Reading and Phonics

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.

Slimy Rhymes!

We enjoyed playing a rhyming game this week!

Rhyming in Reception

In Reception literacy this week we are practicing continuing a rhyming string and enjoying lots of rhymes. We are sharing a story called Oi Frog and below is a link if you’d like to share the story at home.

Jack and the Beanstalk

This morning we voted as to whether we would climb the beanstalk or not! The children standing said they would climb and the children sitting down said that they would not!

Retrieval Practice

This half term we are learning about the Victorians, but we don’t want to forget what we have learnt about our previous topic on the ancient civilisation of Baghdad. So, we played a game called Quiz, Quiz, Trade. This game involves asking questions  to see how much we have remembered. We did really well!

Jack and the Beanstalk

This week we are learning about Jack and the Beanstalk. Below is a link to the story if you would like to share it at home.

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.

World Book Day

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

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

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!

Happy World Book Day

World Book Day

Year 6 have drawn their own versions of some books they have enjoyed reading for World Book Day.

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.

Year 4 English

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

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.  

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.

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.  

What the Ladybird Heard

This week as part of our People Who Help Us topic, we have been learning about the jobs of the police. We have also shared and re-enacted the story of What the Ladybird Heard as part of our learning. Below is a link to share the story at home.

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!

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

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.

Pre-writing task today

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

The Snowman

This week we are sharing the story of The Snowman in Reception. Here is a link if you would like to share the story at home.

https://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/snowman-eng.pdf

The Snowman

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

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!

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.

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!

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.

Celebrating differences

For our PSHE lesson we are celebrating differences. In previous weeks we have spoken about racism, bullying and rumours and now we are researching a range of countries and what their culture looks like.

This week we have been busy reading the book Stickman and then created our own stickman.

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.

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. 

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

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!!

The Gruffalo

We are enjoying sharing the story of The Gruffalo this week! We have painted The Gruffalo and are describing The Gruffalo as part of our literacy and writing about what we can see. We also shared The Gruffalo song and below is a link to share this at home.

Phonics in Reception

We are working hard on learning our set 1 sounds and blending sounds together to make words.

Exploring loud and quiet sounds like the girl in our story.

We have a new teacher in class today!

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.

Phonics in Reception

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.  

Amazing Writing

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

Amazing Work on Renewable Energy Sources

In Geography, we have been finding out about renewable energy sources: why they are needed alongwith the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Phonics in Reception

We are working hard on our phonics this week.

National poetry day!!

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

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!

Phonics

We are working hard on our phonics this week.

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.

Dinosaur Roar! We have been exploring different activities with dinosaurs after reading our new book. We have been strengthening our muscles by rescuing the dinosaurs, printing with their feet and making our own dinosaurs with the dough.

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!

Phonics Meeting

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

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 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.

Super Reading!

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

Retelling Lila and the Secret of Rain

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

What a joy to see these two retelling our story from last week. ?

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.

Three Billy Goats Bridge

This week we have been looking at the story ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. Outside we built a bridge to cross to the green grass. We made signs for the goats from the troll showing they can’t cross the bridge.

Teddy’s Bears Picnic

To celebrate the end of learning of Goldilocks and The Three Bears we hosted our own Teddy Bears Picnic. We had party food and danced with our teddies. We had a wonderful afternoon!

Supertato Sequencing

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

Hansel and Gretel mural display completed.

How fabulous is this wall? !

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.

Today we have read I Like Trains!

We have printed trains with blocks and made marks to represent train track, trains and signals.

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.

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

We worked in teams to make a better map

We worked in teams to make a better map than Anna and Crocodile #smithdownreaders #smithdownwriters

We put Anna and Crocodile in the hot seat

On Friday we put Anna and Crocodile in the hot seat #smithdownreaders @clpe1

This morning we found some treasure chests in our room.

This morning we found some treasure chests in our room. We found some clues about our new story. #smithdownreaders @misshath2 @SmithdownPr

Little Red riding hood and the Wolf

We really dressing up and getting in role as Little Red and the Wolf #smithdownreaders

Reception Phonics

Working hard in phonics #smithdowneyfs

Thank you to all of our families who came to our first Reception parents Literacy workshop

Thank you to all of our families who came to our first Reception parents Literacy workshop. We hope to see you all again next week for our second session! #smithdowneyfs #smithdownreaders

Phonics in reception today…

Working hard in phonics #smithdowneyfs