Excellent Elm

Our teaching team is: Mrs Eyre, Mrs Bradley, Mrs Beardsley & Mrs Bailey

If you need any help or assistance please get in touch with your class teacher or school office.

We are looking forward to working hard with you all and also having some fun, creating lots of super memories with each and every one of you.

A few things to remember:

• Please bring a named water bottle to school each day.
• We enter, from 8.40am, and exit, at 3.30pm, through the main entrance.
• If your child requires an inhaler please ensure that they have it in school.
• Please check all your clothes are labelled, especially coats and jumpers!
• Please remember our school uniform policy. 

Please note the following days for your child to come to school ready in their PE kit. Hair should be tied back and removes earrings before school. If it is their swimming day, could children please come in their PE kit and bring their Swimming Kit to change into. (no costumes under clothes):

Our new unit of work in Elm during the Summer Term is called “Extreme Earth”! We will be looking at the layers of the Earth and creating a diagram of an active volcano. We also will be looking at how volcanoes affect people’s lives as well as earthquakes in other countries around the world. There is also an exciting Humanities day planned for the end of term to look forward to. In Science, we are comparing different types of rock that can be found and then move onto fossils and how they are created.

 In Creative Arts, we are making a picture of an explosive volcano using different mediums, decorating a rock paperweight, working in groups to assemble a dinosaur skeleton from cotton buds, using IPADs to create a dinosaur collage and finally writing our own musical polyrhythm describing how rocks are formed. We would appreciate it if you could send with your child a few cotton buds and a rock or stone as large as their hand for these exciting activities to take place.

In Computing, the children we be learning to create their own information power-points about rocks, fossils or dinosaurs to share with the class. In Maths, the children are initially looking at Place Value for Positive and Negative numbers, ordering numbers to 2 or 3 decimal places and revisiting multiplication facts ready for the Government’s Multiplication Check after May half term. Please help your child to master their times tables in and out of order. The expectation is for Year 3s to know their x2, x5, x10, x3, x4 and x8 times tables and the Year 4s to know all of their times tables by June/July this year. Little and often is the best way forward such as chanting tables when walking to and from school or when travelling in the car. There are also websites children can go on for extra practise such as “TTRS”, “Hit The Button” and the popular football challenge of: https://www.multiplication.com/games/play/penalty-kicks-multiplication.

Finally, in English, the children will be writing different types of sentences in their Grammar work using relative clauses, fronted adverbials, adverbs and coordinating and subordinating conjunctions. They will be reading about Volcanoes during Guided Reading and move onto applying all of this knowledge to write their own report.

Discovering Dragons!

Our new class topic focuses on History and is called "Discovering Dragons!”

We will be finding out about China and the Shang Dynasty (China’s ruling royal family) and making comparisons with other periods of history.  As well as that, we will looking at Primary Sources of evidence from the Xiaotun archaeological digs such as artefacts, ruined buildings, bones and any recorded facts from many years ago. We will be learning about the hierarchy and the different classes of citizens in the Shang Dynasty as well as why dragons are celebrated in China today and long ago.

In Maths, we will be recapping Place value to help the children solve addition and subtraction calculations for 3-digit numbers using the column method and exchange. We will be continuing to teach the children grid method to solve multiplying larger numbers such as 24x5 and division by chunking and bus stop method (Short division). To help your child succeed in this, it is very important that you help your child learn their times tables little and often. It is one of the daily tasks to do in their Home Learning book. As a guide, by the end of Year 2, your child should have learnt off by heart their x2, x5 and x10 tables. By the end of Year 3, x3, x4 and x8 tables and by the start of June when your child is Year 4, they need to have learnt all the times tables in and out of order. Remember to use TTRS to help them learn, get them to write them down and keep chanting them - you could get your child to do this whilst they are sat in the car, walking to school, skipping, playing "keepy-uppy" with a football or even doing star jumps! We practise and test times tables every Friday in school and when your child gets them correct, they will bring home a lovely certificate.

In English, the children will be reading stories and non-fiction reports about dragons. They will be researching what a dragon looks like, it’s habitat, behaviour, diet and other fascinating facts. You can help your child by reading stories or taking books out of Heanor Library about dragons. The children came up with a few ideas this week such as Harry Potter stories by JK Rowling, “Zog” by Julia Donaldson, “The Snow Dragon” by Abi Elphinstone, “The Reluctant Dragon” by Kenneth Grahame, “The Boy who grew dragons” by Andy Shepherd and “George and the Dragon” to name but a few. Some films include “Pete’s Dragon” and “How to train your dragon” and “Puff the Magic dragon”.

In Art and Design Technology, the class will be learning how to use line, texture, shade and tone to draw a dragon using different mediums such as pencil, crayons, pastels or pens. One picture will be using 2D shapes and another will be a close up of a dragon’s eye! They will also be creating a sleeping dragon out of modelling materials and a concertina dragon puppet ready for Chinese New Year!

In Music, the children will be creating Chinese dragon music to use with their dancing  dragon puppet and hopefully film it to share with the class. This may be done using instruments or a music computer program.

In Computing, the children will be continuing to use a computer program called "Scratch" to design a maze and a character. They will then need to add instructions to program their character to navigate through the maze. They may even be so whizzy at it, they are able to add music too!

In Science, the unit focuses on Plants so that the children will know what a plant needs to grow to be healthy and strong. They will learn how plants absorb water and how to care for different types of plants. Finally, they will be taking part in the “Great British Birdwatch” which is run each year by the RSPB. I wonder how many birds they can spot in an hour in their own garden?

Our World Tour!

Our new class topic focuses on Geography and is called "Our World Tour".

We will be using maps and atlases to investigate our world. Zooming in from continents to countries to England and eventually arriving in Heanor! As well as that, we will explore some of the different ways of life in a range of countries.

In December, we will also be researching Christmas traditions around our world.

In Maths, we will be teaching the children grid method to solve multiplying larger numbers such as 24x5 and division by chunking and bus stop method (Short division). To help your child succeed in this, it is very important that you help your child learn their times tables little and often. It is one of the daily tasks to do in their Home Learning book. As a guide, by the end of Year 2, your child should have learnt off by heart their x2, x5 and x10 tables. By the end of Year 3, x3, x4 and x8 tables and by the start of June when your child is Year 4, they need to have learnt all the times tables in and out of order. Remember to use TTRS to help them learn, get them to write them down and keep chanting them - you could get your child to do this whilst they are sat in the car, walking to school, skipping, playing "keepy-uppy" with a football or even doing star jumps! We practise and test times tables every Friday in school and when your child gets them correct, they will bring home a lovely certificate.

In English, the children will be learning poetry and have fun reciting "performance poems" by emphasising certain words and adding their own actions. We will be looking at a poem by the Liverpool poet Roger McGough "The Sound Collector" and use onomatopoeic words to compose our own poem! (Words that sound like the noise the object is making such as drip, crash, meow or bang) You can help your child find some onomatopoeic words when you hear them read their individual reading book or books of their own.

In Design Technology, the children will be learning about inventors and designers in the UK. They will then be designing a robot as part of a group with moving parts - if you could send in any empty boxes we would be very grateful to help with this task. 

In Music, the children will be learning Christmas Carols and songs to sing in our Christmas performance at St Lawrence's Church in December. We hope you will be able to join in with some of the songs - thank you for your support at the Harvest Festival, it was lovely to see so many of you there.

In Computing, the children will be using a computer program called "Scratch" to design a maze and a character. They will then need to add instructions to program their character to navigate through the maze. They may even be so whizzy at it, they are able to add music too!

In Science, the unit focuses on Magnets and Forces. They will learn about magnetic and non-magnetic materials and why we use magnets in our everyday lives. They will find out about the famous scientist "Sir Isaac Newton" and the force of gravity! The children will be carrying out experiments and learn how to make sure it is a fair test. 

This term, the children in  Excellent Elm class will be time travelling  and learning about the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age as part of their new curriculum focus “Through the Ages”.  We will be sequencing in History historical periods of time on a time line from Palaeolithic to present day.  The children we be looking at information books about the remains of the New Stone Age settlement Skara Brae in the Orkney Islands. We are going to find out how people made tools from stone 3.4 million years ago. Fun activities are planned such as making cave paintings in Art using chalks and charcoal, learning an alternative version to “We Will Rock You”, composing our own Polyrhythm in Music about how rocks are formed, becoming archaeologists by looking at artefacts from archaeological digs and using moldable materials to recreate Stonehenge. In English, we will be reading Stone Age Boy and writing character profiles about Om and the Stone Age Cave setting. Computing will focus on Internet Safety as well as using websites to research historical periods of time and to further their learning in other curriculum subjects. In Science, we will carry out investigations into the sources of light, understanding reflection and how shadows are formed. In Maths, the children will be focusing on Place Value, ordering  and comparing numbers and using this information to add and subtract mentally as well as practising their times tables each week. It is going to be a busy but fun and exciting half term!

               Home learning will include:

• Spellings: which will be tested through the week. (Click below to find your spelling booklets)
• Reading: when an adult has listened to you read, please record this in your reading log. All reading can be recorded not just your school reading book.
• Times tables: Times tables will be taught in school and should also be practiced at home. Remember you can use the Times Tables Rock Stars (TTRS) website to practice. Website: Times Tables Rock Stars (ttrockstars.com)

If you would like to know more about how to help your child at home, please use the links below to take you to helpful pages on our website:)

Below are our topic subjects for 2023 - 2024.

We are looking forward to an amazing term ahead.  Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have in the meantime.

Children - remember if you need anyone to talk to - at anytime you can find help here on your 'Children's Safeguarding Page' (click below) :)  You are never alone, you are part of the Mundy CE Junior school family :)