Advent adventures.
The festive period has begun and we have been busy preparing for oncoming Christmas activities.
In RE we have been thinking about the different symbols of advent. To consolidate our learning, we were lucky to be able to visit St John’s Church on Friday to look around and identify the signs of advent first hand. We could see the Church colours were purple, which matched our class prayer space. We saw an advent wreath with 5 candles, which represented the 4 Sundays of advent and 1 for Christmas Day. We stood in awe of the magnificent nativity stained-glass window and could identify some key people from the Christmas story.
In art this week, we produced some wonderful self-portraits. We have been working very hard on developing our drawing skills and techniques and were able to showcase these in our fantastic self-portraits. We were extremely proud of the results.
We are keen to begin writing our narratives next week, based around the Christmas advert ‘Sprout Boy’. This week we have been looking closely at Sprout Boy’s emotions through the story and have thought about different story starters. We are all bursting with ideas for our own individual stories.
We are looking forward to performing our nativity performance of Superstar this week at St John’s Church. If the rehearsals are anything to go by, the audience are in for a real treat!
A snowy week.
The snow has landed this week, it has prompted lots of discussion and created an air of magic in the classroom.
We have read stories about winter, snowflakes of course Christmas. We have been able to look closely at the ice and snow, which has linked wonderfully to our Science topic of seasonal change.
In DT we have been learning different ways to join fabrics. We tried gluing, pinning and stapling as possible ways. Next, we will learn how to thread a needle, before deciding the best way to join the fabric in our Christmas decorations, which I hasten to add, we are VERY excited about!
In music this week, we have been finding out the meaning of the word ‘dynamics’. We listened to different types of music and could identify the dynamics and found out that dynamics are needed to make music more interesting and to create mood. We learned the meaning of the words ‘pianissimo’, forte and crescendo’. We really enjoyed this and are trying to keep our classroom dynamics pianissimo where possible and to avoid crescendo!
We had a fun PE session with the Hawkes Sports coaches on Wednesday and their were smiles all round as we learned fundamental skills through some fun games!
We have been continuing to spot newly learned split-diagraphs in our reading books this week.
Learners really are awesome and love, love, love learning!
It’s beginning to look a ‘little’ like Christmas.
Christmas is approaching, this week we have begun rehearsing our 2023 nativity in readiness for the up and coming performances. Learners class will be angels and shepherds and we have been busy allocating parts and lines.
On Friday, we delighted in creating decorations for the school tree at St Mary’s Church in Whitby. Our theme was to show our continued school support for The Zambezi Sunrise Trust. After a class discussion, we decided on making baubles displaying sunrises and globes, the finished products were very effective. We were also lucky to be joined by Jo from the Zambezi Sunrise Trust.
This week in computing, Learners class have used the chrome books to type a Michael Rosen poem. We are still learning to log-in independently and are persevering with using capital letters on the keyboard.
In Art, we have been applying our recently learned drawing skills to create some observational drawing. We identified intricate details of plants and the results were brilliant.
We enjoyed some gymnastics in PE and used benches to travel across, concentrating on our control and balance.
We have begun to learn about the first Christmas in RE and enjoyed listening to the story and identifying key features while drawing story maps sequencing the characters and key events.
In phonics this week we have learned about split digraphs and have been avidly spotting split digraphs in everything we have been reading.
Learners achieved best attendance (again) this week and were proud to be able to choose the ‘coming to school song’ on Friday.
The weather is turning colder now and Christmas is just around the corner, hold on to your hats!
A wonderful week of learning.
As Learners Class reflect on our Learning at the end of each week, we are in awe of all we have achieved. This week is no exception!
In RE, we have begun to explore Christmas and in the coming weeks we will answer the question “Why does Christmas matter to Christians?” We discussed how we knew Christmas was approaching and the signs we may spot in our daily lives.
In art we are continuing to develop our drawing skills and this week focused on creating light and shade using a range of pencils. We used the previously used skills of stippling and hatching to help us too.
This week we have completed our poems based on refuge in the forest. We have REALLY enjoyed writing poetry and were delighted with our final pieces. So much so, we chose to perform our poems to families on Tapestry.
We ended the week, joining the Children in Need endeavours and we even came together in the playground to collectively burpee! Following that, Learners enjoyed a gymnastics session in the Hall, focusing on how to move and travel smoothly and with balance and control.
Another wonderful week of learning. We are excited to see what next week has in store!
We are poets and we know it!
We have enjoyed lots of great learning this week.
On Wednesday, we welcomed families into the classroom to celebrate Diwali. We had lots of families visit us in Learners class and together enjoyed a range of activities to learn more about this special occasion.
In class this week we have spent time looking at the individuals remembered on our village War Memorial, This was incredibly moving and it was wonderful to discover some members of the class with distant family members named on the memorial. We painted poppies to remember each person who lost their lives. The whole school proudly displayed their work around the war memorial, in the Church and around the village.
In English we have been embracing poetry. Families have sharing their own favourite poems with us, which has been delightful. In class, we particularly enjoyed Michael Rosen’s ‘Don’t’ this week and decided to perform part of it on Tapestry to share with our families. To inspire our own poetry writing about refuge in the forest, we headed down to our forest to gather key vocabulary. We managed to dodge the rain and spent a sunny morning in the forest.
We finished the week with a visit from the Rotters, who talked to us about food waste. We made a smoothie using pedal power and made our own wormeries and heard about how worms were vital to our soil and our food growth.
It’s been an incredible week of learning.
Learners Class love to learn 🙂
Sleights Remembers Them
This week, the whole school have reflected on the service personnel who lost their lives and are remembered on our village’s War Memorial Monument. These local heroes have been discussed and their lives researched during the week. The children have each created a symbol of remembrance, including artwork and writing about the local lost soldiers. Today, we came together as a full school and heard the names of these soldiers read out by our children, before beginning our two minutes silence. The hall was still.
The photographs show the work created by the children celebrated around the village. Please do visit the school, community centre, Spar shop, St John’s and the War Memorial to see the work in person. It really is beautiful.
A huge thank you to families who have shared personal memories too. These included finding out about a family connection to one of the individuals on the War Memorial, as well as some very special items from fallen family members.
Celebrating Diwali
It was lovely to welcome almost sixty family members into school today to celebrate the festival of Diwali. The classrooms were a hive of activity, as children and families learned together about the customs, traditions and beliefs of Diwali. The gallery below gives a flavour of some of the activities that families and children enjoyed together.
Harvest Festival 2023
The land has yielded its harvest: God, our God, has blessed us, Psalm 67:6
It was so brilliant to be able to welcome so many families to our service on Wednesday. St John’s was full! A huge thank you for supporting us with your very kind donations too. All donated items will now be shared with the Whitby Food Bank to share around our community.
Learners love to learn!
Learners are always busy and this week has been no exception.
In English we have been busy adding interesting adjectives to some of the wonderful places in Sleights, ready to add these to our letter to the Linda Community School in Zambia.
In Maths we are launching into addition and subtraction and are already showing such confidence around number bonds and part-whole models.
In History, we have delighted in learning about artefacts and LOVED exploring some of the artefacts we have in school. We were particularly mesmerised by the old telephone and astonished that originally it used to attached to a wall.
In Geography, we took our learning outside to explore our playground and school grounds, using our map skills we created maps of the playground using keys to help us.
We are really looking forward to performing our Harvest song in Church and have been busy practising for this. We are sounding truly awesome!
We have enjoyed stories as always and are always keen to read whenever possible.
So much learning in just one week!
Learners just love to learn!
Autumn days
Learners have been learning about seasons this week in Science. We have been identifying each season and ordering them as they fall through the calendar year. We thought about weather patterns and the clothes we wear in summer compared to winter and how family activities vary through the seasons.
In maths we have come to the end of the place value block and are set to begin addition and subtraction. Our daily key skills have enabled us to have plenty of prior learning.
We are continuing to enjoy cricket with Owen from Yorkshire Cricket and delighted in a fun team game this week, using the bats and balls. Our skills are improving and most importantly we all enjoy the sessions.
We are busy preparing for our Harvest service in church on Wednesday 25th October at 9.30am and hope to see you there.
