Oak Tree Class Blog
Oak Tree Class Blog
Week 6, ending 22 March 2024
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Phoebe
Special Mention: Blake
Well done to these children!
House music has accompanied all our Early Bird Maths work each morning – Basement Jaxx seemed to get most heads bobbing in time to the beat!
Although Oliver has certainly dominated our week, we have also managed to learn more about decimal numbers in maths, finished publishing our news reports about the sighting of a yeti in Yeadon and the children have learned even more about mountains and Western USA.
The three performances of Oliver this week have been incredible! I was so proud of each child and the important role they played – it seemed that everyone had a chance to shine. Many thanks, again, for your support with this show this term – from line learning and costume providing, from raffle ticket buying to attending the show – some of you even helping out with the FORP support. Wow! So amazing! I feel so lucky to be working with your children (and you!) – and many thanks for the flowers and gifts; I felt quite overwhelmed on Wednesday night. Mr Jennings also said how much he had enjoyed the shows, feeling especially proud of the seven or eight brave ukulele players. The Y5s did a splendid job today singing the most popular songs to the EYFS children, as they were not able to attend the dress rehearsal last week; they sang and danced with the gusto and enthusiasm I have come to expect from them! I know Mr Cooke has mentioned the show in his newsletter and that even more pics have been uploaded onto the RPPS and Nursery Facebook page. It has been well celebrated.
Just one more week to go until Easter – and in this week, we have the Scholastic Book Fair each evening, a Road Safety session, a trip to the local church, a ‘Wrap Party’ following Oliver and the children are again being asked to bring in an Easter egg and a £1 for the annual Easter Egg Tombola!
Homework this week is simply a spelling activity and I have also asked the children to complete the Book Fair activity: Why I am a Reading Ambassador. We have talked a lot about this, so they should come home brimming with ideas! It can be a poster, a letter, a leaflet, a speech – anything! BUT MUST BE HANDED IN (with their name clearly displayed) ON TUESDAY. (Not Wednesday. But Spellings are for Wednesday, as usual).
Have a super weekend,
Yours,
Mrs Adrienne Amos
Week 4, ending 15 March
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Stanley
Special Mention: Ruby
Well done to these children this week!
Soul Music has been the genre of the week, but it has to be said that we have spent quite a lot of time listening to and singing along to Oliver (!) too.
We have also completed mid-year assessments (in Reading, Writing, Maths and Punctuation & Grammar) across the school in our Assessment Week. I have been really proud of how easily the children have switched from taking assessments in the morning and working very hard on these, and then practising Oliver and working equally as hard on this project! Well done, Oak Tree Class!
As well as continuing our PE unit on Outdoor Adventurous Activities, each week we are also strengthening our core by two- or three-times weekly Pilates sessions and a couple of Daily Mile activities. It’s always good to see how open to these new ventures my class is.
We had a visitor, Jane, leading a special PSHE lesson this week (Personal, Social and Health Education). She came from SCARF and led the children to discuss and develop good practices for happy and healthy friendships. It was fun to welcome Gerald the Giraffe, too!
It has been lovely to see parents on both Parents’ Evenings this week – I hope you were all suitably impressed by the work that you saw in their books/Topic folder.
I look forward to seeing many of you next week at the Oliver production. Here’s a reminder of the dates and times:
Tuesday, 19 March – 1.30pm
Tuesday, 19 March – 6pm
Wednesday, 20 March – 6pm
It is expected that the performances will end around 7.30pm
(Please do remember that we need everyone from Y5 to attend and participate in every performance – each person has a very valuable role to play!)
Have a great weekend!
Mrs Adrienne Amos
Week 3, ending 8 March 2024
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Eva
Special Mention: Amelia
Congratulations to these hard workers this week!
Gosh, it has been a busy week here at Rufford Park! The music genre that the children in Oak have been listening to has been ‘Legendary Bands’. The Who, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones are among the tunes we have enjoyed.
In Maths, we have started some work on Decimals/Percentages, but we have also spent time recapping the key methods (algorithms) for Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division. Homework this weekend is also refreshing the children’s memories of these methods.
Our news reports about the alleged yeti/bigfoot visit continue in English lessons – we have been working especially hard to keep our language formal and to use relative clauses to add extra information. They are going to be a superb final piece of work, I think: one to be proud of.
Oliver rehearsals have continued for Y5 children – only a week or so to go now. Hopefully, all children can be at the two evening performances – it is really important you let me know as soon as possible if this is not the case. Costumes need to be brought in on Monday, on a coat hanger and covered by a named plastic bag. (This way, we can hang them up on the costume rack we now have in Oak Tree’s classroom.)
World Book Day was a real highlight of the week for us – during this day, the children designed their own book covers for AI inspired blurbs, they had an extremely entertaining assembly by the author, Phil Earle, they spend time reading a huge variety of non-fiction books and also were encouraged to visit other KS2 classrooms to listen to a newly purchased audio book for half an hour. We are really trying to inspire children to find a genre, an author or a type of book to love – and thus become real Readers for Pleasure.
Have a great weekend
Yours,
Mrs Adrienne Amos
Week 2, ending 1 March 2024
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader:
Special Mention:
None this week, due to no Special Mention Assembly
EMO tunes have been the music theme for this week and Avril Lavigne’s classic hit, Sk8er Boi, was by far the most popular. Tune!
In English, the children are continuing to learn about newspapers and are constructing their own news report about a possible Yeti sighting in Yeadon – you may have heard something about this already! In Maths, we have finished our Y5 work on fractions, and now know how to multiply fractions and find fractions of quantities. Homework reflects these two concepts.
A big highlight for the children this week was to listen to the antics of James Ketchell, adventurer, thanks to the generosity of FORP and spend part of the afternoon listening to his key ‘rules to live by’. Some of these were: never to give up on something you really want to do; if you find something hard, then take it a small step at a time and always be kind. I hope that your child will be able to expand on this a little more!
In our art session, we looked at the work on linear perspective by Susie Barstow and the children have created some beautiful landscapes, following her style.
Oliver rehearsals and prop making sessions continue – not long to go now! So please do encourage your child to learn their words (if they have not already done so) and remember to book your tickets for one of the three shows on offer (Tuesday, 19th March at 1.30 and 6pm and Wednesday, 20th at 6pm).
Homework is Maths and Spellings – both are due in on Wednesday (and do remember World Book Day is on Thursday, 7th March and we are encouraging the children to come dressed as the character they represented on their thought bubble - someone inspirational).
I hope you have a super weekend.
Yours,
Mrs Adrienne Amos
Week 1, ending 23 February
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Viraaj
Special Mention: Lillie
Well done to these children!
Welcome back to school for Spring Term 2! K-Pop has greeted the children every day – from BTS to 2NE1…(every day is a school day, even for teachers!).
This week, even though it has only been four days for the children, has been super busy. We have started back on fractions, including multiplying them and we are continuing to look at the conventions of newspapers.
In other news (!), Oliver rehearsals continue and we are all enjoying putting together the scenes and songs, as well as designing and making the scenery for our production. Hopefully, costumes are being collected together by family and friends - please do contact me if there is an issue regarding the clothing your child needs. Email me, as usual, at oak@ruffordparkprimary.org.uk
In our Art unit this term, we have been looking at American landscapes and the children thoroughly enjoyed piecing together their own American Landscape, in the style of Ansel Adams, by cutting at and overlaying key images from his phenomenal photographs. I was really wowed by the finished products!
Rivers was the theme for our topic lesson this week – a real geography skills session, where the children looked at maps and atlases, comparing a river in California and the river Wharfe. I have challenged the children to learn the names of ten rivers this term, including five from Great Britain. Perhaps you could help them with this too? We are making a real effort to develop our geography knowledge during this topic.
I hope you have a lovely weekend,
Yours,
Mrs Adrienne Amos