English

We ❤️ Reading

Our new home reading scheme has been a huge success in Year 6! The wide variety of books have grabbed everyone’s attention and shown how much Barley pupils love to read! This week we achieved 83% of pupils who had read 3 times of more this week!! Amazing work Barley… keep it up!!!

Reading Response

Our first book study in Year 1 is ‘Lubna and Pebble’. This story is about friendship and feelings. Lubna – a girl in the story – makes a friend out of a pebble she finds in her new home. To understand how she felt, we all made a ‘pebble friend’. We washed our pebbles and drew smiley faces on them – just as Lubna did.

We loved giving our friends a name and talking to them, pretending to be the girl in the story.

Now we are taking them home and plan to find a warm place for them to sleep, just as Lubna did in Winter.

Pupil 1: I loved pretending to get off the ship and go on the beach to find a pebble.
Pupil 2: I washed my pebble clean and now it’s got a golden smile.
Pupil 3: I think Lubna must have been lonely without a real friend.
Pupil 4: Lubna took care of her pebble friend. We take care of our real friends.

Year 1 Reading Picnic

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon for our Reading Picnic event yesterday. Children in Year 1 invited their grown-ups from home to enjoy decorated cakes and juice and to show off their reading talents. We were pleased to host parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters. All enjoyed listening to the children read and enjoying the books. Comments included: “It was great to hear my child read, he has made so much progress with his reading this year,” “thank you for letting us visit again this year, I am so impressed how much their reading has come on since Foundation,” “It has been great to see what they have been doing, thank you.” We also enjoyed seeing Mrs Wink (our governor for English and Library co-ordinator in Laceby) she commented on how good it was to see so many visitors in school and all enjoying reading.

Children said:
“We loved icing the cakes this morning to get ready,”
“My Grandad came and it was great to see him too,”
“I shared my Dad with my friend and he read to us both,”
“I love reading outside!”

Spectacular Celebration

This week all Year 1 pupils have worked hard at their Phonics Screening Test.

We are all so proud of them and wanted to celebrate their achievement.

Today has been amazing, children have made their own ‘spectacular spectacles’ and designed and made a fruit kebab.

Choosing which fruit they want to include and learning how to cut safely into chunks the Year 1s have made delicious looking treats. We then tasted these and talked out which fruit was our favourite.

CONGRATULATIONS to you all, you are SPECTACULAR!

Pupil A: I love the spectacles because it is my favourite celebration in phonics!
Pupil B: I have had a great day making fruit kebabs.
Pupil C: Best day ever!
Pupil D: I wrote to Mrs Hackfath to invite her and she came too.
Pupil E: Today has been great, thank you.

The Iron Man

Today in English we came up with concerns and solutions about the Iron Man. In our story we have just read that farmers were furious because he is destroying farms by taking machinery and eating steel. We went to a meeting held by farmer Smith and discussed our concerns and solutions we had come up with in role as farmers.

"I liked chanting save our farms at the end of our meeting"

"It was a really fun lesson"

"Miss Purshouse turned into a farmer"

Errol's Garden

We have been reading about Errol’s garden. We are working in groups to design a rooftop garden.

Library

It was Year 5's turn, this week, to go to the library. We are very fortunate to have such a brilliant facility for learning so close to the school. The children were challenged to recall as much information about the Vikings as they could from their learning this term. They then were looking through books and using online sources to discover new facts about the Vikings. The children were also looking at the portrayals of Vikings in fiction books.

'I didn't know there were computers at the library.' 'I loved being surrounded the books.' 'I enjoyed reading a couple of pages from a Viking fiction book, the characters sounded really interesting.'

Barley Class Reading Breakfast 📖 🥞

Barley Class pupils had a wonderful morning inviting their parents/carers and family members to join them in reading in school on Tuesday. A lovely atmosphere by all and a wonderful opportunity to see the pupils read together with their family members!!

“Lovely idea and nice to spend time reading with O and chatting with the other children and teachers, lovely half an hour! “

“Lovely relaxed class. A lovely morning, thank you!”

“It’s lovely to be able to come in to the classroom and spend time with our daughter. It’s a lovely way to meet the teachers and have a catch up. The kids love the breakfast! Thank you!”

Loving Laceby Library

The Year 2 children thoroughly enjoyed their visit to the library today.

W- Mrs. Wink showed us some different kinds of books.
E- Mrs. Wink had a very old book that was seventy years old. It was a special book she liked to read when she was a little girl.
P- It was lots of fun to look at all the different books.
C- I was looking for scary story books!

The children also spent some time researching information about gardening, growing, plants and trees by reading lots of non-fiction books. They did this in preparation for their new Science topic next term.

Mrs. Brady would like to thank Mrs. Wink and Mrs. Harrison for making everyone feel so welcome.

World Book Day

Daisy Class

To celebrate World Book Day this year we have been looking at the wonderful picture book ‘The Night Dragon’ by Naomi Howarth.
This is a great book with super illustrations, which we used as a stimulus for our dragon mural. We worked together to create the dragon from the story and we’re really pleased with it. We have written book reviews recommending the books to the other Year 1 and 2 classes. Lots of us dressed up in costumes and brought the book that our character was from. We also enjoyed reading our books to our friends. What a great day!!

Poppy Class

Poppy class had a wonderful time celebrating World Book Day.

It was lovely to see all the different book character costumes.

They enjoyed sharing books, writing book reviews and creating special art work linked to their new story book called ‘The cat who wanted to go home’ by Jill Tomlinson.

Sunflower Class

The Sunflowers loved dressing up as their favourite story book characters.
They enjoyed sharing books and reading a new book called ‘Star in the Jar’ by Sam Hay.
They wrote book reviews and created art work of treasure that they would like to find and keep in a jar.

J- Mrs. Brady organised a treasure hunt outside. It was fun to find things to put in a jar.

M- I liked being David Attenborough because I got to investigate things outside. I found a fragment of pottery which might have come from a hidden temple under the playground.

M- We realised that some things might be treasure to some people or just old rubbish to other people.

R- I found all sorts of treasure like coins, jewellery and shiny beads.

C- The treasure in my jar would be money and gold jewellery that might have belonged to a rich princess.

Pumpkin Class

We have had a wonderful day in Pumpkin class today, dressed as book character, we have been finding all about 'Out to Sea' by Helen Kellock. We wrote a book review, a letter to Helen explaining our opinions on her book and drew an alternative front cover for her book.

"The book was really emotional"
"I loved the ending of the story"
"I didn't like when the young girl was grieving"
"I've had a brilliant day! Drawing a different book cover was my favourite!"

Willow Class

Year 4 have enjoyed the magic of books lots recently. We took a trip to the library, where Mrs Wink provided us with lots of wonderful books about the rainforest. A few days later, we were celebrating World Book Day with the rest of the school. Our focus was picture books this year. The children had some amazing discussions about the imagery we looked at in our book, then wrote a letter to the illustrator and produced some of their own art.

Barley Class 📖

To celebrate World Book Day this year we have been looking at the wonderful picture book ‘FArTHER’ by Grahame Baker- Smith.

This is a great book with super illustrations, which we used as a stimulus to create a flying device. Pupils wrote letters in character and researched different flying devices. They then designed their own flying machine inspired from this fabulous book. Many of us dressed up in costumes and brought the book that our character was from. We also enjoyed reading for pleasure with the Year 1 pupils. What a great day!!

Reading Collaboration

On World Book Day Barley Class and Daisy Class got together to share our favourite books.
Year 6s were amazing as they enjoyed reading to the younger children and answering their questions about the Non-fiction books they shared also.
Year 1 and 2 children also showed the Year 6s how great they were at reading and impressed everyone.
Most of all the children all enjoyed reading together, sharing books and chatting about them.
WE LOVE TO READ!!

Buttercup visit to Stanford Library

Buttercup class enjoyed their trip to Stanford Library.   We loved looking at the books and all chose one to take back to class.   Mrs Wink spoke to us about what happens in a library.  She also shared the sorts of stories she enjoyed when she was little.  We compared her old books with the shiny, colourful books we chose today. We can’t wait to share our new stories back in class.

Pumpkin Class Reading Breakfast

Today Pumpkin class invited parents into their class to do some reading. We also had breakfast whilst we did our reading. This meant that we all got one more read in our reading dairies this week, just 2 more to go!

"I liked eating food whilst reading most"
"I got to read outside with my mum and my friend"
"It was great!"
"A lovely class of happy children"
"Great turn out and well-behaved class"
"Thank you for having us, we had a lovely time"

Buttercup Learning Share

Buttercup Class were so excited to share their learning with their families.

Here are some of the things we shared:

How we do dough disco to strengthen our hands for writing.

Phonics sounds, Sounding out and Word building

Sharing the Traditional Tales we have been learning including showing our talk for writing story maps

We use our RWI sayings to help us remember letter formation

We practise development of our fine motor skills in so many ways – here we are weaving letters and screwing and unscrewing nuts and bolts

We have been learning about the body including naming the parts and keeping our bodies healthy including our teeth

We shared the Superveg stories we made using SEASAW

Wednesday Readers

Pumpkin class have a reading group on a Wednesday lunch time. Here we have an opportunity to get one of our three reads, especially if we haven't had chance at home. We can also read to a grown up, and talk about the books we are reading. All children in the class are offered this opportunity weekly if they would like to join us.
"I like being able to read my story to Miss Purshouse"
"I don't always have chance to read at home because I go to lots of clubs"
"I think coming to the club is making me a better reader"

Pumpkin class visit the library

Pumpkin class visited the library this week to help us with a research task in geography. Mrs Wink very kindly pointed us in the right direction to non-fiction books about coastlines and Cleethorpes. Once we got back to school, we found different pieces of information using our books. Thank you Mrs Wink for letting us visit and helping us to find interesting books on our topic.

"I would like to go to the library again!"

"I like that we got to borrow books"

"I liked working in groups to find information from the books we go"

Pumpkin Hook Day!

We had a fantastic hook day in Year 3. We went in our nature area and role played for our English. We asked ourselves what would it have felt like to be in a cave? What senses would we have used? What would we have done? We then used what we role played to write a piece of descriptive writing using exciting vocabulary and expanded noun phrases. 

Debate writing and discussion

As part of their writing in English, Barley class are looking at debates and balanced arguments. This week pupils had a verbal debate in small groups on whether Odysseus should have told his crew the dangers or not… the pupils discussed the different views and then came together to discuss this in a formal debate. Well done Barley, great discussions had!

Santa’s Storytime

The Year 2 children had a wonderful surprise when Santa arrived in their classroom to read his favourite festive stories to them!

L- I thought it was very nice of him to come all the way from the North Pole to come and see us.
P- I liked listening to his stories.
P- It was really nice to talk to Santa. He asked me if I had been good and I told him I had.
W- I really want Santa to come back and see us next week!
C- I would like to read my story book to Santa next time.

We Love Phonics

One group of children wanted to share with you their super progress in reading. In our small phonics groups, we have learnt all the Set 2 sounds and can blend them for reading and segment them for writing. We are reading a book about horses and learning new vocabulary as we read. We are all so proud of our achievements this half term and can’t wait to get started on Set 3 sounds next week!

Welcome

Today Daisy class welcomed their parents/carers into their new classroom for a tour. It was great that so many people came and enjoyed looking at the children’s new learning space. Refreshments were served by the pupils and their class song made everyone laugh! To remember the event, children made bookmarks showing their author of the term and themselves enjoying the new reading areas. Children shared their favourite classroom spaces:

Pupil 1: “I love using money in the Christmas Shop best.”
Pupil 2: “The craft area is good because I love to make things.”
Pupil 3: “I like reading books in the new book corner because I love books!”
Pupil 4: “The tent is a quiet place to share a story with a buddie.”
Pupil 5: “Let me show you the new toilets ‘cause they’re purple!”

Daisy Reading Buddies

This week in Daisy class the Year 1 and Year 2 children have been reading with buddies. We have made the most of our time to make new friends and buddies to support each other in our new learning space.

Child 1: I love my buddy reading to me.
Child 2: It’s good to share a story together.
Child 3: We have a great new classroom.
Child 4:  I like reading with other people.

Presentations

This week in English pumpkin class have been discussing what they would like to change about the school environment. Linking to our class text 'Belonging.' Children used technology to research their ideas and then created a presentation. Today pumpkin class presented their presentations to Willow class. Pumpkin class did amazing to deliver their presentations to others. A big well done to everyone!

Shackleton's expedition to Antarctica

Over this half term, we have really enjoyed learning all about Shackleton and his expedition to Antarctica!

This week, we studied imagery and how a picture of the Weddel Sea made us feel, considering how we would feel if we had been part of the crew. We created a word bank of excellent vocabulary and used this to create short poems- we wrote these on different strips so we could move them around to create the best effect.

We love to read!! 📚

Barley and Pumpkin class came together to share their love of reading! Pumpkin class shared their favourite book with year 6 pupils whilst enjoying the sunshine!

"I loved reading with a year 6"

"The year 6 explained to me about speech marks in my story"

"I read my favourite story outside and it was very calming"

"I had a lovely time reading"

"Me and my partner took it in turns to read"

"I liked my partners book more than my own"

"I liked the author of my partners book and have looked for another book by that author"

A Super Reading Breakfast

The Year 2 children enjoyed sharing books and delicious food with their family, friends and community members. It was great to see everyone enjoying reading together!

P- My mum got to read with me and she had a smile through the whole entire thing!

C- I really enjoyed eating the fruit and talking to my friends about books.

F- My mum and dad both came. We all read together!

C- It was the best day ever! W- I loved reading to my mum.

R- It was a lovely morning. I enjoyed reading two books and loved eating my breakfast!

O- I liked reading with Grandma and eating lots of yummy food!

R- I really enjoyed my mummy coming into my school to read with me.

Parents and Carers Feedback:

*It was great for parents to get involved.

*A lovely morning, thank you. Lovely food, welcoming atmosphere, so nice to see all the children back to school and happy.

*Thank you very much. I have enjoyed my morning reading books to my little boy and meeting his new teachers.

*Absolutely lovely event! Excellent range of books and refreshments.

*It was a nice experience to sit down with my child in his school environment.

*We thoroughly enjoyed today’s reading breakfast. It’s lovely to see other pupils and parents, along with hearing our own children read.

Class debate!

Today in English we thought about what happens to Rhodopis the main character of our book. We argued whether different things that happen to her are a positive or a negative. For example, she becomes a Queen. Which some children said would be a positive, but others said a negative. We then made a list and split them positives and negatives whilst debating which side they should go on.

Today in Year 1 we celebrated finishing our Phonics Screening.

This morning we decorated biscuits and made our own sandwiches either jam, cucumber, cheese or butter. Then this afternoon we went onto the field and played different games with the parachute; we had lots of fun!

We sat in the shade and ate our picnic. Once we had come into to cool down Miss Purshouse and Mrs Smith surprised us with ice lollies! A big WELL DONE to all the children, we are so proud of you!

"This is the best day of my life!"

"I've been eating all day"

"My ice lolly was yummy"

"This day ROCKED!"

We Love Books!

Pumpkin Class enjoyed their first class visit to Laceby Library.

They were very excited to explore all the books and find out how the library is organised.

Many thanks to Mrs. Wink for all her help. The children loved choosing a book to borrow.

M- I enjoyed being the librarian and stamping all the books.

V- It was a lot of fun to look round and read lots of books.

E- I chose a book about sea creatures because I want to learn about the creatures I might see when I go on holiday because I am going to explore rock pools.

H- I go to the library a lot with my Grandma, so I was able to help people find the books they wanted.

S- There were such a lot of books. I was excited to find ones about Lego and Pokemon!

Reading Collaboration: Fun in the Sun!

For Wellbeing Wednesday the Year 1 and Year 2 children teamed up to share books and listen to each other read. It was great to see them enjoying reading books and hear them talking enthusiastically about their favourite stories, as well as the non-fiction books that they like. Well done everyone!

Outdoor Reading Collaboration

Poppy and Willow class are enjoying sharing their love of reading outside this afternoon.

Reading Breakfast

This morning Year 1 invited parents and carers into school for a reading breakfast. We took lots of bean bags outside for the children and adults to relax and share a book together. We hope you enjoyed your morning with us.

Absolutely lovely time! Juice and brioche were perfect.
Really enjoyed my morning with the children.
I love attending these mornings. It is nice to be able to take some extra time to read.
A lovely way to show us how the children are getting on in school and the children love us coming in, really good!
Lovely set up and the staff were really friendly, enjoyed by all.

Character’s Feelings

Today Year 1s have been looking at a character’s feelings throughout a story. In the book, ‘The Secret Sky Garden’ Funni (the main character) has different feelings. She starts the story feeling sad and makes a plan to create an amazing garden, which she is so happy with and feels proud of herself. Later Funni is lonely and feels miserable. Until a new character turns up and she is surprised to find he likes the same things she does. Funni is delighted at the end as she has a new friend. They are so very friendly with each other.

Year 1 children came up with all the feeling words and were able to work with coaching buddies to write about why Funni felt this way. We are so proud of their writing today. Great coaching work Year 1s!

The Victorian Workhouse - A Prison for the Poor?

In English we are reading "Street Child" and learnt the main character, Jim, ended up living at the Workhouse. In history we explored a range of sources of evidence to learn what it was like in the workhouse. We used this history knowledge to write a diary as if we were in the workshouse.

Drama: Goodnight Mister Tom

Juniper Class has been enjoying exploring English through drama this week. We have started our new book Goodnight Mister Tom and in groups we began to act out the first scene as the characters meet. We explored the thoughts and feelings of these characters and how they might interact with each other. We tried really hard to stay in character as we performed for the rest of the class!

Kahoot Grammar Revision

This week in Year 6, we have used Kahoot to aid our grammar revision. It was great, interactive quiz that supported our retrieval practice and grammar knowledge- with only a little competitiveness! We will definitely be using Kahoot again!

Blackout Poetry

During World Book Day Year 6 pupils created their own blackout poems from a chosen page from their favourite book.

Blackout poems are made using pages from books, newspapers or magazines. pupils picked out single words or phrases from the existing text, then pieced them together to make something new. This kind of poetry embraces randomness, and also gives writers a chance to mix poetry and visual art. How amazing do they look!!

World Book Day

Foundation Stage and Year 1

Foundation Stage and Year 1 had a fantastic World Book Day, where we celebrated the wonderful stories of Julia Donaldson. We have read so many of her stories and the children find it difficult to pick their favourite. We took part in lots of reading response activities, including: craft, outdoor learning, writing books, sharing books, making books, and more... We were also blown away by the creativity of the spoon designs and the marvellous costumes. Well done everyone!

Pumpkin Class

Pumpkin Class really enjoyed celebrating World Book Day!

H- Everyone enjoyed dressing up as their favourite book character.

T- We had an assembly in class about World Book Day. Mrs. Brady told us about a £1 book token that we will get to buy a special book.

J- At school we are going to have a book sale soon where people can come with their parents and buy books. We looked in magazines to find out which books we might like to buy.

V- It was good to share books with friends today. I shared the book ‘Stick Man’ and my friend really enjoyed it.

R- We had a spoon competition where we had to decorate a spoon as a book character. I was so surprised when Mrs. Griffiths said I was the winner!

A- We learnt about the author Nathan Bryon who wrote the stories ‘Look Up’ and ‘Clean Up.’

J- We learnt about an illustrator who drew the pictures for ‘Clean Up.’

H- We discussed the story ‘Clean Up’ and we wrote about the settings, main character and what happened at the beginning, middle and ending.

S- We recommended our own books for friends to read.

Year 3 - World Book Day

The children had lots of fun dressing up as characters from books and showing their character spoons. Being democratic the children were asked to vote for the winning spoon and it was a close competition as their creations were so great. Throughout the day the children did activities based on our featured author David Walliams. He has written a series of books based on 'The worst child in the whole world'. The children had to think of what a child like this might do and look like. They created a character description, book cover and blurb. I don't know how David Walliams could think of an idea of 'the worst child in the whole world' the children in Poppy class are always so well behaved and polite!! Imagining such a child would be a stretch of the imagination!!

Willow Class

We are loving the day focussed about reading.

We shared our thoughts about what sorts of books we like to read and where we like to read.

Whether it’s in the garden, snuggled up on a sofa, on a special reading chair or in a homemade den, we love to read.
Our Author focus is Gillian Cross.  We have learnt about her as an author and looked at the blurb on a range of her stories. We have also studied the first part of The Demon Headmaster.

Look at our fantastic character spoons that we created at home:

Juniper Class

Juniper class really enjoyed World Book Day, we dressed up in our favourite story book characters and read to each other! We brought in our spoons in to be displayed and eagerly waited for the results at the end of the day. Researching our author was really interesting too!

Year 6

Barley and Blossom class had a great day celebrating world book day! Pupils shared their favourite books and characters throughout the day!

Pumpkin Class improve their writing!

In English lessons the Year 2 children have been visiting their Editing Station to check and improve their writing.

R- I checked that my sentences all started with a capital letter.
S- I checked I’d got question marks at the end of my questions.
R- I double-checked that I had spelt all my polar bear words properly.
J- The Editing Station has lots of useful words to help you check your spelling.
A- I am getting better at spotting my mistakes. Also my partner helps me check my work too.

Penguin Vocabulary

Can we find out how penguins move?

Pumpkin Class enjoyed watching videos of penguins and they used lots of descriptive words to describe how the penguins were moving. They explored moving like penguins themselves and then listed all the wonderful words they had collected together to describe penguin movements. H- I got on to the Extra Challenge and used suffixes to change words. I added ‘ing’ and ‘ed’ to the end of root words. If you add ‘ed’ it changes the words into the past tense. J- I liked sliding on my tummy and pretending I was an Emperor penguin on the ice. E- We loved making a huddle in the playground. R- I really like the word ‘trundle’ it makes me think of the penguins shuffling along together.

Pumpkin Class Love Reading!

This week the children have been exploring non-fiction books, not only the selection of books in the classroom, but also their own books from home.

J- I liked looking at my friend's books.

H- People have brought lots of different kinds of information books.

V- We are getting good at reading and then answering questions. I also like writing book reviews.

T- If we read all the non-fiction books we might learn lots of new things. I enjoy finding things out.

A- I've been reading about Lewis Hamilton and Formula 1.

Year 1 Reading Breakfast

Year ones welcomed lots of family members to come into class and share some books. Whilst children read with their guests they also enjoyed a great breakfast. Everyone had such a good morning. Here are some of us enjoying the reading.
PICS

We asked visitors and children what they thought of the event, these are some of the comments:

Parent A, “Really nice to come and share the time with my daughter in the place where she is every day.”
Parent B, “It was nice to see their classroom and listen to them read.”
Parent C, “Really enjoyed it.”
Parent D, “Nice to see the lovely school environment and see the teachers and parents. Thank you for the food too.”
Parent E, “A lovely event which was very well organised and well thought out.”
Child 1, “I have enjoyed this morning.”
Child 2, “I really enjoyed reading books with my Grandma and I enjoyed the fruit.”
Child 3, “I really liked the reading breakfast can we do it again?”

Year 6 Reading Breakfast 📚

Barley and Blossom Class enjoyed having the opportunity to have a family member come into school, experience our reading comprehension skills and have a healthy breakfast snack. It was lovely seeing families come together to share a love of reading, meet the class teachers and have a look at our fantastic learning environments.

Foundation Stage Reading Breakfast

Thank you very much for such great support with our reading breakfast in Foundation Stage. Sharing a love of reading with the children is very powerful and it was a pleasure to have so many of you be able to join us this week.

Collaboration Year 1 and Foundation

Year 1 and Foundation have spent time collaborating with our focus being in English with our grammar. The year 1 children in Mrs Smith's group showed Miss Purshouse's group their author study work. We looked at what grammar we need when we are writing a sentence. Then Miss Purshouse's group showed the Foundation children their work. The Year 1 children showed the Foundation children how we use a full stop and why.

O-"I liked seeing my year 1 friends."

J-" I liked showing my work."

B- "I felt proud."

A- "It was fun!"

SPAG: What Do Sentences Need?

Pumpkin Class have been focussing on punctuating their sentences correctly, making sure they begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop. They can identify the subject of a sentence, verbs and nouns.

E- The songs we sing help us to remember what our sentences need.
O- I sing the verb song and the noun song- I like them a lot.
I- I looked at Ferdy Frog’s sentences, he hadn’t used any capital letters or full stops, so I had to write them.
S- We used different coloured cubes to show which words were verbs and which words were nouns.