Friday, 2 March 2012

Issue 22 2011-12


Newsletter Issue 22

Friday 2nd March 2012


Dear Parent/Carer,

We have welcomed visitors this week from Wigton Moor Primary School, Oulton and East Ardsley Primary.  Each of the colleagues from the schools commented very positively on the great learning attitudes they observed in our children, the great curriculum and the fantastic quality of learning and teaching that was happening in the classrooms.  It is a pleasure to welcome other schools to Robin Hood and to make our small contribution to the next steps in their journeys.

World Book Day
What a fabulous success our World Book Day was!  It was fantastic to see so many families join us for our Reading Breakfast and for our special assembly… and what amazing character costumes!  This was another super day at Robin Hood.  My thanks to Miss Nicholls who organised, managed and led the day.  I’m certain that you will agree with me that she did an absolutely incredible job.

Puffin Book Club
Could all Puffin Book Club orders be returned to the office by Thursday 8th March.

Art in the Community
Mrs Chin, Mrs Mistry and our Art Club team have again made an important contribution to our community with a new series of Artworks that are on display at Lofthouse Children’s Centre.  If you are unable to visit the Children’s Centre to see the works you can follow our Art in the Community projects via our blogs – accessed direct from the homepage of the school website.  I really would encourage you to view our blogs.  They really do show the amazing range of things that our children are involved in and the incredible range of talents, and reserves of energy, that the staff at Robin Hood possess.  As one of our visitors this week commented ‘there is a huge difference between a good and an outstanding school and visiting Robin Hood makes clear where those differences are.’

Lunchtime play resources
It has been fantastic to see our children involved in construction work at lunchtimes over the last days and weeks.  We have added several large Quadroplay sets to our lunchtime resources and this has now been complemented with the addition of large-scale Lego construction equipment.  We want our playtimes to be as exciting, stimulating and fun as our daily lessons at Robin Hood.

Public Meeting
On the theme of construction, there is a Public Meeting being held by Persimmon Homes at the school on Tuesday 13th March between 4.30pm and 7.00pm.  Proposals for the development of the land immediately behind the school between Leeds Road and Milner Lane will be on display.

Have a lovely weekend,
Mr Wilson

Nursery Newsletter

NEWS ROUND UP
There has been a real buzz in Nursery this week as the children enjoyed the 2nd instalment of our Traditional tales topic. The children have fully embraced the dressing up and role play of the stories and this was also enjoyed by those children who came to Nursery on Thursday, dressed as their favourite book character in support of world book day. Thank you for your support on these events.

THIS WEEK
We have been sharing the story of The Three Little Pigs. The children have been using puppets and story cards to retell the story and have been engaging in role play, acting out the events and taking turns to be the different characters. The children also used a creative approach in Literacy where we produced a collaborative piece of Artwork to retell the events of the story. We have also created a beautiful display that is now up for you to view in the Nursery.
Within number we have been looking at sharing and simple fractions. The children made jam sandwiches – as they are the 3 little pigs favourites, - to help consolidate their understanding of half.

NEXT WEEK
We will be continuing with our traditional tales and sharing the story of Goldilocks and the 3 bears. We will be reporting on the spot as we go on the hunt for Goldilocks – following the clues left behind at the devastation left at house of the 3 bears!!
Within number we will be looking at and comparing different sized objects and ordering those items in size order, using vocabulary such as biggest, smallest, largest etc.


How you can help us
·   Draw simple pictures – people, a house, flowers etc to help develop your child’s pencil control.
·     Share stories and rhymes, engaging in conversation about characters and events
·     Practise writing your child’s name – naming the letters in their name as they write them.
·     Listen for the first letter sounds in words, play simple games like i spy with my little eye something beginning with...  “a”


Many thanks for your continued support

Have a super week.

RECEPTION NEWS ROUND UP

We've had another amazing week in Reception. Welcome to Miss Vollans who has joined us on a two week placement from Trinity and All Saints College. She has had lots of fun playing alongside the children in the Three Little Pigs houses! Thank you too for your support with the Global Reading challenge and of course the super dressing up outfits!

THIS WEEK
We have shared the story of The Three Little Pigs and have discussed the story settings and the characters in detail. We have used masks to try out some drama using Hot Seating and we have been really impressed with the children's ability to ask, and answer, sensible and relevant questions. We have also created some amazing story maps, retelling the story in pictures and adding a verbal narrative using story language.
In our numeracy sessions we have continued with our sharing (or division) and have been making sandwiches for the pigs to take on a picnic, cutting them into two halves and then four quarters. The children have really improved their grasp of fractions by joining in with practical sharing activities.

NEXT WEEK
We will continue with our topic of Traditional Tales but we will be sharing the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We will be talking again about story settings and characters and the children will be thinking about alternative endings and 'what if...' scenarios. Again we will be using traditional story telling language so please encourage your child to use that when you are sharing the story together. In our topic sessions we will be planning and designing a chair for our favourite story character, so please send in your boxes, newspaper and pots for our junk modelling area!
In our maths next week we will be looking at ordering items by size and looking at alternative vocabulary for big and small. Prepare to be impressed!

HOW YOU CAN HELP US
  • By ensuring your child completes this week's home learning and brings it into school on Monday morning so that Miss Abbey may upload it onto our blog http://mrssatrobinhood.blogspot.com/
  • By continuing to listen to your child's fabulous reading for at least five minutes every day
  • By practising the words of the week which are - about, your, day, come, made, make
Thank your for your continued support.

KS1 Newsletter

This week has been another amazing week in Key Stage 1, every week at Robin Hood is an amazing week.  There are fantastic learning opportunities taking place in every second of the day with enthused and engaged learners. 

The children have been eagerly awaiting World Book Day and another chance to 'dress up' but this time as their favourite character from a book.  Yet again, the children look fantastic and really enjoyed sharing the books they had brought in.  Dressing-up allows the children the opportunity to immerse themselves in their learning and connect on a deeper level.  Thank You to all the Parents/Carers who continue to support us in creating even richer learning opportunities for children and making school a fun and exciting place to be.  Please check out the Key Stage 1 blog which is being continually updated!

Literacy and Topic
This week the children had their Literacy and Topic sessions as one big learning experience.  The children continued to develop their knowledge of London in the past and enhance their understanding of the Great Fire of London.  The children learnt about the only Newspaper of the time 'London Gazette' which started to report the story of the fire but before it went to print, the building was burnt down!  So the children had the task of writing about the fire as a newspaper article.  They wrote about the events of the fire in chronological order and continued to develop their ideas.  The children have been setting their own standards and looking at how to present the information ensuring they start with a Capital Letter and finish each sentence with a full stop. 

The children also became the Mayor of London for the week and wrote a Diary entry.  The Mayor in 1666 was told about the fire when it first started but decided to go back to bed, only to find the fire had spread during the night and was destroying the city.  The children re-enacted this event and described how they would feel to know that the city of London was being destroyed and the potential that it could have been stopped.  The children developed their ideas in paragraphs using the structure Opening, 1, 2, 3, Close, having and opening sentence setting the scene, three sentences about the event, then finishing off with a closing sentence. 

Next week in Literacy the children will continue their unit on Recounts, watching a short 2 minute section from the film Basil the Mouse Detective, which is set in London.  The children will then write a Police Report describing each section of the clip in order to find the criminals!  They will continue to develop their paragraph using the same structure (opening, 1, 2, 3, close), use commas when listing words, use adjectives to describe the setting/events/mood and use brackets to give extra information.

Next week in Topic the children will be having an amazing Science experience where they will be learning about 'Humans and Diseases'.  They will be looking at images of germs under a microscope and discuss the spread of germs.  They will be having 'hands-on' experience at seeing how far a sneeze can travel using green paint mixed with water and a squeeze bottle!  The children will be using a light box to test their skills at washing their hands in the correct way and washing away all the germs! 

Numeracy
This week in Numeracy the children have been busy counting in 2's, 3's 5's and 10's.  They have been starting from any number and continuing in the patterns, e.g. starting from 350 and counting in 5's. 
This has supported the children when solving division problems using their fingers.  The taught strategy in school is:-
  
12 divide by 3
We count in 3's because it's 'divide by 3' and count on your fingers until you get to 12.....3, 6, 9, 12.  The answer is 4, because there are 4 fingers.
Why not use the school website, pupil games to develop your child’s division skills in a fun and interactive way!

Next week the children will be introduced to multiplication by grouping and drawing arrays (dots).  In order to support your child's learning please help them complete this weeks Home Learning. 

This week we would like the children to be counting lots at home and to continue to develop their understanding of patterns.   Please support your child in counting in 2’s, 3’s, 5’s and 10’s. To show the children fully understand the patterns when counting please ensure your child counts beyond 20 in 2’s, 30 in 3’s, 50 in 5’s and 100 in 10’s.  Ask your child to write down the above number sequences and explain the pattern they see.  This can be extended to starting from any number (let’s go big!), e.g. starting from 168 and continuing to count in 2’s.

LKS2 Newsletter

WOW! What an eventful week we've had in year 3/4! The children have enjoyed reporting on our second mystery of the half term and we are really proud of their fantastic learning and outstanding outcomes. World Book Day was a huge success and it was great to see everyone turn up to school in their fancy dress costumes!

NumeracyIn Numeracy, the children have been developing their multiplication skills. This week has seen us focus particularly on the 3 and 6 timetables. As well as this, the children have amazed us with their great understanding of the grid method for multiplication. This is the idea of partitioning numbers when multiplying TU x TU- why not ask your child to show you? Next week, we will be focussing on the 4 and 8 timetables, so please support your child with their rote learning of these.

Here are some great activities to support your child's learning:

http://www.fieryideas.com/tnt-tables-46-c.asp (TNT Tables - a great, addictive activity to practice times tables- encourage your child to beat their best time!)

http://www.topmarks.co.uk/Flash.aspx?f=gridmethodpvcardsv3 (A resource we plan to use in class to support place value when multiplying)


LiteracyIn Literacy this week, we have been learning about the mystery of the Loch Ness Monster. The week was kicked off with an interview session, in which the children heard about Mr Wilson's real encounter with Nessie a few years ago. The children have produced fantastic news reports about the incident and are regularly including rainbow paragraphs, compound and complex sentences and embedded quotes with speech marks into their writing. Ask your child about the VCOP superheroes we use in Literacy to help make their writing outstanding! Next week will see a continuation with our news writing topic, with the children reporting on a strange occurrence at Robin Hood Primary School...

World Book Day
The children made us so proud yet again on Thursday. Not only did they look fantastic in their costumes, but they displayed a great attitude all day and gave every activity their absolute best effort! Many thanks to those of you who managed to join us for the reading breakfast- we hope you enjoyed it! During the course of the day, year 34 learned about aboriginal tales and produced some beautiful art and ICT outcomes, which have been displayed in a fabulous class book. What a day! Well done to everyone and thanks to you for your support.

Reminders
Can all children please keep an art shirt in their locker as well as their PE kit. 34T and 34N have PE on Tuesday, 34M on Thursday.

Spellings

Group 1
Group 2
  1. which
  1. pretty
  2. but
  2. prettiness
  3. with
  3. lazy
  4. where
  4. laziness
  5. who
  5. forgive
  6. then
  6. forgiveness
  7. once
  7. enjoy
  8. because        
  8. enjoyable
  9. then
  9. value
10. that
10. valuable




Have a lovely weekend!

Team 3/4


UKS2 News Roundup:
  • Our achiever this week is the whole of Mrs Brook's class. They have come back this half term with a real focus on their learning and a willingness to try new things - even when it is outside of their comfort zone. You should all be very proud of yourselves.
  • Wow! What a fabulous World Book Day we had on Thursday and what fabulous costumes! Throughout the morning, the children learnt about Kamishibai, a style of Japanese storytelling, which consists of several illustrated cards with an English translation of the text on the back. Throughout the morning, teams of children made a contribution towards a Kamishibai of a traditional Japanese story which was then shared with children in Nursery and Reception. You can find out more about Kamishibai at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6URceEr_zc    In the afternoon, the children read instructions to make origami characters.
  • Today, we welcomed Chufumi and Torna from Tokyo in Japan, who are visiting the UK. They spent time with each class answering questions about life in Japan and showing some children origami.
  • Reminder: Please can Mrs Brook's class bring in a plain pillow case in preparation for making the Japanese Koiniboros. It does not necessarily have to be white but it must be plain.
  • Reminder: PE for all classes will be on Tuesday next week. Please ensure the correct PE kit is in school on this day.
 Numeracy:
  • This week in Numeracy, our focus has been reflection and symmetry. We've been exploring how the properties of shapes, such as the vertices (corners), can help us to reflect shapes in a horizontal, vertical and diagonal mirror line.
  • Home Learning: Ahead of our Numeracy learning next week, take a look at some of of the following websites on co-ordinates:

 Literacy:
  • This week, we have been writing a diary entry based on the Japanese tsunami which happened last year. We imagined that we had watched events unfold on the news and then wrote a diary entry which needed to include emotive language as well as speech like phrases.
  • Home Learning: Please learn the spellings which prepare the children for spelling accuracy in next week's writing activities. The spellings are tourism, attraction, cultural, architecture, technological, heritage, accommodation, itinerary, innovative, contemporay
 Other areas of the curriculum:
  • We have continued to create amazing outcomes this week as part of our Japan topic! This week, it was Miss Gascoigne's class who were producing artwork on plates, inspired by Hokusai and his interpratations of The Great Wave and representations of Mount Fuji. Mrs Brook's class have created high quality animations to showcase Japanese technology and gadgets and Miss Darroch's class have created Japanese Koiniboros.
  • In PE, the children have been learning skills linked to Aikido, a Japanese martial art.
  •  Visit our blogs: