Issue 12 2012-13

Newsletter Issue 12

Friday 30th November 2012

Dear Parent/Carer,

December is just about upon us, the Christmas tree is up in school and it’s the Christmas Fayre on Saturday. I am feeling festive! It’s such a magical time of year for children and I hope that we create some wonderful childhood memories for our children this Christmas that they can think back on and remember as adults.

Donate a bauble!

We thought it would be lovely this year, if the children brought in a bauble from home to help us dress our tree. If your child would like to bring in a (unwanted) bauble from home, they will help to make the decoration of our tree a team affair!

Sickness bugs

As often happens at this time of year, the children are catching sickness bugs at an alarming rate. Please ensure that you keep your children off school for 48 hours after their last bout of sickness or diarrhoea. Thank you.

Judy Murray

We had a celebrity Mum in school this week. On Monday Year 1/ 2 welcomed Judy Murray, mother of Andy Murray, who came in to help the children develop their sporting skills through active and fun activities. Judy got the children enthused in physical activity by setting up 6 simple but fun games in the hall, which could also be played at home. We are very grateful to Lyla (Year 1) and her parents, without whom this fantastic event would not have been possible. Lyla won a competition earlier in the year with the prize being a sports session with Judy Murray for her and her class. My thanks to Miss Mees, who organised the event so very efficiently. A brilliant afternoon was had by all!

Our visitors from Finland

This week, we had the pleasure of welcoming Eeva and Jaana from Finland to look around our school. They were making a preliminary visit to the city in preparation for our involvement with the Comenius project “Developing Outstanding Schools”. This is a very exciting opportunity for us as a school as we will deepen our knowledge and understanding of the Scandinavian educational system, which is considered to be one of the best in the world. Both ladies were utterly impressed by what they saw. They commented mostly on the professional attitudes and outstanding commitment of our teachers, who they could see even from their short visit, put 100% into making sure teaching and learning is as fantastic as it can be. I couldn’t agree more!

Friendly Faces

Yesterday, Miss Hinton and I were invited by Louise to look at the incredible learning taking place in Friendly Faces this half term. We were both left very impressed by the high quality festive outcomes that we saw. Our school engages the children in brilliant learning even after Mr Reynolds has put down the shutters!

School dinners

I, along with many members of staff, have sampled the school dinners this week and have all commented on how delicious they are. Around 230 children and staff have signed up for a school Christmas dinner, which is a huge indication of how much our dinners are enjoyed. My thanks to Debbie and her staff for helping to keep our children’s tummies full, whilst promoting healthy and nutritious eating.

Photography Club

Well done to Jenny in Year 6, whose Christmas card design idea was chosen by our visiting graphic designers to adorn the front of all the Christmas cards sent out by Leeds Children’s Services. Her fantastic design will be seen by thousands! Well done, Jenny.

Christmas date reminders

1/12/12- 10:30a.m- 12:30p.m Christmas Fayre 18/12/12-  2:00 p.m – 3:00 p.m Year 3/ 4 Christmas Production 19/12/12- 10:00a.m Nursery Christmas Production 19/12/12- 2:00 p.m- 3:00 p.m KS1 Christmas Production 19/12/12- 6:00 p.m- 7:00 p.m LKS2 Christmas Production 20/12/12- KS1 and UKS2 Christmas Parties

20/12/12- 6:00p.m- 7:00p.m KS1 Christmas Production 20/12/12- 7:00p.m- 8:00p.m Choir Concert at Rothwell Church 20/12/12- 11:00a.m- 12:00 p.m Reception Production 21/12/12- 10:00a.m Nursery Christmas Production 21/12//12- LKS2 and Nursery Christmas Party 21/12/12- 2:00 Year 5/6 Christmas Service and carol singing

Have a great weekend….I hope to see as many of you as possible at the Christmas Fayre tomorrow.

Mrs Dale

Nursery newsletter

NEWS ROUND UP

We have all been very excited this week as we have started learning about Christmas and what we will be doing during advent to prepare ourselves. The excitement in the classroom has been amazing! All the children have really enjoyed decorating our Christmas tree and they are producing some wonderful play in our arctic area and Santa’s workshop! We have made two very sparkly advent calendars and our classroom and the staff are now completely covered in glitter!

THIS WEEK

In literacy this week we have been learning about what we do during advent, we have discussed putting up our Christmas trees, singing carols, writing our letters to Santa and going to visit him. In numeracy we have been practising counting to 10 and the children are getting better and better so well done you superstars! We have been practising all of our nativity songs and lines this week; we are impressed by how much the children know! We can definitely tell they have been practising but please keep practising at every opportunity to make them even more amazing.

NEXT WEEK

Next week in literacy we will be learning about the Christmas story to help the children understand the reason that we celebrate Christmas. In topic we will be making a fabulous nativity display for our classroom and we will be practising our nativity lines and songs. In numeracy we will be learning lots of different counting songs for us all to join in with. We will also be transforming ourselves into scientists next week and finding out for Santa which material he should wrap his presents in this year.

HOW YOU CAN HELP US

·        Please listen to your child’s fabulous reading once a day and comment in their reading record. Please feel free to drop in and change their books when you pick them up.

·        Please practice counting to 10 and beyond with your child at any opportunity. Please also practise writing and recognising the numbers 1-6 with them. If your child can do both of these then please help them go even further.

·        Please practise writing the first letter of your Child’s name and if they can do this try going even further with them.

·        Please practise singing our nativity songs with your child.

                                                                                               

We hope you have a lovely weekend and not too much Christmas shopping!

Thank you for your continued support.

Mrs Steel and the Nursery Team.

Reception newsletter

NEWS ROUND UP

We have all been very excited this week as we have started learning all about Christmas and what we will be doing during advent to prepare ourselves. The excitement in the classroom has been amazing! All the children have really enjoyed decorating our Christmas tree and they are producing some wonderful play in our arctic area and Santa’s workshop! We have made two very sparkly advent calendars and our classroom and Mrs Friar are now completely covered in glitter!

Mrs Dale’s office was incredibly full this week as 26 fantastic children achieved their sounds and words of the week certificates. We are very proud of all the children as they are really trying their hardest to achieve the certificates. Keep it up you superstars!

THIS WEEK

In literacy this week we have been learning about what we do during advent, we have discussed putting up our Christmas trees, singing carols, writing our letters to Santa and going to visit him. This week in phonics we have learnt the diagraphs ai, ee, igh and oa.  yet again these are tricky sounds but the children continue to amaze us with their enthusiasm and determination to learn the sounds. Our key words this week were the tricky words; you, all, they, are, my and her. In numeracy we have been learning about ordinal numbers (1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd etc) and have been learning the 12 days of Christmas song to help us. We have been learning all our Christmas songs for our nativity this week. We are impressed by how much they know, you can definitely tell they have been practising, but please keep practising them at home so they become even more confident.

NEXT WEEK

Next week is assessment week so that we can see all the wonderful new things the children have learnt over the last half term. In literacy we will be learning about the Christmas story to help the children learn the reason that we celebrate Christmas and we’ll be making our very own books about the nativity story. In topic we will be making a fabulous nativity display for our classroom and we will be practising our nativity lines and songs. Our sounds of the week are; oo (as in book), oo (as in scoop), ar (as in star) and or (as in corn). We will be looking at the Mr Thorne website, the words and pictures BBC website and the Ror the Zebra website to help us learn these sounds. All of the websites can be found through Google. Our key words this week are to be able to write the tricky words; I, go, no, to, the and into.

HOW YOU CAN HELP US

·         Please listen to your child’s fabulous reading once a day and comment in their reading record.

·         Please practise counting to 100 and recognising and writing numbers to 30 with your child.

·         Please practise and recap the sounds we have already learnt.

·         Please help your child practise their letter formation. Please remember that hairy letters is fantastic.

·         Please support your child in accessing the bug club website. We have seen how many have accessed it so far so well done to those children!

·         Please help your child learn their nativity lines if they have been given some and please all learn the nativity songs with your child.

·         We will be asking for the nativity costumes to be sent in the week beginning the 10^th of December if you have any questions or queries about this then please come and ask us.

We hope you have a lovely weekend that isn’t taken over by Christmas shopping.

Thank you for your continued support.

Miss Lambert, Miss Pyatt and the Reception Team

Key Stage 1

Home Learning: The children have spent the last four weeks looking at other authors’ story structures and amending the settings, characters and events. We would like them to take this knowledge and use their own imagination to apply their learning into a story of their own. Use the story starter, “It was another dark, dull day when ‘X’ peered out of the window and moaned, “I’m SO bored because every day is the same! If only I could have an adventure all of my own.” Little did ‘X’ know, everything was about to change”. Encourage your child to think of at least two settings to travel through on their way to an exciting and tense climax  before moving on to a resolution to the drama. Promote the use of time connectives (first, afterwards, eventually), adjectives to describe the places and characters and ambitious verbs and adverbs to convey how the character is moving or talking that match the happenings at each stage of their story (“an angry eagle swooped down and quickly snatched the magic key from ‘X’s hand). They can either verbalise it as you scribe, create a mini comic strip or write to their heart’s content…but as always the importance of capital letters and full stops is paramount!

News:

A celebrity comes to Robin Hood!

On Monday we welcomed Andy Murray’s mum into our school for a fun filled afternoon of sport! Thanks to Lyla B’s creative flare for inventing games for children and their families, Year 1-2 were able to partake in a workshop devised and run by Judy Murray’s ‘Set for Sport’. The children showed off their ball skills working through different stations of activities. It was such a wonderful afternoon which these children were fortunate to have experienced but fear not, those children not in year 1-2 will benefit from a book of activities left by Judy. The children’s behaviour and enthusiasm showcased the school so well that Judy tweeted afterwards that she wished she’d been a teacher! We’re famous!

Key Stage One Christmas performance

Every child in Key Stage one has brought home a slip informing you of their character for the Christmas performance this week. On it you will find the outfit your child needs to have by the 10^th of December (apologies for the miscommunication on the date for having this ready by!). Some children in year 2 have speaking parts which were also sent home this week, please support your child in memorising and practising their lines to ensure the performance of a lifetime on the Wednesday 19^th December, 2:00pm – 3:00pm and again on Thursday 20^th December, 6:00pm – 7:00pm.  We kindly ask you to bring the children back to school on Thursday at 5:30pm so they can participate in the evening performance too.

Assessment Week

Can you believe it’s that time already?! Next week our mid-point assessments will take place in reading, writing and numeracy. Miss Hinton has already started the year 1 phonics screening checks and the results have been amazing for this point in the year! We’ve no doubt that the happy news will continue through to next week with any gaps in learning by individuals being highlighted and addressed. Tune in to the newsletter in 2 weeks’ time for an update.

PTA Christmas Fayre

Join us for some fun and frolics at the Christmas Fayre this Saturday from 10:30am. Donations are still being taken by our dedicated PTA and will still be gratefully received on the day. It’s sure to be a lovely day in which we can mingle and further strengthen our community bonds. See you there!

Literacy

We have continued studying traditional tales in literacy, rotating the literature (We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, Gorilla and Where the Wild Things Are) between the classes in the key stage. The ‘Story Mountain’ still shapes our story development with us taking a closer look at how to improve our writing by using speech, appropriate verbs and interesting adverbs. All the children took part in a Star Write challenge today which focused predominantly on the build-up, climax and resolution in their adaptations of these tales. Some top examples of the books from the last Star Write can be found in the school library, which we are sure to add to after this week’s learning.

Numeracy

This week saw the end to our subtraction learning journey. We have immersed ourselves in the language around subtraction and the methods with which to solve such problems, finding answers by pulling the numbers out of word problems and either partitioning with Maltesers or numbers and even going into column subtraction. The final stage to this unit allowed the children to apply all the knowledge they gathered to solve missing number problems, which also allowed them to pitch the challenge themselves and really take ownership for pushing their learning on.

Lower Key Stage 2 Newsletter

We have had an exciting and fun week in LKS2! We have been super impressed with the children’s team work when working together to create their spectacular inventions. We had a magical time on Thursday during our trip to the theatre. The play was fantastic and it was lovely to hear the children singing along to the songs we learnt last half term. We would like to say a big thank you and well done to all of the children for being so sensible and mature, we were extremely proud of them.

Home Learning

Thank you for supporting your children to improve on their weekly star write challenge at home. We have been blown away with the children’s improvement to their writing, their beautiful presentation and the pride they take in their learning. This has impacted greatly on their star write challenge this week and we are very pleased. Please continue this amazing support. Please also continue to encourage your child to read and record it into their reading records.

Literacy

We have continued to develop our persuasive writing techniques this week in Literacy. We have been blown away with the children’s use of adjectives to make their writing more interesting and create a picture for the reader. In addition to this, the children have been trying really hard to include a range of persuasive feature in their writing such as superlatives, comparatives, questions, quotes, statistics, and adjectives. We are looking forward to seeing all of these features in their assessed writes next week!

Numeracy

This week in numeracy the children have been applying their knowledge of mental strategies to different mathematical concepts such as money. Not only this, the children have been improving the pace of solving their calculations and then checking them with a written method. We have also seen a great improvement with our calculator skills, well done 3/4. Next week the children will have a chance to show off their amazing mathematical skills as it is assessment week.

Topic

The children have been designing and making their own inventions this week in topic. We have been blown away with the children’s team skills and problem solving skills when working with their partner. Their inventions have been carefully constructed out of boxes and then carefully painted. Not only this, the children have been creating persuasive posters to advertise their invention to the world.

Spellings to be tested on Monday 10^th December (the children already have their spellings for this Monday)

Group One	Group Two
news	furniture
screws	texture
stew	figure
flew	sculpture
drew	creature
grew	picture
glue	temperature
jewel	mixture
clue	signature
blue	future

Reminders

·         Please can you bring in any jam jars. We are starting to collect them in preparation for our Christmas lanterns.

·         Please continue to learn lines for the Christmas Production as we are starting to rehearse and stage it next week.

UKS2 News Roundup

·          Our Achiever of the week goes to Aaron Spear who, after only being with us for 2 weeks, has produced some phenomenal outcomes in all subjects. His fable story in literacy has included lots of our key features, his leaflet about the Incan civilisation in South America is packed full of facts and he’s even been teaching the whole class how to sign a few words. Truly wonderful and a real asset to the phase and school. Well done Aaron.

·          Next week we will be carrying out regular assessments in reading, writing and numeracy. The children are all very familiar with the process and they should see this as an opportunity to show us just how amazing they are.

Dates for the Diary:

·          On Tuesday 11^th December we will be holding a celebration afternoon in the style of a South American carnival. We will have lots of things to show you from our topic lessons this half term, so if any parents and carers wish to join in the with the ‘Samba beat’ and take a look at the wonderful learning, please come along to see us from 2.15pm. We will hopefully have some tasty South American biscuits to share with you too.

·          Our Christmas party will take place on Thursday December 20^th. The children are welcome to bring in crisps, cakes, sweets, biscuits and sugar-free drinks if they wish to contribute. The children will have their school dinner as usual and some goodies in the afternoon during the party.

·          Our Christmas Service is on Friday 21^st December in the school hall at 2:00pm, followed by our annual Carols around the Tree - we look forward to sharing some festive cheer ready to start the Christmas holidays!

Reminders:

·          For PE, please ensure that you have a plain white T-shirt and black or blue shorts. Pumps can be worn though trainers are not suitable.

·          Don’t forget to bring in your planners every day, especially on Monday when they will be stamped and signed – try to aim for at least 4 entries per week of reading and remember, stickers are up for grabs!

·          We will be getting a little messy in Art next week, so please bring in an old shirt to paint in if possible!

Numeracy:

• This week in Numeracy, we have been using all of our known facts about number and the 4 operations to solve ‘Jungle-based’ word problems and puzzles. We have been finding areas, using algebra, working with calculators and even calculating dinner menus for celebrities – what a week! 
• In mental maths we have been focussing on our 9 times table. If you would like any further practise, visit http://robinhood56.blogspot.co.uk/ and click on Numeracy. There is a link to Hit the Button which is being used to practise all times tables. There are also lots of free iPad apps to help with times tables – Multiple Wipeout is a particular favourite of ours.
• Next week, we will be applying our knowledge of inverse, percentage and fractions to some Harry Potter investigations!

Literacy:

• In Literacy this week, we have written our very own fable using many of the classic features we identified last week. We have focussed on the use of adverbs and adjectives for description, as well as the use of adverbial clauses to add a little bit of extra detail.
• Next week, we will be travelling back to South America and will look back at our travel guide adverts from topic. We will be improving these travel guides by using high level detail, prepositions (to state the location of things/places) as well as complex sentences to add further detail.
• SPELLINGS: this week we have been focussing on homophones (words that sound the same but are spelt differently). This week’s spellings are: profit, prophet, draw, drawer, principle, principal, led, lead, alter, altar

Other areas of the curriculum:

• In Topic, we have continued to look at the historical civilisation of the Incans. We have painted and decorated our Incan clay gods with metallic paints and pens. We have also produced some collaborative art of Incan style images, all of which you will be able to see at the Carnival in a couple of weeks.
• In ICT, the children have been continuing to develop their South American documentaries using iMovie ready to show at our Carnival!
• This week in Spanish, we have continued to learn about the different types of music and musical instruments and have developed conversations in order to express our likes and dislikes.
• In Music, 5/6B have continued to look at the musical notations on a keyboard and have applied this when reading the music to play classic Christmas carols on the piano using Garageband.  5/6G have got into the spirit of the Rio carnivals with their samba percussion workshops.   5/6M have been playing crochets and quavers using the notes BAG on the recorder – the children really are improving their musical notation skills and have played some complex pieces this week!

Issue 11 2012-13

Newsletter Issue 11

Friday 23rd November 2012

Dear Parent/Carer,

I have had many opportunities to walk around our lovely school this week. I welcomed interested parents who wanted to see Robin Hood in preparation for choosing a suitable school for their child. All seemed very impressed and many commented on how happy the children were in their learning. I also had the chance to carry out some observations with the Headteacher of Oulton Primary, who also commented on what a lovely feel the school has and how brilliantly engaged our learners are. It has made me feel very proud.

Operation Christmas Child

In total, we received a whopping 112 shoeboxes in support of the Operation Christmas Child appeal. Thank you wholeheartedly to everyone who has taken the time to put the boxes together. Along with the Poppy appeal, Children in Need and this appeal, your generosity has been incredible.

Christmas Fayre

One last plea from the PTA- We have been overwhelmed by the donations and everything is coming together wonderfully. We still need to ask one last time for bottle donations. If you have any of the following, please feel free to send them our way- Shampoo, beans, spaghetti, shower gel, or alcohol. Dig deep everyone!

Photography Club

This week, in Photography club we welcomed graphic designers, Sally and Michael who offered advice on how to make a fabulous professional looking Christmas card, using our Ipad applications. We are very excited because somebody’s design is going to be chosen (after some expert tweaking by Michael), to be on the front of every Christmas card sent out by Leeds Children’s Services. Robin Hood were recommended by Art Forms, Leeds to represent the city in designing the cards as we are well known city wide for our incredible creative skills and engagement with the arts. Another proud moment for me!

James Driver

I mentioned a few weeks ago that James is due to have his operation on 29^th November. Well, that time has quickly come and we will all be wishing James Good Luck over the next few days as he prepares for his stay in hospital from Wednesday. We will be continuing to support James’ Wish to Walk charity on Sunday December 16^th when there will be many members of the community volunteering their time to pack bags at Morrisons in Rothwell to raise money. If any of you can and would like to give a couple of hours of your time to help out, please approach Mrs Mistry. In the meantime, Good Luck James….from all of us!

Our new reading area

Many of the children have really enjoyed exploring and utilising our new Reading area, which was installed at the end of last week. It is vibrantly coloured and resourced with the most fantastic story books, which are available for any of the children to take home and enjoy with their families. A shelf has been selected specifically to showcase the children’s writing which they have published in class. This is a great way of valuing the brilliant writing that happens at our school and showing the children that they too can be authors. My thanks to Miss Hinton and Miss Lambert, who have worked hard to make this area so purposeful and well used.

Christmas date reminders

1/12/12  10:30a.m- 12:30p.m Christmas Fayre 18/12/12  2:00 p.m – 3:00 p.m Lower Key Stage 2 Christmas Production 19/12/12 10:00a.m Nursery Christmas Production 19/12/12 2:00p.m-3:00p.m KS1 Christmas Production 19/12/12 6:00p.m- 7:00p.m LKS2 Christmas Production 20/12/12 KS1 and UKS2 Christmas Parties

20/12/12 6:00p.m-7:00p.m KS1 Christmas Production 20/12/12 7:00 p.m- 8:00p.m Choir Concert at Rothwell Church 20/12/12 11:00a.m- 12:00 p.m Reception Production 21/12/12 10:00a.m Nursery Christmas Production 21/12/12 LKS2 and Nursery Christmas Party 21/12/12 2:00p.m Year 5/6 Christmas Service and carols round the tree

Have a really lovely weekend everybody!

Mrs Dale

Nursery newsletter

NEWS ROUND UP

This week was our final week of celebrating Diwali. We ended the week with some gorgeous Indian food (thanks to all our lovely and supportive parents), a bit of Bangrah music and some amazing Bollywood dancing from the children. A truly wonderful time was had by all and it was an experience that will have helped consolidate all the things the children have learnt over the last two weeks.

THIS WEEK

This week we have been learning about all the different ways Hindu’s prepare for Diwali and the children prepared for our own Diwali celebration by decorating the diva lamps they made last week and making some yummy coconut barfi for us all to try at our Diwali party. In literacy we have been reading and learning about the story of Rama and Sita so the children are becoming more confident in retelling stories. The children have been busy bees in numeracy this week. They have looked at all the names of the different shapes and have thought about their properties. The children are improving and becoming more confident at tuning into and recognising animal and environmental sounds and the whole nursery team is very impressed with their progress.

NEXT WEEK

Ho ho ho! It’s that time of year again when we all start the countdown to when Santa is going to visit us. Next week we will be beginning our learning about Christmas celebrations. On Monday our classroom will have been transformed into a winter wonderland, with a Santa’s grotto and a North Pole area. We will have a fabulous time decorating our tree, discussing what we mean by advent and then discussing what else we need to do to prepare for Christmas. In topic we are going to be making our exciting advent calendar which we will open each day in December. In Maths we will be practising counting all the way to ten so please try and practise this with your child beforehand at any opportunity. We will be beginning our song practise and proper rehearsals for the nativity next week so please support your child in learning their lines and the songs.

HOW YOU CAN HELP US

·        Please listen to your child’s fabulous reading once a day and comment in their reading record. Please feel free to drop in and change their books when you pick them up.

·        Please practice counting to 10 and beyond with your child at any opportunity. Please also practise writing and recognising the numbers 1-6 with them. If your child can do both of these then please help them go even further.

·        Please practise writing the first letter of your Child’s name and if they can do this try going even further with them.

·        Please practise singing our nativity songs with your child. These can be found on the foundation stage blog.

Have an amazing weekend.

Mrs Steel and the Nursery Team

Reception newsletter

NEWS ROUND UP

This week was our final week of celebrating Diwali. We ended the week with some gorgeous Indian food (thanks to all our lovely and supportive parents), a bit of Bangrah music and some amazing Bollywood dancing from the children. A truly wonderful time was had by all and it was an experience that will have helped consolidate all the things the children have learnt over the last two weeks. Our certificate number just keeps on rising! This week we had one more certificate than last week so our number is now 20 which is amazing! There were lots of children that were only one off and the improvement in all the children is clear, so please keep encouraging your child to learn their sounds and words. We want even more certificates this week!

THIS WEEK

In literacy this week we have been learning about all the different ways Hindu’s prepare for Diwali and the children prepared for our own Diwali celebration by making and decorating diva lamps as well as making some yummy coconut barfi for us all to try at our Diwali party. This week has been challenging for the children in phonics as we have introduced the diagraphs (2 letters together but that only make 1 sound e.g. ch, sh, th and ng) but the children rose to the challenge and really embraced it, me and Miss Lambert are very proud of them all. The sounds we concentrated on this week were; ch, sh, th and ng and our key words were the tricky words; he, she, we, me, be and was. The children have been busy bees in numeracy this week, they have been working out what is two more than a given number, have looked at the names and properties of shapes as well as investigated the lines of symmetry in rangoli patterns.

NEXT WEEK

Ho ho ho! It’s that time of year again when we all start the countdown to when Santa is going to visit us. Next week we will be beginning our learning about Christmas celebrations. On Monday our classroom will have been transformed into a winter wonderland, with a Santa’s grotto and a North Pole area. We will have a fabulous time decorating our tree, discussing what we mean by advent and then discussing what else we need to do to prepare for Christmas. In topic we are going to be making our exciting advent calendar which we will open each day in December. In Maths we will be learning the 12 days of Christmas song and thinking about ordinal numbers i.e. 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd. We will be beginning our song practise and rehearsals for the nativity so please support your child in learning their lines and the songs that can be found on the foundation stage blog. Our sounds of the week are; ai, ee, igh and oa and our words are the next set of tricky words; you, all, they, are, my and her.

HOW YOU CAN HELP US

·        Please listen to your child’s fabulous reading once a day and comment in their reading record.

·        Please practise counting to 100 and recognising and writing numbers to 30 with your child.

·        Please practise and recap the sounds we have already learnt.

·        Please help your child practise their letter formation. Please remember that Hairy Letters is fantastic.

·        Please support your child in accessing the bug club website. We have seen how many have accessed it so far so well done to those children!

·        Please help your child learn their nativity lines if they have been given some and please all learn the nativity songs with your child.

·        We will be asking for the nativity costumes to be sent in the week beginning the10^th of December, if you have any questions or queries about this then please come and ask us.

We hope you have a fun filled weekend.

Miss Lambert, Miss Pyatt and the Reception Team

 

Key Stage 1

Home learning The children in KS1 have been learning all about subtraction this week. Please practise some take away sums at home. It’s important that your child is familiar with the following vocabulary: take away, subtract, how many are left, how much less is…than…difference between, how much more is…than…how many more to make…. Please create some word problems which include one of the vocabulary choices listed above, then ask your child to make up some questions for you so they can practise using the correct mathematical vocabulary (and you can brush up on your maths skills!). Try a mixture of: ·         Units-Unit (e.g. 7 take away 5 is…) ·         Tens and Units take away Units (e.g. 24 minus 8 is…) ·         Tens and Units take away Tens and Units (e.g. 12 less than 26 is…)

 

News

Christmas dinner

This will be on Wednesday 12^th December so if you haven’t brought your slip and money in please do so by Monday 26^th November.

Our amazing KS1 blog

Mrs Mistry updates the KS1 blog every week with examples of our learning. You can also find a copy of the newsletter on there as well as details of certificate winners and achievers. It’s well worth a look!  Please visit the school website: http://www.robinhood.leeds.sch.uk/homepage/ 

Literacy

This week the children have been introduced to a new class book ‘Where the Wild Thing Are’ (Year 2), ‘Gorilla’ (Year 1/2) ‘We’re going on a Bear Hunt’ (Year 1).  The children have read the story and retold it to their partner in class before retelling the events in a drama sequence.  The staff were very impressed with the drama skills and the additional actions the children added.  The children are continuing to explore the story mountain looking at the Opening, Build-up, Climax, Resolution and Ending, and discussing the crucial elements for a great story.   The children have used the structure of their class book to write their own version by changing one element (the setting or the character). The children are SO creative – particularly with all the drama activities we have tried. Have a go at hot-seating your child as one of the characters, they are budding actors!

Next week the children will continue re-telling their class book but will focus on the Climax and Resolution before finishing the week writing their own books!  A selection of these books will be made available in the new Reading Area for the whole of the school to sit and enjoy!  Please continue to use the ‘Bug Club’ account and read the books provided, if you child sees an amazing word choice in the books they read ask them to ‘Magpie’ the ideas and use them in their own writing.  ‘Story Time’ is also another great way to introduce new word choices and vocabulary…..so remember to read lots!

Numeracy

This week the children have been introduced to subtraction and discussed what happens to the answer with a subtractions, it gets smaller.  The children have used a number of strategies to help with their subtraction such as: using fingers, counting back, using the hundred square and partitioning the biggest number to then take away the smallest.  The children have blown us away with how quickly they have picked up all our methods for subtraction.  Please support your child with the Home Learning this week to further embed your child’s understanding of subtraction and the language involved. 

The children will continue with their subtraction unit next week but will be focusing on word problems, so the completion of the Home Learning will support your child in class.  The children will also be looking at missing numbers and how to solve a problem when one of the numbers is missing.

Topic - Sewing

If you need a hole sewing up, or a button sewing on – your child can do it for you now (nearly!) We have sewn some beautiful hand puppets of Jack and the Beanstalk characters. The children’s imagination, technique and sheer will to succeed has led to some fantastic outcomes. Please check out the pictures on the blog.

Lower Key Stage 2 Newsletter

We have had yet another amazing week in LKS2 full of exciting and inspiring learning. The children have blown us away with the fantastic and imaginative inventions they’ve designed with the brief to improve people’s lives. We have had teleporters, robots that clean your houses, machines that can make you breakfast, pens that write for you and much more. We look forward to showing off both the children’s designs and the final prototypes of these inventions at our ‘Great Exhibition’ on Friday 23^rd November at 3:15 in your child’s classroom.

Home Learning

Well done to all of those children who have been put on our new Bug Club scheme and managed to log on and read their first eBooks online. Every week there will be a selection of new books for you to enjoy and some fun and exciting quizzes and follow up activities to complete. It is really useful for us to be able to track the children’s progress each time they visit the site and reward them for all of their hard work. This week your child would have received a photocopy of their writing from the previous week’s star write challenge and an exercise book. This is something we will be sending home on a weekly basis for you and your child to read through. Please discuss the teachers comment and new target set with your child and then give them the opportunity to redraft their writing incorporating the new target. We think this is a fantastic opportunity to share the amazing writing that your child is doing and for you to help support them with their next steps.

Literacy

We have continued to develop our superb writing techniques to persuade the reader this week. After evaluating their previous letters to Prince Albert, the children have written another letter, using even more persuasive techniques to persuade him to let them exhibit their very own invention in the Great Exhibition. We were blown away with the use of persuasive and audience engaging features such as, superlatives, comparatives, questions, quotes, statistics, and adjectives. In addition to all of this, the children have been learning to sophisticate their sentence structure by using both compound and complex sentence.

Numeracy

This week in numeracy the children have been learning different mental strategies for addition and subtraction. The children have been trying really hard to find number bonds, doubles and halves, and pairs of multiples of 5 and 50 that total 100. They have been racing against time to improve the speed of their calculations and we have been really impressed by their focus and determination. Next week we will be consolidating our new mental strategies and then applying them to different mathematical concepts.

Topic

The children have been working super hard to finish their Victorian zoetrope’s and thaumatropes, and have continued the whole class effort in creating a ride from a Victorian fair ground using the K-nex. The children have also designed a new invention of their very own that will improve people’s lives. We are looking forward to making these next week.

Spellings to be tested on Monday 26^th November (the children already have their spellings for this Monday)

Group One	Group Two
zoo	happened
food	exclaimed
boots	suggested
moon	whispered
roots	manufactured
broom	stated
spoon	questioned
shampoo	explained
tooth	identified
balloon	recalled

Reminders

·    Next week the children are making their own inventions. Could you please bring in any cereal boxes, egg boxes, plastic bottles or yoghurt pots.

·    Please can you also bring in any jam jars. We are starting to collect them in preparation for our Christmas lanterns.

 UKS2 News Roundup

·    This week’s achiever is Millie Booth for her amazing Incan god model, which she made out of clay – her attention to detail was incredible. We can’t wait to see how it looks when it’s been painted! Well done, Millie!

·    Thank you to the children in Year 6 who have ensured that the necessary papers have been in school this week for our Splat the SATs session. This has enabled us to share answers as well as discuss the knowledge needed and strategies used to answer the questions. The Reading paper should be completed and in school for 27^th November.

·    The shoeboxes for the 2012 Operation Christmas Child appeal were collected this week. A massive thank you to those in Year 5/6 who brought in a shoebox which will be given to a disadvantaged child in Europe. With your help, we managed as a school to collect 112 shoeboxes!

Reminders:

·    For PE, please ensure that you have a plain white T-shirt and black or blue shorts. Pumps can be worn though trainers are not suitable as the focus is gymnastics.

·    Home Learning: The children have brought home their diary entry about a day in Rio de Janeiro and the Amazon Rainforest. Please respond to teacher feedback and rewrite the diary. The children have also got some information about the accurate use of commas and direct speech in their green home learning books and questions to answer on these. Please return to school by Friday 30^th November.

·    Planners will be signed and stamped every Monday morning so please make sure they are in school on this day. Aim for at least 4 reading entries each week to earn stickers for your bookmark.

Numeracy:

• This week in Numeracy, the learning focus has been on decimal numbers. The children have been developing skills in ordering and comparing decimals as well as counting on and back in tenths.
• Times Tables Practice: Hit the Button is a game which is used during the daily mental maths sessions. A link to this can be accessed by visiting http://robinhood56.blogspot.co.uk/ and clicking on Numeracy.
• Next week, the focus is on applying all the skills we have been learning about over the last few weeks to some ‘I’m a Celebrity’ numeracy questions. There will be bush tucker trials where the children will need to solve equations to win!

Literacy:

• The focus this week has been on fables. The children began the week by reading a number of fables and identifying their features. They have then improved the opening to the fables of The Hare and the Tortoise and The Boy Who Cried Wolf by adding description including adverbs, adjectives and figurative language.  Next week, the children will be planning and writing their own fable.
• Practise Punctuation: We will be focusing on using speech marks in writing. You can find out the rules by watching the film clip at http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/speech-marks/9122.html

·         Home Learning: The spelling focus this week is homophones (words which sound the same as each other but are spelt differently) threw, through, guessed, guest, herd, heard, allowed, aloud, peace, piece

Other areas of the curriculum:

• In Topic, the children have been researching information about The Incas in order to produce a leaflet about this ancient civilisation. They have also been identifying the features of Inca gods and using these to design their own god. The children have then used clay to mould and sculpt their design. The next step will be to paint their Inca god.
• In PE this week, the children have been using core skills in gymnastics including balances, jumps and rolls to develop a sequence in pairs and groups of four.
• The focus in ICT has been to review and select film footage which can be used in a documentary which compares Rio de Janeiro and the Amazon Rainforest.
• This week in Spanish, the children have been using their Spanish vocabulary to have a conversation about buying a CD.
• In Music, 5/6M have been using the notation B, A and G when playing the recorder. They have performed a number of songs which have included these notes. 5/6B have read sheet music and used a Touch Instrument on Garageband to play the notes. 5/6G have been creating samba music using a variety of percussion instruments!