Reading You Choose by Nick Sharratt and Pippa Goodhart this week

We are enjoying You Choose by Nick Sharratt and Pippa Goodhart this week in literacy #smithdowneyfs

Here is a link for Reception families to share the You Choose at home

Here is a link for Reception families to share the You Choose at home #smithdowneyfs

Thank you to all parents who came along to session 2…

Thank you to all parents who came along to session 2 of ourparent literacy workshop which focused on rhyme

We are ready to write our own circular story now…

We retold the model text. We used picture clues to help. We are ready to write our own circular story now #smithdownwriters #smithdownreaders

New vocabulary for English!

Having fun acting out our new vocabulary for English! #smithdownenglish #Y3

What an experience…

What an experience! Year 3 went to a stately home to feel what one looked like and felt like. Sudley house was perfect for helping us understand our new book – Seen and not Heard. #smithdownenglish #smithdownextra

In English, 3KM have been discussing predictions on what our new novel could be about…

In English, 3KM have been discussing predictions on what our new novel could be about by using colours for reference of different habitats ??? #smithdowneng #smithdownyr3

Drawing pictures to represent our new vocabulary

3KM have had fun using imagination to draw pictures to represent our new vocabulary for our new novel ‘Dear Earth’ ??? #smithdowneng #smithdownYr3

Acrostic poems all about attendance week

4KM created their own posters and acrostic poems all about attendance week #smithdownenglish

4KM had a great morning editing their own transformation narratives in English?

4KM had a great morning editing their own transformation narratives in English? #smithdownenglish

In English today, we shared ideas and generated headings and subheadings for different parts of a text

In English today, we shared ideas and generated headings and subheadings for different parts of a text. We read each section first so we could think of appropriate headings to help us summarise. #smithdownwriters

How and Why did WW2 Start?

We have started our WW2 topic by exploring who was involved, how it began and why. We made a double page spread to answer our enquiry!

Remembrance Day

We have created some beautiful poems after reading Flanders Fields and used watercolours/charcoal/pencils to create some poppy artwork to mark Remembrance Day.

Remembrance Day

For Remembrance Day, we read the poem ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and after discussing the content, we embellished the poem with images of poppies.

What an amazing biography!

Hansel and Gretel: Dual Narratives

We have thoroughly enjoyed reading Neil Gaiman’s version of Hansel and Gretel, so much so, it led us to writing our own dual narratives. We are so proud of the writing we have produced.

1MS found some clues about our new story, what will it be about??

People who help us: Chefs

This week we are learning all about chefs. This morning we had a visit from our school chef Miss Monica. We talked about her chefs outfit, the kitchen and menus. We then chose to create our own menus

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Hansel and Gretel mural display completed.

How fabulous is this wall? !

Supertato Sequencing

This week we have been working hard with our friends to put our Supertato story pictures into the correct order.

Happy world book day 2024???!!!

Year 4 have been working hard as illustrators this world book day??!!!

World Book Day in Year 3

Year 3 have been working hard on poems about #Goldilocks this World Book Day!

Year 1 loved celebrating World Book Day!

Year 4 had so much fun during their circus skills morning??‍?!!!

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World book day 2024???!!!

What fabulous writers!

We have been working towards writing a Kenning Poem and today all of our hard work paid off.

More circus skills fun this afternoon??‍?!!!

We had an amazing day on world book day! We focused on #Goldilocks and created our own poems and naughty hashtags.

Should Jack go up the beanstalk?

Should Jack climb the beanstalk? We tried to persuade him and we took sides in class. We came up with some great reasons for and against the idea.

Taking the Role of a Reporter

3KM had an amazing time being reporters today. They asked our ‘witness’ questions about a strange sighting he had. They then worked in groups and took turns asking and answering questions. This will help us when we come to write our own newspaper reports.  

World ? Earth Day

In Reception we enjoyed reusing our milk cartons to make musical shakers using natural objects outdoors.

We have been very busy retelling our story this afternoon. ?️

We have learnt all the Makaton signs for the animals in our story and then used them to retell the story.

Map Making and Directions

We made our own maps of Lila’s village and used compass point directions to direct a friend around the map.

Retelling Lila and the Secret of Rain

We retold the story in teams and performed the story to our friends.

Lovely Start to Year 3

We have had a lovely couple of days and we have started our first piece of writing – a set of instructions!

Great teamwork Year 2

Today we discovered treasure chests full of jigsaws in our classroom. We made the picture and looked for clues for our new class story.

New Vocabulary

We explored new vocabulary in our new topic – Seen and not Heard. We acted out each word and drew a picture to help us remember them.

Super Reading!

We are enjoying our new phonics groups and have worked so hard on our fluency this week.

Making maps

Today we made our own maps in preparation for our instruction texts. We had to think carefully about where the gold was hidden and then give our partner instructions to find it.

Noun or Verb?

We went on a noun hunt and then acted out verbs to help us to identify the difference between the two.

Making sandwiches for Anna and Crocodile

Anna and Crocodile are trying to make a sandwich. We wrote our first set of instructions and then made a sandwich to check we had included all the steps. We learned that a set of instructions needs a ‘What you need’ list and a Method.

Phonics Meeting

Fabulous turn out at our phonics meeting. Keep an eye on the app for each weeks videos and activities.

Making sandwiches for Anna and Crocodile

Anna and Crocodile asked us for our help today. We thought about how to make a sandwich, created some plans, made some sandwiches and of course had to taste test them! Yum yum!

How to truly be a mischievous child

Year 3 had a great start to their first shared write of the year. We have been learning about imperative verbs, rhetorical questions, adverbs and how instructions are laid out. We put all the new skills we have been learning to the test and used them to create a set of instructions about how to be a mischievous child, based on our reading book ‘Seen and Not Heard’

Parents watch out! Your children came up with some very interesting ideas!

Using a combination of skills today…

In Year 6 today, we combined our learning from Geography and English by using our computer skills to present the information we have discovered into Google Sites to create our own web pages.

Explanation Texts

After researching mountain gorillas and adaptions of animals, we have just begun to write our own explanation texts. Keep an eye out for the finished pieces.

Palm Oil – Positives and Negatives

We simply had to share a few more pieces of work as we think they are truly fantastic! Detailed information which is extremely well presented. Great work Year 6!

National poetry day!!

Today we have looked at different poems for national poetry day!

What happens in chapter 5 with Mr Gum?

I made my work soooo much better

I used fronted adverbials, conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions and personification.

Large mark making in the afternoon sun.

Instructions for our independent write!

Year 3 have been working on writing instructions in their English lessons and are working really hard to do it independently!

Amazing Writing

Wow. Look at this writing from reception children. How amazing!

Incredible writing from Year 6

We are simply blown away by the writing we have recently produced. Our Year 6 classes are so invested in world issues – saving habitats and animals in particular. Have a read of some of the letters we wrote to the Rwandan Government, asking them to help protect the magnificent mountain gorillas

An author has come to Smithdown!

Author of ‘The late crew’ Rob Ferguson came to visit our school today. Some of us were so excited to even get our books signed by a real life author! We even designed our own alien that we could use in our stories.  

Setting Descriptions

We got into role as Rapunzel and answered some questions in character!

In 1CP, we got into role as Rapunzel and answered some questions!

What a great first attempt at a twisted narrative!

What’s in the mystery box?

We found some items in our box to help us with predicting what our new class text is about.

Making a Water Filter

What could our new book be about?

In English, we are starting a new book. Before the children heard the name or seen the front cover we looked at various clues and made predictions about what it could be about. The children came up with great ideas. Based on the clues, some children thought it was about an explorer who visits different parts of the world. Others thought it was about different habitats. The book will be revealed next lesson!

Who has been in our classroom?

Today we were very shocked to find a character from our new story had been in our classroom and made quite a mess. We made some predictions of who this character could be.

What a mess!

We came back into our classroom and found that someone or something had been in there! We looked at the disaster that had been left behind and asked questions about what we thought had happened!

We found

– a globe

– a map

– broken biscuits

– teapot and cups

– footprints

and…. a lot of mess!!

Nouns, Verbs and Adjectives!

Year 3 have been working hard to identify nouns, verbs and adjectives and using them in their English work.

Acting out our new story

We really enjoyed listening to the story of The Lonely Beast. We acted out different parts of the story and retold the story to each other

How lovely to see these two sharing our class book together.

We have been busy baking 5 currant buns this morning as part of World Nursery Rhyme Week.

Thank you for joining us for our Nursery Rhyme stay and learn.

English drama activity

Year 4 had a fun morning creating speech and acting it out. We loved being the villainous witch and sweet, little Jub. We used macaroni to add inverted commas to our speech.

English Role Play

Year 4 had a fun creative morning today. They loved playing the witch and Jub. We also used macaroni to add inverted commas into our speech that we had acted out.

International Slavery Museum trip

Yesterday we had a great time at the International Slavery Museum. We had a workshop in the ‘legacies of the transatlantic slave trade’ and then had time to explore the museum with our task sheets. 

Dual narrative openings.

We have just started work on writing our own dual narratives, based on the characters and events in Neil Gaiman’s Hansel and Gretel. Such powerful openings! We can’t wait to get writing more, they will be incredible to read.

Year 4 English

This week we are writing our own twisted tale narrative. We spent this morning exploring what a good one looks like, locating features and writing our own alternative ending.

Extra work at home!

Some incredible examples of extra work done at home. I have loved seeing how passionate we are about negative numbers, Olaudah Equiano and Roman numeral – keep it up, we love proudly displaying your work!

Premier league workshop

This morning we had a Premier League workshop to tell us all about the different jobs and skills we could get that are part of football. We learnt about football journalists, authors, medics, stewards, mascots, players and coaches. We then acted out being an interviewer, interviewee and clarifier.

Dual Narratives

We really enjoyed writing these dual narratives in Year 6, we used two characters from the book we read together in lessons. We hope you enjoy reading them.

Christmas card inserts

This week, the children have loved writing Christmas Card inserts to their families. They enjoyed practicing their early writing skills using the knowledge they have gained. This afternoon, they are excited to begin designing their cards…I am excited to see their creativity!

Retelling the story of The Polar Express

The Reception children of RAG have enjoyed listening to the marvellous Christmas story, ‘The Polar Express’. They even managed to retell the story in sequence, from start to finish, using pictures. Well done!

Year 2 Nativity

Our Nativity Slideshow.

Thank you all for coming to watch. We loved performing for you.

Conscience alley role play

We used role play to decide if the witch from our class text should give back the stolen happy endings. We thought of lots of reasons for and against.

Our new book… Hidden Figures

We have looked through all our clues for our upcoming book… Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly. We will be discussing new vocabulary such as racism, segregation, civil rights, controversy and many more!

The Snowman

We have been practicing reading words and using our phonic knowledge to match the correct words to the pictures.

Pre-writing task today

Before we begin writing our own diary extracts, we read and annotated a model text for language  and organisational features.

What could our new story be about?

We discovered some clues to our new story today! We made predictions and discussed if the clues reminded us of any other stories too.

We are getting down to the beat with our new book.

We have been busy getting to the beat with Skunka and Tanka.

We have been mark making the skunk and elephant from our book.

Planning before we write

Working together to gather ideas before planning our own independent write, based on our novel Pea Boy.

Fair Trade Debate

Today we learnt about the global supply chain and the different stages our products take to get to us (the customer). We debated which part of the supply chain was the most important and how fair the pay was. Our class debate was very passionate!

Question time

We asked the policeman questions about catching Lanky Len.

Benjamin Zephaniah

Year 5 have been looking at the poet Benjamin Zephaniah this week and yesterday we got the chance to read some of his poems. We all agreed that most of his poems have the message of justice and equality for all.  

Reading – Ms Siddiqui

This boy told me that he loved reading this book because the story reflected his own life experiences. Books that represent our communities matter so much.

Biography writing in Year 6

We have been intrigued learning about Miep Gies and the role she played in helping to hide eight Jewish people in an annexe in Amsterdam during World War II but perhaps more importantly, how she was the one who found and kept safe Anne Frank’s diary.

Writing in Ms Siddiqui’s Group

These children have worked so hard today on their independent writing. Well done!

Goodnight Mr Tom- our new English book

Yesterday we looked at clues for our new book ’Goodnight Mr Tom’. We wrote predictions and today we discussed evacuations from cities to the countryside and arguments for and against. We invited in Mrs Ridley to walk down our ‘conscience alley’ to hear our reasons.  

What is it like in the dark…

We have been to the basement to find out what it feels like in the dark.

This is a clue to our new English book!

Today we have been reading Mr Wolf’s Pancakes. We have drawn Mr Wolf and made pancakes just like his recipe!

Understanding a Prefix

Today, year 3 were learnt that adding a group of letters to the beginning of a root word is called a prefix and a prefix changes the meaning of the word. We worked together to make these words,

Year 4 English

We worked hard to plan and write a non-chronological report. We worked in groups to write a specific paragraph.

It’s been a busy day celebrating World Book Day in Nursery.

Prime Minster Chamberlain’s announcement – WW2

Today we used freeze frames to think about how people might have felt during the announcement of WW2. We looked at the different reactions in our book ‘Goodnight Mr Tom’ and compared different emotions.

Sharing a book together.

Can we write parts of a non-chronological report in groups?

We learnt about the mythical Kraken and wrote a section of a non- chronological report in groups.

Happy World Book Day

World book day

Today the children have had lots of fun dressing up as their favourite characters. We enjoyed learning all about the 101 Dalmatians and trying to find them around our school. We had lots of fun designing and decorating our own Dalmatian dogs with paint and cups!

The Dalmatians are safe once again!

Today we had a visit from Cruella De Vil who wanted to steal all of the Dalmatian puppies, luckily the classes were able to find all 101 of them and saved the school! What an amazing World Book Day 2025.

World book day!

World Book Day

Today, we enjoyed listening to stories and reading some too.

World Book Day 2025

Year 3 had a lovely day celebrating world book day. We read the story ‘101 Dalmatian’s’ and completed a book review on this. We also created our own dogs out of cups and black circles. In the afternoon, we learnt a new art skill in pointillism to paint our own Dalmatians.
All the costumes were amazing, thank you for yours efforts.

Year 1 loved celebrating World Book day!

Year 1 all looked amazing in their costumes yesterday for World Book Day!

Art in English? So much fun!

In English this week, we were inspired by the character Willaim Beech’s love of art and painted some of the setting descriptions from Little Weirwold. some example examples to create imagery from our book Goodnight Mr Tom. 

Mark making in different ways to support our story The Gingerbread Man.

I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down! We have been busy designing and building houses for the three little pigs today.

We sequenced our story and had lots of fun joining in with the repeated refrain.

Predictions

We loved exploring our clues and objects that linked to our new English topic. We made great predictions about what the story will be about and shared them with each other.

Fantastic work today

This week we have been looking at rhyming strings in literacy and subtraction in maths.

Newspaper report writing

After completing a narrative, we have now written newspaper reports based on events within the short animation we based our narrative on: Francis.

It has been a busy day celebrating Eid we have drawn henna hands, made party hats, played games and enjoyed dancing together.