Rufford Park Primary School

Pear Tree Class Blog

Pear Tree Class Blog 2020-2021

Weekly Update - 21.05.21

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

Hello Pear Tree families,

We have had another fabulous week of loving life and learning. Firstly I would like to thank you for your help with the children's homework to find out facts about Edmund Hillary. We have loved hearing about and reading about the things that they found out.

This week the children have been amazing, adapting really sensibly to the changes we have had in timetable this week. They have taken everything in their stride, been well behaved and a credit to us and themselves (although perhaps a little noisy!)

In English this week we have had a new story with an environmental message, which is set under the sea. It is called Somebody Swallowed Stanley. The children have really enjoyed this story and we have done some great writing based on this. We have:

*described why Stanley (the plastic bag) looked like a jellyfish

*predicted the type of animal that might swallow Stanley next

* answered some comprehension questions based on the story.

In maths at the start of this week we have looked at early division skills. We know that we can divide by grouping or sharing (sharing will be addressed next week and we do not use remainder).

We have also done some lovely art work towards the end of this week and we have been making our own pictures of a coral reef. These will have to be finished off on Monday, but they are well on their way to being wonderful pieces of colourful art work, that I am excited to put up around our classroom.

There are some pictures of our wonderful week below.

Have a great weekend.

Mrs Connolly, Miss Peacock and Miss Birks.

Weekly Update - 14.05.21

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

Hello,

I hope that you have all had a great week. The children have had another fabulous week of learning in Pear Tree Class. We have been acting out our story for this week - The round and square houses. We did some drama and acted out the story before we wrote our diary entry. I have to say that I am so proud of the children for their excellent writing skills. Next week we will be moving on to a story based in the ocean and thinking more about our impact on our environment.

In maths we have been continuing our early multiplication skills by repeated addition, and we have even started using arrays. An array is when we put multiple objects in a row or column, e.g. 3 rows of 2. The children have been encouraged to refer to the times symbol as 'lots of'. This will help the children to understand what times actually means.

We are still loving our explorer topic and this week we focused on Amelia Earhart. We were astonished by her sudden disappearance and really interested in her life. The children's homework this week is topic based too.

This week has been mental health week and on Thursday we spent the afternoon drawing and learning about ourselves, specifically, how we can be mindful. We talked about the things that make us happy and the ways that we can re-set our minds. We even practised a bit of meditating or mindfulness, where we sat on the playground so that we could just listen to the birds and feel the breeze. We also watched a Cosmic Kids video to help us understand about our feelings. It would be great if you would like to continue this theme over the weekend and into next week. Check out this link from SCARF education which will give some lovely ideas for mental health activities with a focus on nature.

Check out the photos below to see us loving life and learning in Pear Tree Class this week.

Take care and have a great weekend.

Mrs Connolly, Miss Peacock and Miss Birks

Weekly Update - 07.05.21

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

Hello,

It has been another wonderful, busy week of learning in Pear Tree Class.

In maths we have been learning about early multiplication skills. We have really understood the term 'equal' and how all our multiplication groups must contain the same amount. In English the children have been recapping the skills learnt in weekly SPAG lessons and starting to predict what might happen in the story The Square and Round Houses. As part of our explorers topic, we have been learning about the continents and the oceans. The children have loved these songs:

continents song

oceans song

To be honest, quite a few of our regular lessons have taken a bit of a backseat because we have had some other lovely activities to do. I think the children will have been excited to show you their fabulous silhouette art work (which they brought home today). We created pictures of an African sunset and we had so much fun.

We also took the opportunity on Wednesday to join in a climate change workshop which was hosted online by The Grammar School at Leeds. We read a story all about penguins and how their homes are changing due to the melting icecaps. The children then drew pictures of the characters from the story and wrote some words that they could think of that might link to our story. We had a few discussions about the kinds of things that we could do to help and so you may find you have some little climate change helpers at home too!

I have uploaded some pictures of our wonderful week below. Have a lovely weekend and we look forward to seeing you again on Monday.

Mrs Connolly, Miss Peacock and Miss Birks

Weekly Update 30.04.21

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

Hello everyone,

In maths this week we have been continuing our work on fractions and we have been looking a quarters. We now know that a quarter is one of 4 equal parts. The children have been quartering shapes, objects and amounts this week. They are getting quite good at it!

In English we have been retelling the story of 'Bringing the rain to Kapiti Plain'. The children have also started to think about writing as Ki-Pat (the main character) and starting to write a diary entry for him. We had to put our Ki-Pat heads on so that we were ready to think as if we were Ki-Pat.

In topic we have been thinking about explorers. After finding a bottle containing a letter from Christopher Columbus last week, we started to learn about who he was and why he was important. This week we have been learning about Captain James Cook. Below are some photos of the wonderful work the children completed on these two interesting explorers.

Well done Pear Tree children for another great week of learning.

Have a great bank holiday weekend, and we will see you all next week.

From Mrs Connolly.

Weekly Update - 23.04.21

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

Hello Pear Tree families,

We have had a fantastic first week back in school. In maths we have been working on halving shapes, objects and amounts. In English we have been looking at the book 'Bringing The Rain To Kapiti Plain'. The children have spent some time predicting what might happen in the story and then describing the main character. We really enjoyed the phrase 'stood on one leg like a big stork bird.'

We have received a few art entries to go to the young artists competition (link below) and I have uploaded some photos of your work below. The deadline for entries is Monday 26th April. Well done to everyone who submitted a piece of art work!

Have a great weekend and we will see you next week.

From Mrs Connolly, Miss Peacock and Miss Birks