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Elm Class Activity
Elm Newsletter 28.4.23
Another busy week comes to an end!
I’m really impressed by the improvements that the children are making in their reading. We are enjoying reading The Jungle Book together. They have started to bring some extracts home to share with you. We have been describing the animals, now we are using adjectives to describe the setting. We watched a video of a walk through the tropical forest and listened to the sounds we could hear. There was a mixture of opinions when they described how they thought they might feel if they were alone in the forest!
In maths, we have been solving problems using a mixture of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. This will continue to be our focus over the coming weeks. Please continue to help your child with their 2, 5 and 10 times tables.
The children are beginning to recall facts about India such as the capital city, surrounding countries and India being part of Asia. Next week they will compare daily life in India with their own routine.
Please keep reading, every little helps!
Mrs Dowell and Mrs Armstrong
Elm Newsletter 21.4.23
Welcome back everyone! I hope you all had a great Easter break.
This term we will be learning all about India. The children have already found India in an atlas and learned that it is part of the continent of Asia. Later in the term we will be taking part in some Bollywood dancing. Parents and carers will be invited to join in with their child’s dance session- look out for dates!
We have started to read ‘The Jungle Book’ by Rudyard Kipling. The children are enjoying learning about the characters. They are identifying adjectives to describe and will be writing character descriptions for a display in school.
In maths, we have been measuring the mass of objects in grams and kilograms. The children have been using balance scales and reading scales with missing numbers. Please continue to help your child with learning their times tables fluently.
The children have shown what they already know about plants and have planted a sunflower seed. We will be watching these grow and recording their progress. We will also be investigating what plants need to be healthy. Can they survive without sun, water or soil?
A few reminders:
- This term, PE is just on a Tuesday.
- PE kit is a white t-shirt, plain dark shorts or joggers and a plain dark hoodie or school jumper.
- Book Bags need to be in school everyday.
- All pupils need a water bottle in school.
- All pupils with shoulder length hair or longer, need to have it tied back at all times.
This term will fly by as it is going to be a busy one! Thank you for all your help and support.
Mrs Dowell and Mrs Armstrong.
Elm Newsletter 31.3.23
This half term has gone by so fast! We have worked incredibly hard to improve our reading, writing and maths.
All the children are now writing more and most are punctuating sentences correctly. We have concentrated on rehearsing sentences before we write and thinking about how we can make our writing more interesting by adding adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions. Some pupils are also using possessive apostrophes. So, ‘The boy climbed the ladder’ becomes ‘ The little boy carefully climbed the wooden ladder because he needed to mend the alien’s spaceship.’ Next term we will continue to consolidate what we have learnt.
In maths, we have been learning to tell the time using an analogue clock, the children are finding it difficult. This could be because so many of the clocks we see now are digital! Please help your child by asking them to tell the time regularly. All children need to know o’clock, half past, quarter past and quarter to. Some children will progress to five minute intervals: 10 minutes past 2 or 20 minutes to 5. We have learnt to count in fives around the clock and to use this to help with our 5 times table facts.
The children know why Easter is important to Christians and can answer questions about what happened. They have also learnt about money matters using resources from Santander which you may have seen on the T.V. with Ant and Dec. They can say where money comes from, different forms of money and what we can do to keep it safe. They had the common misconception that you just go to the bank to get money (if only), they hadn’t thought about who puts it in there. We had an interesting lesson on the difference between things we need and things we want!
Well done to everyone who entered the Easter Competition, it was great to have so many amazing entries.
Next term, PE will only be on Tuesdays.
Have a fantastic Easter break,
Mrs Dowell and Mrs Armstrong
Elm Newsletter 24.3.23
What a busy week we have had! The children have completed lots of assessments so that we can see where they need further support. The work that we have put into reading comprehensions has greatly benefitted them as they prepare for their End of Key Stage 1 Statutory Assessments (Year 2 SATs) in May. Their stamina is improving but there is still a lot to do.
In Design and Technology, they have all enjoyed designing a ‘Moving Picture’ of their own. Over the past three weeks they have used a slider, lever and wheel mechanism to make a single part of a picture move. This week they designed and built their own version, they were very creative. Most children managed to incorporate all three mechanisms, well done! It would help if the children could practise their accurate cutting skills, especially cutting out circles, there were some very wonky wheels!
We have also welcomed Max to Elm Class this week who has settled in fabulously. All the children have been really helpful and friendly.
Next Wednesday is the Easter Competition Day and the Easter Disco. The children are invited to wear their disco clothes to school for the day.
Next week will be our last Monday PE session. PE will continue to be on Tuesdays only after the Easter Break.
A reminder that bookbags and Reading Records need to be in school everyday. We read in class EVERY morning. They also regularly need their login details for Mathletics and TTRS which should be stuck inside the cover of their Reading Record.
Have a fab weekend, please keep reading!
Mrs Dowell and Mrs Armstrong
Elm Newsletter 10.3.23
Apologies for the late newsletter, the snow days were a little disruptive!
The children enjoyed learning to use possessive apostrophes in sentences. We looked at lots of book titles which had possessive apostrophes too: Fig’s Giant, Spike’s Best Nest, Tiny’s Big Wish, Toffee’s Friend…
This week we are learning to use adverbs to make our writing more interesting. Adverbs describe how (clap loudly), when (clap later) and where (clap outside) actions are done. We have also seen that some sentences can start with an adverb. ‘Suddenly, the rocket zoomed into the sky.’
We are continuing our learning about fractions. We are quite confident at finding 1/2 (half) of a number or shape. Now we need to learn how to find 1/4 (quarter) of a number.
Thank you for your support,
Mrs Dowell and Mrs Armstrong
Elm Newsletter 3.3.23
What a fantastic World Book Day we had! It was great to see so many children dressed up as their favourite characters. Thank you for the effort you put into making the day a success, it is really appreciated. They enjoyed a special assembly which made them think about their first memory of books, where they like to read and how they choose a book. In class they drew and labeled their character then designed a new book cover for an adapted version of a story they already now. We watched a live lesson from the official World Book Day website. They explored a range of genres including science fiction, fantasy and adventure stories. We finished the day off by watching Michael Rosen perform some of his poems. All the children thought that ‘Chocolate Cake’ was the best! Click the link to watch: Chocolate Cake | POEM | Kids’ Poems and Stories With Michael Rosen – YouTube
This week we have started to read the book ‘The Rainbow Bear’ by Michael Morpurgo. It is a lovely story of wishes and dreams. The Snow Bear wishes to be a Rainbow Bear but not all is what it seems and he soon changes his mind. The children have used adjectives to describe the Arctic setting and written a wish of their own. We have used this story to inspire our Design and Technology this week. We made a moving picture using a ‘slider’ mechanism to show Snow Bear wandering across the wild white wilderness.
In maths we have started to measure length and height accurately, making sure we start at zero on the ruler. They have used centimetres (cm) to measure items in the classroom then went on the playground to measure out the size of some animals in metres (m). Did you know a giant squid can measure up to 18m!
Until Easter, PE will be on MONDAYS AND TUESDAYS. Please make sure your child comes to school in PE kit: white t-shirt, plain dark joggers/leggings and a plain dark hoodie or school jumper/cardigan.
Thank you for the donations of plastic bottles ready for our science this term. We are looking forward to investigating if seeds/plants grow better with a mini greenhouse or without. Next week we will be investigating if snails prefer lettuce, cabbage, spinach or dandelion.
Have a super weekend,
Mrs Dowell and Mrs Armstrong
World Book Day 2023 in Elm Class!
How wonderful everyone looked this morning!
Elm Class Science Request!
Elm Class need clear plastic bottles which can be trimmed to make greenhouses for growing seeds.
Please send any that you have into school as soon as possible. A variety of sizes would be great.
Thank you!
Elm Newsletter 17.2.23
We’ve made it to half term which means the children are more than half way through their time in Elm Class. They’ll be in Year 3 before we know it!
They all enjoyed the disco on Wednesday afternoon, it was so good to see them dancing and having fun. We even had two winners in Elm Class: well done Bobby P and Felicity!
It was great to see so many of you at Parent’s Evenings this week, thank you for coming along. The children will be working hard on their targets in the coming weeks. Please support them with their reading and times tables practice.
Next half term is only a short one. In the first week back it is World Book Day on Thursday 2nd March. I have talked to the children about costume ideas, please do not feel the need to go out and buy a costume. There are lots of simple home made ideas on Google and Pintrest.
Have a great half term,
Mrs Dowell and Mrs Armstrong