holidays with marshmallow and chocolate.

We took the idea one step further and made some leaf kebabs in the forest. These allowed us to collect and compare leaves at various spots in the forest.The Pioneers spotted the difference in the shapes and the talked about the seeds that we found too.

When we brought the pumpkin in,it was clear that it needed a wash,so we washed it and scrubbed it and massaged it with bubbles and green froth.

So good.