We are readers

Our new text this half term is a non fiction book called Space Explorers, which included 25 extraordinary stories of space exploration.

In our book talk sessions we have learnt new vocabulary such as, ‘conflict’ ‘devoted’ ‘override’, ‘pacing’, ‘vast’, ‘mesmerised’ and ‘observation’. We ensure that we all know what the words mean and discuss how they had been used in the text by the author. Miss models reading the first couple of pages then we practise our fluency by taking it in turns to read paragraphs/whole pages each. We listen and observe carefully so that we can critique how well our partner had used the punctuation such as commas and full stops in the text. We then go through some reasons to read together which required us to use our skimming and scanning skills to allow us to retrieve information from the text. As a class we need to improve on explaining how we go about finding the answer to a question.

We take it in turns to read the different questions and unpick the vocabulary used to help us to understand what information was required such as, ‘How long…’ meaning that we needed to look for a time (minutes, years, months, years etc.). We use our skimming and scanning skills (with a little help from miss thinking aloud) to retrieve the answers from the text. Once we have located the information we check the amount of marks required and if 2/3 marks we explain our answers using the evidence that we had found to support our answer (A.P.E). Later on in the week in demonstration comprehension, we have unpicked questions and accuracy with answers. Miss can already see an improvement from our first Demonstration Comprehension lesson!

Scotties

We were put through our paces in our Scotties session – not just testing our physical ability but also our ability to work in partners to communicate and accomplish goals together. Great effort Crew Mcloughlin and I am sure we will improve next session!

Demonstration Comprehension in Crew Elmer…

Today we began our lesson by critiquing the best answer for the given question, ‘Why had the engineers taken extra care when building the Vostok?’. We then looked through some ‘reasons to read’ together linked to a range of different HOB lenses such as ‘logical meaning making’ and ‘trawling for evidence’. We took it in turns to read the different questions and unpick the vocabulary used to help us to understand what information was required such as, ‘How long…’ meaning that we needed to look for a time (minutes, years, months, years etc.). We used our skimming and scanning skills (with a little help from our rulers and highlighters) to retrieve the answers from the text. Once we had located the information we explained our answers using the evidence that we had found to support our answer (A.P.E). Mrs Elmer then supported us with recording our answers. Mrs Elmer modelled the first one, we did the second one together and then in pairs we had a go at the final one! We then concluded the lesson by sharing our personal opinion on the story.

Wartime Organisation

This week we have continued to delve into our history case study, exploring WW2. We started by looking at the different organisations involved in the wartime effort. We discovered there were 4 organisations that people belonged to: the Armed Forces, the government, special operations and the home front. We explored different people within the organisations – we recorded key facts, roles and responsibilities. This was an opportunity to practice our reading within our expedition lesson.

Materials

In Crew Marsh we have been looking at different materials. We organised them into different categories – wood, metal, fabric, glass and plastic. We then spoke about what properties each material had. We applied this to our castle learning and thought about what material we would want to use to build a castle – we voted for metal.

Book Talk continues in Crew Elmer…

To begin today’s session we recapped some of the new vocabulary that we identified in lesson 1 of Book Talk such as, ‘override’, ‘pacing’, ‘vast’, ‘mesmerised’ and ‘observation’. We ensured that we all knew what the words meant and discussed how they had been used in the text by the author. We then worked with our partners to read the text. We took it in turns to read sentences/paragraphs/whole pages each. We listened and observed carefully so that we could critique how well our partner had used the punctuation such as commas and full stops in the text. We then went through some reasons to read together which required us to use our skimming and scanning skills to allow us to retrieve information from the text. We were fab at this! We then completed a true or false quiz based on what we had read. We then completed the session by listing 3 facts, 2 opinions and 1 question. Another great Book Talk session Crew Elmer! Well done!

Farming Crew Challenges

Today in PE we continued to develop our listening skills and working together as a crew to achieve our end goal. Our first challenge was ‘Sheep huddle’. We worked in pairs, the sheep was blindfolded whilst the farmer gave the instructions using positional language to herd the sheep into their pen. We had to think very carefully about our one step and two step instructions. We then finished off with our favourite challenge, Spiders Web. Great work again today, Crew Godley!

Book Talk fun in Crew Hamill Y5/6

In Crew Hamill, first we recalled key information about the text. Then we enjoyed drawing illustrations to show what we thought the “contraption” looked like from the text we were reading. The children really thought about what they could use within their classroom to create their designs. We loved how Jake selected the bottom of a glue stick to draw the cog. Great idea Jake.

South Yorkshire Fire Service

This afternoon, Crew Shields welcomed a visit from the fire service. They had come to school to talk about how to keep themselves safe at home and also while near open bodies of water.

They were given the opportunity to discuss where we should have smoked alarms inside our homes to keep us safe. Then they started to identify fires that are good and bad.

Hopefully children have come home today and asked where the smoke alarm is and if they could check it was working.

We also learned what to do if we were ever in a position where our clothes had caught fire. We should STOP, DROP and ROLL.

Children then role played calling in an emergency and someone being the operator.