Learners Class

This week, we have enjoyed our fist dance session with Hannah Verity Dance. Together with our friends, we were keen to show off our moves and enjoyed dancing to the beat. We will be working towards a routine over the coming weeks and are very excited to keep building on our new skills and learn a new part of this routine each week. 

In maths this week, we have been working hard on finding fractions – in particular halves and equal parts of a whole.

In English, we have been exploring the book The Greatest Show on Earth by Mini Grey. We have really enjoyed Mini Grey’s whistle stop tour of the history of the planet and have been identifying the features of a non-fiction book this week. Next week we will be creating our own additional pages to the book. Together we have decided to focus on the Jurassic age, which will also support our history topic of Digs, Dinosaurs and Discoveries.

In PHSCE this week, we have been celebrating who we are, what we have achieved and listening to the positive things others say about us. This was a wonderful session which strengthened our self belief and self confidence. It didn’t come easily for some to confidently talk about themselves , but by the end of the session we were all able to speak positively about ourselves and celebrate who we are – it was fantastic!

We have enjoyed sharing lots of stories together this week as always. Look out for the new labels that have come home in reading records this week, which will help to record the great reading taking place at home.

Learners have had a peaceful and settled return after the Easter holiday and are straight back into school routines and ready to learn!

Learners love to learn 🙂

Learners have enjoyed another busy week in the classroom. 

On Tuesday we enjoyed a dance session with Poppy from Hannah Verity’s Dance. We jumped and hopped to music and ended the session with some fun games.

We are very excited to visit the National Railway Museum next week. To help prepare for this visit, we have been enjoying finding out about Inventors and Inventions, including the work of George Stephenson. We used Ipads to research information and found out he was often called ‘the father of the railways’. We also found out that he built a train called the Rocket which was an early passenger train. This helped us to know just how important George Stephenson was to modern railways. We are so excited to bring our  classroom learning to life next week on our trip.

We have been excited to see the seeds we planted in the forest are starting to grow. We have them on our windowsill in class and water and check the regularly. We also have some seeds in a container in the cupboard (with no light or water) and are keeping a close eye on these too.

We have begun to write our own poetry around the story of Romeo and Juliet and have taken to this wonderfully. The classroom has been bursting with knowledge and creativity and we hope to share our poems on Tapestry next week. 

In music, we were able to transfer our knowledge of the plot of Romeo and Juliet and invented our own musical story. We thought carefully about key parts of the story and chose our instruments to reflect the mood and emotion of each art. Our understanding of the plot was clear and to be able to transfer our knowledge into music was a triumph!

We are collecting plastic bottle tops in school, in order to recycle these into school resources. Please collect these at home and bring these in to school if you can!

Easter is approaching and we are looking forward to celebrating with families in Church this week.

On Thursday families came in to school to celebrate World Book Day. Our focus was to celebrate Shakespeare and predominantly Romeo and Juliet. Families enjoyed joining in with many activities, such as painting and making roses, creating story maps of the text, decorating masquerade masks and writing love letters to send between Romeo and Juliet. Learners are really enjoying getting to know the plot ad characters in the text and identifying the rivalry between the Capulets and the Montagues.

In computers we have been considering face-to-face and online bullying and thought carefully about  how to be kind to our friends and how to keep ourselves safe. This is a really vital discussion, which was held with great maturity.

In PE, Learners are focusing on hockey skills. In this week’s session with Hawkes Sports we focused on balancing and movement and enjoyed some fun games to improve our skills.

In Science, we have been busy watering our newly planted seeds and are delighted to see some shoots sprouting already.

In Geography, we have been watching the weather all week and have really enjoyed watching the daily weather report. We were interested to find out about the job of a meteorologist and have enjoyed completing our own weekly weather chart too, paying attention to the temperature and wind direction.

In RE, we have been learning more about the Easter Story. We thought carefully about the different feelings and emotions we had during different parts of the story. Learners articulated their feelings wonderfully and this prompted a very meaningful discussion.

We ended the week dressing up for World Book Day, we shared lots of our favourite stories and talked about our favourite books and authors.

A busy week of learning as always in Learners Class.

This week our learning has been extremely hands on and practical and it has been awesome!

We started the week with a drama session in the hall, with Louise from Red House Theatre. We brought history to life and created a physical timeline, adding inventions through time as the morning went on. We became aeroplanes, computer typists, wheels and lightbulbs as we delighted in using drama to remember old inventions. We were excited to identify that nearly everything has been ‘invented’ and talked about our favourite inventions. What a fun morning!

On Tuesday morning, we enjoyed our swimming session at the local pool.  Our confidence is improving and our skills are certainly progressing. Improvements are happening with each session. Swimming skills are so important, living where we do!

On Tuesday afternoon, we enjoyed holding our Jewish Shabbat in class. After lots of hard work and gaining knowledge over the half-term, the Shabbat was a great way to celebrate and conclude Learner’s learning around Judaism. The tables were decorated with cloths and candles. Learners shared toasted bagels and drank blackcurrant juice in special glasses. We said a prayer before we ate. It was very special and we enjoyed eating and relaxing together. Linking back to our learning, we could identify similarities with a traditional Shabbat celebration.

On Wednesday, we enjoyed a session with Hawkes Sports. This half-term we  are working on developing our hockey skills. Learners have lots of enthusiasm for PE and always look forward to Wednesday’s session.

On Friday we enjoyed a visit to the forest, while we were there, we were able to focus on three different curriculum subjects.   In Geography we were able to use compasses to identify North, South, East and West.  With a Science focus we planted our own flower seeds, in order to bring back to the classroom to grow. We gathered natural materials, such as sticks, stones, grasses and feathers so that back in the classroom we can make patterns in art. This was outdoor learning at it’s best. Alongside this. we had plenty of fresh air and fun, climbing trees and exploring the forest!

Wow Learners, we’ve had the best week with the BEST learning!

We can’t wait for next week!

Learners love to learn 🙂

It has been a busy first week back for Learners Class.

This half-term, we are exploring Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in English. To launch our topic, we used drama to act out the first scene. We each took on a role of one of the quarrelling families and became either a Capulet or a Montague. We learned about the feud between the two families and wrote down some Shakespearean insults to say to our rival family.  Words included villain, rat catcher, coward, liar, beast and dog. Learners particularly enjoyed acting out the ultimate Shakespearean insult “I bite my thumb at you!”

In history, we have been looking at changes in transport over time. This is in preparation for our trip to The National Railway museum in York this half-term.

In PHSCE we have been discussing people and services who can help us, including how to telephone 999 in an emergency.

We have shared lots of stories together in class this week as always. Our current favourites are The Emporer’s New Clothes and Rumpelstiltskin.

The Book Fair is currently in School and is open before and after school to buy a new book or two. Please come and have a look if you haven’t already.

We are collecting for the charity WHISH in school this week, please donate if you can. More details about the charity are on this week’s newsletter.

The days are becoming a little lighter every day, Spring is on the way!

Learners Class

This week has been another busy week of learning in Learners class.

On Wednesday we were lucky to be visited by the Open The Book Worship Committee, who told the bible story of the Good Samaritan. Children from Discoverers and Leaders joined in with the acting and story telling and were successful in bringing the story to life.

Back in the classroom, Learners have been enjoying learning about the Jewish religion in RE lessons. We have been identifying important objects and traditions. We looked closely at the Jewish mezuzah, which is a visual sign in Jewish homes acting as a reminder to live by God’s word. Learners were fascinated by Hebrew writing, contained within the mezuzah. We wrote our own class mezuzah and thought carefully about the values that were important to us. In the coming weeks we will be having our own class Shabbat and it’s safe to say we are very excited about this!

In Science this week we have been identifying common plants and trees and were able to identify the differences between the features of different leaves.

Learners love to read and we enjoy many stories and books throughout each week. We were inspired by a workshop from the Reading Leaders last week and on a visit to the library this week were keen to investigate the types of books on offer. Everyone chose a book to take home too!

We hope families will visit Learners class this Wednesday (7th Feb) where we will be celebrating Chinese New Year with many themed activities. Please join us at 9.15-10.30am.

We begun our week this week with an open Maths Activity morning. We welcomes 24 families into Learners Class alone! The class was buzzing with problem solving, times tables and practical activities around money, shape and time. It was wonderful to be able to share our learning with our families.

We have been focusing on our 5 times tables this week, using our fingers to help with multiplication and division facts. We are certainly becoming more confident!

In computers we have had a great time enjoying the Beebots to develop our programming skills. We looked at the four direction commands on a Beebot and using our powers of prediction to decide on the outcome of an algorithm. We created an obstacle course in the hall for the Beebots and loved having a really long race.

In Geography we have been finding out about the four countries that make up the United Kingdom. We looked at maps and were able to identify the whereabouts each country and name their capital cities.

In History, we are continuing to enjoy our topic Inventors and Inventions. This week we turned our focus to the invention of the wheel. We all agreed that this was indeed one of the greatest inventions and were able to identify many different ways the wheel was useful today. We particularly enjoyed mastering how to pronounce the place ‘Mesopotamia’.

Learners love to learn 🙂

This week has been particularly wintry and we have had a few days of snow.

Our first swimming session on Tuesday was a great success. We managed to get changed and unchanged into our swimming things independently, build on our water confidence and skills in the pool and we enjoyed every moment. We are extremely excited to do it all again next week.

In English, we have been reading The Good Little Wolf by Nadia Shireen. We are researching whether all wolves are bad! In the story Rolf (the little wolf) was far from bad and enjoyed making cakes and sharing with his friends. We will be reading more fairy tales to find out more about the characters of the different wolves we come across.

In computers we have been enjoying the Bee-bots. We are really enjoying programming to make the Bee-bots move around.

Parents evening on Monday 22nd and Tuesday 23rd January will be a wonderful opportunity to share the Learners’ successes and achievements with families.

Happy new year. The first week  of 2024 has been busy in Learners Class as always.

In English we have been reading fairytales, as many as we could find. All week, we have been choosing snippets of our favourites, in order to create a recipe for our own fairytale stew. On Thursday we each wrote our own recipe, using a selection of ingredients including a strand of Rapunzel’s hair, a horn from the Billy Goat’s Gruff, a button from the Giant’s coat and some bits of bobbly beanstalk – to name but a few. On Friday we delighted in making a class fairytale stew with a big pan and spoon. We took turns to add an ingredient and were able to stir it into the stew. We have really enjoyed this writing topic, which is evident from our wonderful final pieces of writing!

We have been exploring shape in maths this week, identifying 2D and 3D shapes and identifying the names and properties of shapes.

We enjoyed our first PE session with Hawkes sports coaches and are beginning to build skills to help us learn to play basketball.

In computers we were delighted to be programming Bee-Bots, finding out that our commands were causing our Bee-Bots to move where we wanted.

In PSHCE this week, we have been finding out the difference between physical and mental health and agreed that looking after ourselves is extremely important.

On Tuesday 16th January we will start our first swimming session at Whitby pool. Please make sure your Learner brings a swimming costume and a towel in a bag and that earrings are taken out before arriving at school on Tuesday. Learners are very excited to start swimming sessions.

Learners love to learn everyday and enjoy working together in class.

Sleights put on 2 wonderful nativity performances this week. The Church was packed and the atmosphere was magical. Learners class shone in their roles of shepherds and angels and they enjoyed every moment of it.

In English this week we have been creating story maps around the advert Sprout Boy and are keen to begin writing our narratives next week.

We have enjoyed lots of stories this week and Learners have been bringing in their favourite Christmas stories from home to enjoy in the classroom.

We had a wonderful day on Friday, finishing our DT Christmas decorations. We were successful in threading needles and showed some amazing sewing skills. We cut templates and pinned these to our chosen fabric. We then cut around these carefully, fastened them to hessian squares and decorated them with sequins and sparkles. We were delighted to take these home at the end of the day and display these proudly at home. We will be evaluating our design and creations next week.

Next week is jampacked with Christmas crafts, a Christingle service, Christmas dinner and parties and a trip to the pantomime. Hold on to your hats, it’s going to be lots of fun!

Learners class wish you all hope, peace and love for the Christmas holidays ahead.