World Book Day!

This year we have been celebrating World Book Day with a difference! The children were invited to dress up as their favourite book character or to come to school or ZOOM sessions in their pyjamas for a special story. Lots of children even brought their favourite teddies to cuddle up for a special cosy story time together.

Even the teachers have been getting involved in the World Book Day fun too! This year we have teamed up to give all of the children a tricky challenge! The teachers each told part of a story – but everyone has got on a disguise! Can you guess the secret identity of the masked readers?

If you get stuck, here are some clues to help you!

Did you work out who the story tellers are? Maybe these clues will help you?

	Clues
1	I used to work upstairs but now I work downstairs. I usually wear my hair in a bun. I have been to Harry Potter studios many times!
2	I’m surrounded by the smallest children. Making fires is one of my favourite things to do. I am part of the eco squad.
3	I love doughnuts I work in a class that has a blue gemstone. My name nearly rhymes with awesome.
4	I work upstairs. I am not married. I sometimes wear glasses.
5	My birthday was the day before World Book Day 2021.  My hair and eye colour match.  I have worked in two year groups, both of which are even numbers
6	My classroom is near the yellow staircase. My surname is a synonym of minuscule. I like Harry Potter.
7	I am not very tall. I could be teaching anywhere in school. My first name is Amy.
8	I wear glasses I do not wear lipstick I can eat a Mr Kipling Bakewell Tart in one bite
9	I usually have my hair tied up. I spend Wednesdays in the studio. The gem my class is named after is green!
10	I work upstairs. My hair isn’t brown. My surname rhymes with sale.
11	I have a cat called Bella I support Sheffield United I work upstairs
12	I drive a blue car.  I like to sing. Elephants are my favourite animal.
13	You can find me in an upstairs classroom.  My eyes aren’t brown.  At the moment I look a bit like a beach ball!
14	My last name rhymes with rice.   I’m one of the newest teachers at our school. My lanyard is a rainbow
15	My class’s name has 3 letters. I can see everybody coming down the blue stairs from my classroom.  My surname is the opposite of wrong.
16	I work downstairs  My hair is the same colour as candyfloss  If my class are observant they will have noticed the wolf in my zooms all week!
17	I work with some of youngest children in school. I’m not from around here! My classroom is on the left.
18	I have dark hair. I taught lots of you when you were very small. My surname starts with a H.
19	My classroom is somewhere in the middle of the KS2 corridor. My surname begins with a vowel. My hair is not blonde.
20	I work downstairs. I have brown hair. There are some girls in school with the same name as my classroom.
21	I did 2 years teaching downstairs before I moved upstairs My maiden name rhymes with another word for HUG. You often see me wearing sandals (even when it is cold and rainy!)
22	I teach near to Mrs Ainsley, Miss Hall and Miss French’s offices. I love children helping me in Take 10. My hair is not black.
23	I wear glasses, I have big feet and I am very tall. I used to work in Nurture, but now you can find me just about anywhere! I LOVE singing with children and slip a song into the day wherever I can!
24	I have been a teacher at Prince Edward for a really long time.  My favourite football team is Sheffield United. I love going for walks in the countryside.
25	I used to teach in Topaz class when Y6 were only babies!  I wear glasses  My office is next door to Miss French

Note for Parents: 

Please be aware that we have checked all the links on emails that have been sent to check they are suitable for your child’s age range. They may however contain links to other sites that we have not checked. If you don’t have the appropriate controls in place your child may be taken to content which is not suitable if they click on the links.

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/parental-controls/

This article explains how to put Parental Controls in place to limit screen time, limit what each family member can see and how to block inappropriate content. We would also advise that all your Privacy settings are in place with your Broadband provider to ensure your children remain safe when online. If you want any more information about this, please contact your Broadband provider or check their website.

Eid Mubarak

Throughout the month of Ramadan we had been thinking about the Islamic celebration of Eid and why Muslims celebrate Ramadan. We had a Ramadan Advent calendar and used it to count down. We learnt that we had to wait for the new moon.

While we were opening our calendar it started a discussion about Ramadan and  Eid. Some of our friends in Onyx class are Muslims and celebrate at their houses. They shared what they knew with us all. Everyone was interested to know what happened.

Zane’s mum, Sara, came to speak to us. She also works at our school so lots of us know her. She told us about some of the decorations of their house and what they eat to break their fast every morning. Did you know during Ramadan grown up Muslims are not allowed to eat when the sun is up? it is called a fast. This is help them think about people who do not have lots of the things they need, like lots of food.

Sara sent us an email to show us some picture of these things.

 

We wrote a reply to Sara using our class email account.

Once we arrived back at school after the Spring Bank break we knew some children in our class would need a day off school. This is because Eid was finally here. We decided we would like to have a celebration all together so we planned for a party with the rest of Foundation Stage and Key Stage One.

We decided to bake biscuits for our party. We made them in the shapes of stars and made sure we made enough to share with all our friends.

Zane’s big brother came to show us the special prayer mat and how it is used for praying. We were all very interested to find out what happened.

And then it was the day of our celebration. We started the day with a workshop for our parents and carers. It was wonderful to see so many of our families stay and make Ramadan and Eid crafts with us.

In the afternoon we all gathered in the main hall together. We were allowed to bring our party clothes to get changed into. Everyone had a wonderful time dancing to traditional music and enjoying the special foods.

Everyone LOVED our special Eid celebrations 🙂

What have we been learning?

• That different religions have different celebrations.
• About some of the special things that Muslims do at Ramadan and Eid.
• About how we are the same and different as our friends.

How can can you continue the learning at home?

• Talk to your child about the different things that your family celebrate.
• Talk about how we are the same and different to each other.
• Look on the CBeebies programme Lets Celebrate and find out more. Click here to watch the videos. 
• Go to the Library and find some books about Islam, Ramadan and Eid.

 

Day 100 Celebrations

We have been counting to Day 100 since our first full day of school all the way back in September. It seems like such a long time ago and we’ve all changed and grown up so much. Can you remember your first day of school? Look back by clicking on this link.

There were lots of different counting activities happening during the day and we’re going to spend the week looking at big numbers. What’s the biggest number you can think of? 

We’re also going to be reading lots of books with big numbers in them.

To celebrate our 100th day in school we had a little party to say well done to all the children. Harrison was overheard at the party saying, “I love this party”. We did all have a really good time 🙂

 

World Book Day 2019

We had a wonderful time celebrating World Book Day last week. We had to decorate our door with our favourite book. Miss Mohammed asked all the children and they had a vote to decide which book Onyx class should recreate. We had read all the Love Monster stories by Rachel Bright when it was Valentine’s Day and loved them all. It was difficult to decide on a favourite but we decided on LOVE MONSTER AND THE LAST CHOCOLATE 🙂 

Everyone worked hard together to make the different parts we needed for our door. First we needed to make a Love Monster. We had to find a lot of different red materials so we could make him the right colour.

Then we made the chocolate box look like the purple one in the story. We added a sign which said ‘chocolates’ by looking at the book and copying what it said. The Love Monster also needed some extra details like his arms and eyes.

After that we decided to make some chocolates for the chocolate box and to add to the decorations. To do this we had to make salt dough and then make it look like chocolate shapes which fit in the chocolate box.

Before we could use them they needed painting the right colours.

Finally we put it all up on the door and some children helped Miss Parker decide what went around the door. We even added a sign asking, “Would you share your last chocolate?”, when people lifted the chocolate box up.

Do you think you would share your last chocolate? Can you remember what the Love Monster did? 

We all enjoyed making our door and also getting to see the different doors around school.

We also found a surprise for us in the classroom. The Love Monster came to visit and brought us the special World Book Day book, Ten Little Bookworms. You’ll soon be getting a special World Book Day token which you can exchange for this book for free. Or  you can get £1 off the books at our Book Fair which is in school next week. 

After we’d read the book tried to work out where the rest of the chocolates had gone and what we should do with the last chocolate. What would you do with the last chocolate? 

Thankfully the Love Monster found them in the end 🙂

 

Zooming Zog and Friends

If you remember our elf gave us a couple of presents before Christmas- a copy of the book Zog by Julia Donaldson and a toy Zog as well. Click on this link to see the full post

We were all very excited when we came back to school after Christmas because we’d seen Zog on the television during the holidays. We began to talk about Zog and what we knew about him. We read the book again and watched the animation. Everyone loved Zog so much we decided to try and learn the story for ourselves. Miss Parker helped us make a story map which helped us remember what came next. We also made sure we remembered to use the repeating text, “Now that you’ve been shown, you can practise on your own”. Can you remember the words and tell your grown up? 

When we were outside some of us had a go at learning to fly like Zog had done. It was a little bit risky but we talked about how to keep ourselves safe and look after our friends.

Some children also helped Zog out by helping him free animals, people and other objects which had got frozen in the ice. We had to try and work out the best way to free the objects in the quickest way. Can you remember how to melt the ice quickly? 

You can see what we said about it in our Floor Book and also see some conversations from the rest of the week.

When we watched the animation of Zog we also talked about how some of the other Julia Donaldson books which we’d been reading had been turned into animations as well. the children loved reading the books and watching the animations.

When we were watching Stick Man we made an important discovery: the animations had been made by humans. Even though we were watching them on the computer a person had to make it first. We wondered whether we could be animators too. We found out that we could.

Miss Parker found a programme which meant we could be animators called 2Animate on Purple Mash. We collected some ideas about what our animations could look like and after trying some as a class we made some of our own looking at the books to check. We had to work together in teams to make sure our animation was a joint effort.

Parents/ carers- your child has now been given their own password to use Purple Mash at home. Can you remember how to make an animation and show your grown ups? 

All week we had been reading more and more Julia Donaldson books. We couldn’t believe how many books she had written. Can you remember some of the other books that Julia Donaldson has written? There is a clue here! Have you read them all? Don’t forget to look in the library if you’ve not read them all. 

We decided that we wanted to find out more about Julia Donaldson. You can see some of our questions in the Floor Book here.

You can also see what we found out and also how we found it out. Some of our questions were answered by reading Julia Donaldson A Biography, some them we asked Google and some of them we answered by asking Siri when some children suggested this as a possible way of finding out information. We did talk about making sure we stay safe when using the internet and Siri or Alexa.

We had such a good time learning about Zog and then animation and then Julia Donaldson. Miss Parker and the teachers loved seeing the children’s ideas flow from one week to the next developing into the next focus. The following week we asked if Julia Donaldson was the only author and started to look at different authors whose books we might like. The children keep returning to Julia Donaldson though- she really is a favourite 🙂

The teachers were all really impressed by the children’s writing in the Floor Book and how their confidence is growing all the time at writing more independently. Well done everyone!

What have we been learning? 

• to retell stories we have heard. 
• to make animations using 2Animate. 
• to investigate what happens to ice. 
• to think about how things get onto the computer and tv screens we watch
• to find out about an author by asking questions. 
• to use books and computers to find out information.

How you can continue the learning at home? 

• Visit the library and find some Julia Donaldson books to read together. 
• Use your Purple Mash password and try to make an animation or picture of your own. Don’t forget to save it and let us know its there. https://www.purplemash.com
• See if you can find out about a different author- Which books have they written?

 

 

Christmas Celebrations Part 3- A Special Visitor

Everyone got an amazing surprise on Wednesday when Santa came to visit.

We were all a bit confused in the morning when our elf was gone and we just got a note saying that he’d gone to do a special job. Where could he have gone?

Then before the morning was finished we heard some bells and there he was….. SANTA!

We soon saw where our elves had gone when Santa pulled them out of his sacks! They’d been at the North Pole helping Santa know all our names and getting our presents ready.

There was a present for everyone! We had to be really really sensible and wait to open our presents altogether. It was super hard but everyone did a great job of waiting.

(There are photos of lots of us here receiving our presents but not everyone even though we all got a present)

It was very exciting to see Santa and talk to him about what he’d been busy doing at the North Pole. Then we had to let him head back to keep on getting ready for Christmas Eve. Thankfully the elves got to stay a school a little longer and it was time for us to open our presents!

Everyone got a special Christmas book to keep and take home 🙂 One of us was so happy we hugged our book when we first saw it we thought it was so exciting. We’re looking forward to having the stories read to us over the Christmas holidays.

 

Anti-Bullying Week 2018

Anti-Bullying Week was 12th-16th November 2018.

We spent the week in Onyx Class talking about bullying and what we thought bullying was.

Tyler KP- Bullies not be your friend. 

Oliver- Cos they hurt people. 

Ruby- Them will sting you. 

Harrison- They sting you and they really hurt. 

Soliana- Its fighting or kicking or slapping or hitting. 

Tori-Jae- Bullying can be swearing or naughty words. 

Macey- If they kick you one time thats not bullying. 

Desten- Its everyday. 

Roman- Lots of times. 

It was important that we knew what bullies might do but also that it happened all the time by the same person. We also talked about what to do if we saw bullying or thought someone was bullying us.

Tyler T- Tell a teacher

Tia- Tell mummies or daddies. 

Blake- We tell nannies or grandad.

Mrs Murch helped us collect all of our ideas and took photos so we could turn our ideas into a book for our classroom. We had to think about the words for our book and act out what would happen for the pictures. There is now a copy of our book in the book corner so we can read it whenever we want. You can see a copy of it here…

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Our First Library Visit

Today was very exciting as we went to visit Manor Top Library for the first time. We all had to be super sensible because it meant going out of school and up past all the busy roads on Manor Top. We had to use the green man to help us cross the road and make sure we stopped at all the kerbs to check for cars.

Here we are walking to the Library…

We were all very excited to see the Library. Some of us had been before but not everyone had.

When we got into the Library we all took our coats off and found a special mat to sit on. We had to think about our behaviour in the Library and what might be the same and different to being in school. Everyone listened carefully when we knew we had to be quiet. We also remembered to walk around the Library and look after the books putting them back carefully when we’d finished with them.

Then Miss Parker and the teachers let us look at the books. We had a great time looking for the ones we thought looked the best. We were lucky so many grown ups came with us so they could help read the books with us. Some children found books they’d read before at home or in Nursery, some children found new books which they thought looked interesting for them.

We were sad when it was time to go back to school but we will get to visit again soon. Next time we can hopefully take a book home with us.

A BIG, BIG thank you to all the parents/ carers who came with us to the library 🙂  We love when you come to the Library with us. Look out for the next date in the classroom if you would like to come with us next time. 

What have we been learning? 

• to cross the roads safely. 
• to adapt our behaviour to different places and if we meet different people. 
• to enjoy looking at books for pleasure and looking for our favourites to read. 
• to spend quiet time looking at books on our own and with friends and grown ups. 

How can you continue the learning at home? 

• make sure your child has a FREE Library Card so they can bring a book home the next time we go the Library. Ask in class for a form to complete, 
• visit the Library with your child and look at the books together. 
• enjoy books together everyday.  A book at bedtime is an important part of your child’s bedtime routine. 
• talk to your child about staying safe near the roads and make sure you always model good behaviour near the roads because your children will copy what you do, even if you tell them to do differently. 

Escape from the Volcano

Everyone had been talking about volcanos and playing a game called ‘Escape from the Lava’ for ages so we decided we should learn about volcanoes in class.

Miss Parker found a book which told us a bit more about volcanoes. Can you remember what it taught us?

We also watched a video that lots of us had seen at home. You can watch it again here. Can you tell a grown up how an island grows?

Then we watched some videos of some real volcanoes and found out there were volcanoes erupting right now while we were in school. We thought about how we would feel if there was lava coming towards our homes. Miss Parker told us about when she went to an volcano but thankfully it wasn’t erupting when she was there.

We thought how we would help the people in Hawaii escape after they wrote to us asking for help. We came up with a few suggestions.

There was lots more role play and children wanting to experience what it was like to be near the lava. Outside was a popular place for this and the children loved building bridges and other ways to stay safe. They used our loose parts in all sorts of imaginative ways and even added water to be lava.

 

As the children were so engrossed in making up stories we used this to practise our writing skills. First we had to THINK IT and decide what we wanted to happen in our story. We drew a story map to help us remember it.

Then we had to SAY IT for each sentence so we could remember what to write. Then we had to WRITE IT. We worked hard to sound out the words and think of the letters we needed to write. Here is the beginning and the middle of the story.

When we had written it we had to READ IT to see if we’d done a good job. Can you see the ticks and crosses on our writing? We used the sentence hand to make sure we’d remembered everything putting a tick if we had and a cross if we hadn’t. On Wednesday we forgot our capital letter but on Thursdays we remembered them.

from Sparklebox.co.uk

Do you think you could write the end of the story? You could write it on paper and bring it to school or put it in a comment below or an email.

Our learning about volcanoes went over two weeks because we were all so interested and there was so much to learn and do. We decided we wanted to make a volcano of our own and see if we could make it erupt. It took us all week to make. We started with a bottle and some masking tape.

Then we had to use papier-mâché to build the shape of the volcano. It took a long time because we had to wait for it to dry in between.

 

Everyone enjoyed helping with our volcano which was good because there were still more jobs. Next we had to paint our volcanoes. First we painted the mountain and the grass before we added the lava. We used one of our volcano books to help us think what the volcano should look like.

 

Finally our volcano was ready and it was time to watch it erupt. Miss Parker used bicarbonate of soda and white vinegar to create the lava inside the volcano. Everybody loved it and said it was well worth the wait.

We loved learning about volcanoes.

What have we been learning?

• To find out about volcanoes using videos and books.
• To find out where volcanoes are using first hand experiences and technology.
• To build our own volcano and watch it erupt.
• To role play what we think it would be like near a volcano which is erupting.
• To make up stories about volcanoes.
• To think how to stay safe near volcanoes and send our ideas to Hawaii.

How can you continue the learning?

• Watch the video above and talk about how the volcanoes grow.
• Use Google to find videos of real volcanoes and watch the lava flow (Make sure before doing any Google search with children that you have the appropriate safety measures in place)
• Continue the story above writing it either on paper or typing it.

 

A School Library Visit

We are very lucky at Prince Edward Primary School as, not only do we get to go to Manor Top Library, we also have our very own Library in school! Onyx class visited this week to find a book they would like to take home. Everyone loved the library and it was interesting for the teachers to see which books interested the children the most. The ‘Oi’ books were very popular (Oi Frog, Oi Dog and Oi Cat) as were the non-fiction books. Particular favourites were the car and motorbike books and also the books about castles and knights. Maybe these will be the themes the children choose to learn about next…

First we had a good look at all the books and found our favourites.

When we’d found our favourite we got to take it Miss Parker who helped us to issue it just like at Manor Top Library. We loved it when the computer knew which book we wanted to borrow and when our special number told the computer our names.

Please make sure you return your child’s library book to school. We will be going to the school library regularly now and only children who have brought their book back will be able to take a new book home. Please look inside the book for the date it needs to be returned by.

It is really important all books are returned so that everyone can continue to enjoy them. You may be asked to pay for books which are not returned and your child will no longer be allowed to take books home.