Rufford Park Primary School

Weekly Update - 02.07.21

Mrs Connolly (v.connolly) on: Pear Tree Class Blog 2020-2021

Hello,

I cannot believe that it is July already! The months are really flying by and the children have progressed so much. It is really lovely to see how much they have learned and grown this year. The children were very excited and had a fabulous day of fun and enjoyment. Some of the activities we took part in were:

• Activity/game shop. The children used pretend coins to buy the activity that they would like to do.
• Mask decorating
• Fairground games
• Sports activities
• Football and sports day type activities
• Lunch in the classroom and ice lollies

This week has been a bit disrupted for many reasons, so some of our lessons have had to take a backseat. We have been continuing with money and time in maths. We have focused on sorting our coins into different categories and measuring seconds, minutes and hours in different ways. In English, we have continued our lighthouse keeper stories and they really are fabulous. We are close to the end of the story and we should be able to get these sent home next week.

We have been practising our music assembly song, ready to perform on Monday. We are doing 'superheroes unite' as our performance song. It seemed to become our anthem throughout lockdown, and this song seems to really resonate with us this year, plus... it's so much fun! I will upload a video of the performance on our photo page before the end of the day Monday.

We haven't had chance to do topic this week, but we are still working on our seaside theme and we hope (fingers crossed) to have a seaside day based in school very soon!

Lots of photos from Friday's fun day have been uploaded on our blog photo page. 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! 

Mrs Connolly, Miss Peacock and Miss Birks

Weekly Update - 25.06.21

Mrs Connolly (v.connolly) on: Pear Tree Class Blog 2020-2021

Hello, 

It's been another very busy week this week.

We have had some assessment tests to do this week and some left to finish next week. The children worked hard on their maths tests; we were very proud of how resilient they were and how hard they tried.

We have started to introduce money this week in maths. The children have learnt all the coins and notes and their value. The homework this week should give the children the opportunity to handle real money (if you have any at home) and they can start to set up their own shops or group their own money. This will also give you the opportunity to challenge the children at their level. Start with using single coins to buy things such as a 20p banana or a 5p crisp, then progress to buying a sweet for 7p or 12p and the children will have to combine two coins to make that amount. 

In English we have been continuing with our Lighthouse Keepers Lunch stories. The children are loving making their own versions and cannot wait to bring them home to show you. 

I will try to upload some photos of the learning from this week onto our blog photo page before the end of the day today. Apologies for the late upload - pictures are now available to view. 

Take care and have a great weekend. 

Mrs Connolly

Weekly Update - 18.06.21

Mrs Connolly (v.connolly) on: Pear Tree Class Blog 2020-2021

Hello, 

We have had a very busy week this week and unfortunately we haven't even had time for any photos this week.

In English we have been making our own stories based on the book 'The Lighthouse Keepers Lunch' and in maths we have been focused on learning time, particularly on the hour and half past the hour.

I hope that you enjoy our seaside themed homework this week! :-)

Have a lovely weekend! 

Mrs Connolly

Weekly Update - 11.06.21

Mrs Connolly (v.connolly) on: Pear Tree Class Blog 2020-2021

Hello, 

We are so happy to be back this week. It has been such beautiful weather and its been nice to be outside, but it really has made it quite hot in the classroom which isn't the best for learning! 

We have started our topic work on the seaside this half term and we have started to look at some of the human and physical features of the seaside. In Science we decided to do some investigations on animals. We looked at birds this week and studied a few common British birds; we coloured in pictures to help us recognise their markings and listened to their songs so we could try to identify them from their sound. Then we went around school trying to spot some of these birds. It was lots of fun!

In English we also started reading a book called 'The Lighthouse Keepers Lunch'. We were able to imagine that we were the lighthouse keepers cat, Hamish. We thought and wrote about how we felt when we were Hamish, after he was put inside a basket to protect Mr Grinlings lunch. We were not happy cats! On Friday we took the opportunity to write whatever we wanted to about the seaside. I am very excited to read about the children's imaginative stories, experiences, and favourite seaside activities. 

In maths we have spent some time recapping addition and subtraction, focusing on recognising when we see a bond to 10 or 20 and any other bonds or number sentences (such as +/-1) that we will know quickly. We have also made a start on time and all the children should be able to tell you what time it is to the o'clock. Next week will focus on half past the hour. 

I have uploaded some photos from our week on this link.

Have a lovely weekend and we will see you all next week. :-)

Mrs Connolly, Miss Peacock and Miss Birks

Weekly Update - 28.01.21

Mrs Connolly (v.connolly) on: Pear Tree Class Blog 2020-2021

Hello, 

We are so grateful to have made it to half term with a fully intact bubble, and would like to thank all our families for their help with this. 

I am so very proud of our lovely little class. The children have just been wonderful learners and engaged with everything that we have done in school this week. The children have really loved learning about how we can prevent plastic pollution and look after our planet. They have been very observant, and noticed the things that we do (and definitely the things that we don't do!) to be environmentally friendly. 

In English we produced work on the following:

• we worked on our suffixes using our 'ing' and 'ed' endings. We learnt that 'ed' can make three sounds: t, d and id/ed
• we wrote letters to Mr Cooke to tell him about our concerns over the milk that we buy, which contains single use plastic straws
• we created persuasive posters to encourage people to look after the environment
• we drew and described a different piece of plastic pollution that could end up in the ocean

In maths we have continued our work on sharing. The children have even been using the division symbol, which we refer to as 'shared by'. If your child is not confident at this, please spend a bit of time doing some practical sharing. For example. I have 12 grapes and I need to share them equally between the three of us. How many grapes will we each have?

In topic we have now learnt about all of our explorers and we have really enjoyed finding out as much as possible about these interesting people in history. We spent a bit of time this week comparing two explorers and finding one thing that was the same and one thing that was different. In computing we have continued our work on coding, and we started to use different backgrounds and create code to match the backgrounds. Feel free to continue practising on purple mash at home.

All the pictures from this week are on this link! There were just too many to choose from!

Have a great half term holiday and a well deserved rest (for the children at least!)

Mrs Connolly