Catcliffe Primary School

This week, Saplings have been working especially hard on their phonics, and we have been practising and revising all the sounds we have learned up to this point. We have completed a special phonics challenge and I am incredibly proud of how hard everyone has worked and how much effort every learner has put in this week, well done Saplings!
In Maths this week, we have practiced using our number bonds to solve problems in arithmetic, and we have worked on recognising coins and notes and counting in coins as well as revising days of the week in our Power Maths. In our project-based learning we have compared Catcliffe to Cleethorpes and in Tribe we have learned about being safe near water and being safe in our community, which is very important learning.

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This week in the Seedlings Class, we have been learning about some other countries in Europe. We have learnt about the flags, food and landmarks in Scotland, Ireland and Romania and even tried some tasty treats from these countries.
In Phonics, we have learnt to read and write words with 2 letters before a digraph or trigraph such as spoilt, stair and croak.
In Maths, we have measured and compared the capacity of different containers including buckets, cups and jugs and have described how much water or sand they have in them using the new vocabulary full, nearly full, half full, nearly empty and
empty.

This week in Acorns, we have driven all the way to Scotland! We learnt some interesting facts about Scotland including the Loch Ness Monster. We then became giants and jumped across the giant's causeway to get across to Northern Ireland and walked to Ireland, learning more facts along the way! Then we got on a ferry to France where we caught the train all the way to Romania! We learnt some more exciting things about Romania and even tried some cozonac which went down a treat!
Our book this week has been A Squash and a Squeeze. We have enjoyed joining in with the story and we have been trying to remember actions to do when certain words are read to improve our listening skills.
We have been singing 10 in a bed and practising making each number on our hands and counting backwards!
In phonics, we have been practising our segmenting by secretly choosing an item (like a hat) and saying out loud 'h-a-t' to see if everybody else can recognise which item we have chosen! It has been lots of fun and the Acorns have been working so hard trying to segment and blend these words!

Oaks
We can't believe it's the last half term of this year! We hope you all had a lovely break and are ready for one final push for the last
term. We have been heavily focussed on writing with all learners this week. We have introduced Oaks writing challenge! We are writing pieces to show skills across many writing genres, and are promoting this with a raffle draw for an Amazon gift voucher for every piece! The children are really enthusiastic for this, and have been trying really hard to meet the targets and to get their raffle ticket in the draw! This week has been all about story telling! Writing narratives using dialogue and description. In maths, Y5 have started to look at negative numbers, and Y6 have looked
at how to calculate averages! In PE our days have changed to Wednesdays only. We now have Live and Learn doing sports activities with us. These Wednesday afternoons are split into separate Y5 and Y6 lessons to ensure better quality sports lessons. In PBL, we have started to learn about Rivers. In PSHE, we have discussed the importance of self-esteem and how we can help ourselves think positively. We spoke openly as a class and took part in a movement quiz.

What a great start Rowan's have had to the final term of the school year! We have thoroughly enjoyed reading the first few chapters of our Book club text, 'Noah's Gold' - an adventure story with a modern problem twist! In writing, we have been busy reading lots of different adventure stories and compared them - finding common key features. And in maths, Year 3 and 4 have both started their new units, linked to Geometry/ shape. Our new Geography topic, 'Extreme Earth' has really captivated our interests - looking at the brand-new atlases, exploring maps and using online resources to find and locate continents and countries of the world.

Birches
📚 Book Club
This week, Learners began our new Book Club text, The Hodgeheg. We made predictions about the story and discussed what we thought might happen to the main character Max. As we got to know Max and his family, Learners explored their thoughts and feelings and considered how these might change throughout the story. We also practised reading with expression and worked in groups to act out parts of the text, helping to bring the characters and events to life.
✍🏼 Writing
This week in Writing, Learners explored the suffix -less, learning that it means without. They practised identifying and using words ending in -less in sentences. We also began learning about journey narratives in preparation for rewriting The Hodgeheg from Max’s perspective. To help us understand the features of a journey story, we went on our own journey to the school forest, paying close attention to important landmarks and events along the way. Back in the classroom, Learners created story maps to show the route they had taken and added thought bubbles to
capture thoughts and feelings at different points in the journey.
⚖️ Maths
This week in Maths, Learners began developing their problem-solving skills using all four operations. They focused on carefully reading questions, identifying the key information and deciding which operation would help them solve the problem. Learners also discussed different strategies and considered which methods were the most efficient for each calculation.
🌍 PBL: Has the Whole World Been Explored?
This week, Learners launched their new PBL topic, Has the Whole World Been Explored? We began by finding out where we are in the world. Using Google Earth, Learners located their homes and explored the local area. They then became
detectives, following clues to discover where Catcliffe is within the UK and wider world. This was a fantastic introduction to our new geography-focused learning.
🎵 Music
This week, Learners began a new Music unit exploring songs linked to different places. Our first song was an English folk song representing the seaside. Learners enjoyed singing together and discussing how music can help us learn about different locations and traditions.

This week in Saplings we have been asking ourselves the question, where in the world are we? We have used google maps to look at our homes and thought about they are in the village of Catcliffe, which is in Rotherham, which is South Yorkshire,
which is England... can you carry on the sequence?!
We have started our unit on money and have been looking at different coins, we wondered why the coins size didn't correlate to their value, which would make our lives much easier! In writing we have been rehearsing and performing poetry. We have looked at 'O Dandelion' (author unknown) and The Park by Michael Rosen.

This week in the Seedlings class, we have been learning about England. We have discussed where in England we live, where our school is and have name our capital city, language, important landmarks and have identified our flag. We loved finding out
where Kind Charles III lived and watching the changing of the guards at Buckingham palace. We have also written our favourite facts about Catcliffe and England. In the Forest, we made up stories when using the mud kitchen resources, we dug more holes in the mud, we practised balancing and climbing and we enjoyed swinging on a rope swing. In Phonics, we have worked hard to remember all tricky words and have segmented longer words with known sounds such as smart, bright, bleed, train. We have read simple sentences containing these words and have worked hard to hold a sentence in our heads to write it independently. In Maths, we have revisited doubling, halving, odd and even numbers and number bonds to 5 and 10. We have worked on solving these practically using cubes, Numicon and reciting facts we know aloud.

In Acorns this week, we have started our new topic by reading a story called, "Around the World with Max and Lemon". This was a great way to introduce the children to a world map and a variety of different people and cultures from around the world! We
have been looking at our own world map in the classroom and have managed to find some countries that are meaningful to us.
Our book this week has been Monkey Puzzle by Julia Donaldson. We have been acting out the different animals and repeating some of the phrases in the story. We have also been using this book in our phonics activity by playing "I hear with my little
ear, something that sounds like b-a-t". I have been segmenting the word into its sounds, and the children have been blending this back into the correct word and finding it in the book. Segmenting and blending are an essential skill for phonics
when children start reception in September so the more practise they can do at home, the better! Our song this week has been "1 Finger 1 Thumb Keep Moving. This has been a great way to build on our memory as well as following a routine to a song.