Book talk in MI

13th May 2024Stacey McClare

Our entry ticket today allowed us to recap the story so far, we used pictures from the story to help us and we shared what we remembered with our partner and the whole crew. We then used the information we had just heard and discussed to read a variety of sentences from the story out loud with our partner. We ordered these sentences to show the order in which they happened. Everyone read outloud in a read around the robin. Mrs McClare then asked us a variety of questions on other parts of the story to ensure we could remember other main parts, this included information on the characters, the setting and some of the previous language we had come across that is on our reading anchor chart. We recapped word class too! We then looked at our new language for the next part of the story and used some pictures to help us visualise these words a little better. 

Next we started to read the text, Mrs McClare read the first 2 sentences where she tried to use the punctuation accurately when reading. She still tried to work on her expression and fluency too, these are things we have been working on over the last few weeks. We then read with our partners and text marked our new vocabulary. Mrs McClare asked us to underline any other language that we wanted to discuss further or language we were unfamiliar with. During the second round of reading we read independently and tried to really work on the speed of our reading. Mrs McClare then read the text, questioning us as she read. Why did the tailor have to be blindfolded? What does ‘large bonus’ mean? How can you tell the tailor’s work was good? We then moved onto our reasons to read, using the text to support our answers and thoughts. 

Our exit ticket allowed us to think about the thoughts of 2 of the characters. We created speech between them, using our writing lessons to support us with this. Some of us even went for green standard where we explained our answers further, using the text to do this. 

Mental Health Week in MI

13th May 2024Stacey McClare

Last Thursday we continued our work on mental health and started to think about what positive and negative feelings are. We discussed that feelings can be both comfortable and uncomfortable. We talked about how all feelings are important and aren’t ever described as good or bad. From here we started to think about negative feelings. We discussed the way in which the feeling is uncomfortable, what the feeling is telling us and what we should do. We referred back to our expert visit and thought about some of the points he had raised and discussed. Next we discussed how negative feelings can be feelings of worry and feelings of pressure. We tried to think of times when we had felt this and some of us shared our experiences. From here we explored a picture, we thought about what was happening in the picture, how someone may feel if the situation was happening to them, the positive and negative feelings involved and how the feelings should be addressed and how. It was important we discussed how negative feelings can be turned into a positive and the small changes we can put in place to do this. 

This moved us nicely onto today’s crew session where we thought more about ourselves and our own mental health. We created our own display that shows who we are. This piece of work will be part of our final product for our current expedition and will really showcase us as individuals. We haven’t finished this yet, but you can see it coming together nicely…

Coding – Scratch

12th May 2024Ruth Shields

On Friday afternoon, we moved on to the next unit of computing which is about coding. We had some time to tinker with scratch before working through some activities. One of these activities was to create a loop of code which basically means that the sprite will continually do an action (on a loop). We really enjoyed being able to tinker with and explore scratch and look forward to exploring this more in future computing lessons.

How do we edit?

12th May 2024Ruth Shields

Now that we’ve finished our plot points, it’s time to edit and redraft some of our writing. In our writing lesson on Friday, we were shown some examples of writing from children’s books and we were shown how to edit a piece of work. Then we had an opportunity to work through some sentences and share our thoughts with the rest of the class. Next, we’ll look at redrafting and have time to redraft our own writing so we can uplevel it.

Book Talk – Retrieval

12th May 2024Ruth Shields

In our second book talk session, we have been focusing heavily on the skills needed to answer fact and retrieval questions. This ended up lasting 2 lessons because we had some good discussions about the skills we need to use. We had some questions modelled and then we had an opportunity to apply these skills. In addition, we have still be drip feeding inference questions as we continue to develop our written answers to these type of questions.

Cacao Bean

12th May 2024Ruth Shields

In history, we have been learning about where the cacao bean comes from and how it’s grown. We used QR codes to access some reading materials providing lots of information. We then had to use our skimming and scanning skills to help us locate the relevant information to answer questions.

We the looks at the differences between how the Maya processes cacao beans and how they’re processed now to keep up with the demand.

Friday Fun in the Sun

11th May 2024Eleanor Pashley

On Friday afternoon, Maddie, Reuben and Mimi practiced their addition to 20 skills on their whiteboards. Then, we were treat to a sensory story with Crew Haigh. We enjoyed having an ice cream treat like the children in the book- “Lucy and Tom at the Seaside” then doing some painting mark making in the sunshine.