Year 1 English: Ordering a Recount
In English, we have started to plan to write a recount on the events of the Great Fire of London. We have learnt lots of new terms such as chronological order, time conjunctions and past tense. Today, we stuck in the pictures for our recount in chronological order and wrote the correct time conjunctions next to them.
Year 3 Meet Author Janek Puzon
Today, the children had the pleasure of meeting an Janek Puzon an author. He read out loud the story Dean the Baked Bean and His Karaoke Machine. This picture book tells the story of Dean, a small but mighty baked bean who doesn't quite fit in with the rest of his tin. While all the other beans are content to sit quietly in the sauce, Dean has a big dream and an even bigger voice. The central themes are: Embracing individuality: Learning that it's okay to be different from everyone else in your "tin." Following the reading, the children engaged in a Q&A session, by asking about the author's journey, his creative process for generating new ideas, and the role of his illustrators. He concluded by mentioning that his works are available on various platforms, including on Amazon. The children are super excited about getting hold of one of his books which will be available at our school library soon. They were particularly fascinated to learn about the editing and proofreading process (which they recognise from using their purple pens), understanding how crucial it is to polish a book before it's published.
Year 4 - English: Roman Vocabulary
To start our new diary unit in English we explored a range of primary and secondary sources in order to build a bank of Roman vocabulary. The children will be writing in role as a Roman soldier describing a typical day at the start of the Roman invasion of Britain.
Library Skills in Year 4
Today we all went to the library to look at all of the wonderful new books that we have to choose from. We discussed key library skills such as putting books back in the correct place according to both author and colour band. We also shared important things to look at when choosing new books such as reading the blurb or looking at the suggestions that are on posters. Our Library is a super resource because it really promotes literacy and a love for reading through a wide range of books. A huge thanks to our English Leader, Miss Flynn, for reorganising the library and purchasing lots of new books.
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Year 3 Presents their learning to Year 4
This morning, Year 3 confidently presented their learning all about the classical poem, 'The Spider and the Fly,' to Year 4. The children did a brilliant job, having memorised key parts of the original poem and then sharing the exciting ending of their own innovated version. The entire class then proudly said the poem's moral: 'Do not be fooled by flattery and compliments'. A huge well done to Year 3!
Year 1 English: The Gruffalo Sensory Story
In Year 1, we have started looking at the story of The Gruffalo. I read the story as a sensory story so that the children were immersed. We had forest sounds in the background and a picture of the deep, dark woods from the story. As we met the characters, we took turns to pass around the characters on lolly sticks. We also had some food to pass around as we read the story, for example “owl ice cream”. The children can now act out the story in the Investigation Area.
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Year 3- English- Capturing Interest: Language Features in The Last Bear
This week in English, we have started exploring our new class book, The Last Bear. The children began by examining the cover and blurb closely and used these clues to make thoughtful predictions about what the story might be about. We also spent some time researching Bear Island, and the children were excited to discover that it is a real island in the Arctic Circle. Today, we began reading Chapter 1 and collected some interesting phrases that captured our interest. Some examples the children noticed included a rather odd kind of normality, the wild, unkempt bramble bush and pure, untouched wilderness. The children have really engaged with the story so far, and we are looking forward to discovering what happens next as we continue reading.
Year 4 English - Escape From Pompeii
Our new class novel is Escape From Pompeii by Christina Balit. In today’s sessions we have continued to use sentence stacking to develop and construct better sentences. We started by adding a fronted adverbial by watching the main character Tranio and recording how he feels about living in Pompeii at the start of the story. We then moved into a modelled sentence and then an independent one with a different fronted adverbial. In our next sentence, we referred back to our experience day and described the size of Mount Vesuvius using words such as colossal and humongous. Finally we used the same modelling to construct a sentence thinking about how Tranio feels about living in such a beautiful part of the world. The children produced some very effective sentences, using the success criteria to ensure they added all of the key parts.
Year 2 English: Story Sequencing
This week in Year 2 we have been reading the story of Prince Cinders and we have sequenced the main events.
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Year 4 - English: Research
It was the start of our new English unit on Monday and the Year 4s were busy conducting research and collecting information about Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius. Their objective was to take keywords from each question and type them into a safe search engine in order to gather relevant information to answer the question. The children also used a range of primary and secondary sources to support their research. The children will be using this information to support their writing of stories based on a historical setting.
Year 3 - English-Classical Poetry: The Spider and Fly
This week, Year 3 writers have started their classical poetry unit, and they are thoroughly enjoying the famous cautionary poem, ‘The Spider and the Fly’. They’ve been actively exploring new vocabulary central to the poem’s setting and theme, including words like parlour (a formal sitting room), pantry (a food storage cupboard), and especially flattering (insincere, sweet-talking praise). Most importantly, they are learning about the poem’s moral lesson: the danger of believing flattering words from someone who has a deceitful or harmful motive.
Year 1: non-chronological reports
I am so proud of all the Year 1 children for writing their non-chronological reports about Emperor Penguins this week. They made sure to include a title, headings as questions, facts, using the conjunction ‘and’ in their sentences, as well as pictures with captions. They worked really hard to remember the facts, capital letters and full stops in their writing. The final reports look brilliant. Well done Year 1