Lostock Gralam C of E Primary School
Goldfinches: Blog items
Goldfinches WB21.6.21, by Mrs Evans
Date: 17th Jun 2021 @ 9:43pm
Welcome to Goldfinches’ Weekly Blog
What another hardworking week we have had whilst enjoying the fact that summer really is here! Once again, your Goldfinches have all made me so proud of their passion for learning.
Star of the week goes to: Mason M
Top Table award goes to: Francesca
Trip (in school) we are looking forward to having The Makers of History company on Wednesday for our experience going back in time to the Roman Empire.
In worship this week we have been discussing Global Goal 13- Climate Action. We have loved listening to Jack Johnson’s 3 Rs song to help us think about the actions we can take to recycle, reuse and reduce our waste. We watched the video which explains how to turn our old t-shirts into re-useable bags and look forward to doing this on Friday.
It was lovely to zoom call with our lovely Miss Randles for her last day of work before starting her maternity leave last week.
And.. what a lovely surprise visit we had from Rocky the parrot! A super start to our Thursday! Thank you Ryan and Ryan's mum!
English- I cannot be more proud of the enthusiasm, care and effort all of our lovely Goldfinches have put into their ‘best piece of writing yet’ in Y4. Our stories of ‘Escape to Pompeii’ are wonderful.
Spellings- we will be focusing on words from the 4th column of the Y3/4 words.
Our words this week are: minute, natural, naughty, notice, occasion, occasionally, often, opposite, ordinary, signature
Please work with your child to ensure he or she understands the meanings of the words and can use them in a sentence as well as being able to spell them. There are different suggestions of activities to do each week to support practising the spellings.
Reading- We have continued with our ‘Volcanoes’ book and have enjoyed using questioning strategies to form our own questions for each other to answer.
Maths- we have begun learning about decimal numbers and equivalent fractions and have really impressed Mrs Evans with our quick learning.
The Multiplication Tables Check App is coming up soon- we will be ready to have a go at the trial version by the 25th June.
The official Y4 multiplication check has been postponed until next year, however, as a school we have made the decision to trial it for ourselves this year. The game below is almost the same as the format for the multiplication check we will do in June. Please support your child to practise using this at home regularly alongside TTRock Stars
https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/477/Multiplication-Tables-Check
This week we will have a go at the official practise site to become familiar with how it works and what we have to do.
Science- we used our knowledge of classification keys to classify leaves and creating our own questions. We had a lovely walk in track time on Thursday to identify some of the trees in our school grounds
RE- Our RE topic is Judaism where we worked very hard to write about the Israelites on Monday.
History and Geography- we completed our inquiry about our big question: What Legacy was left by the Ancient Greek civilisation? by studying and researching different themes and sub-questions about Ancient Greece.
German- this week we will have enjoyed learning to ask ‘Wo wohnst du? (where do you live?).
PE- this half term will focus on Athletics and Striking and Batting games (rounders and cricket). It will continue to be on Monday and Friday afternoons. Please ensure your child wears the Lostock Gralam PE uniform and has long hair tied back and earrings removed or covered please.
Cricket club was very well attended. Please ensure that if your child is attending they wear their PE uniform, not their own clothes during the day and follow the same safety rules of bringing a hair band for long hair and taking earrings out/covering them with tape.
As always, please don’t hesitate to contact me via the school office if you want to discuss anything regarding your child.
Mrs Evans
Goldfinches WB 14th June, by Mrs Evans
Date: 10th Jun 2021 @ 5:11pm
Welcome to Goldfinches’ Weekly Blog
What another hardworking week we have had whilst enjoying the fact that summer really is here!
Star of the week goes to: Sophie
Top Table award goes to: Ryan
In worship this week we have been discussing the Christian Value of Courage. We listened to the story of Moses in the burning bush and the courage he showed. We have written a shared acrostic poem for courage and have considered an up and coming challenge which might require us to show courage.
On Friday we will hopefully have a zoom call with our lovely Miss Randles for her last day of work before starting her maternity leave. We send her and her new baby all our love and best wishes. I will be popping round to her in the next couple of weeks and would be happy to pass on any gifts you may have as I know some of you had asked about this. Thank you all again for sending in such gorgeous photos of your child for the card.
Next week we welcome Mrs Shimmin back for a couple of weeks to complete the final part of her teacher training.
Trip (in school) During this time of covid regulations, it has been so difficult to find a safe trip out of school which is relevant and meaningful to the work we are focusing on at the moment in class. This is why I decided to book The Makers of History company (which I have used numerous times in both this school and my last school) By not travelling out anywhere, will have the entire day from 9am-3pm and will have a truly fun and meaningful learning experience going back in time to the Roman Empire.
English- We have got very good at using the present perfect tense in our writing this week (have + past tense verb e.g. I have worked very hard this week) through writing a reflective memory of life after the eruption of Vesuvius. We have planned and begun to write our own historical story based on the events.
Spellings- we will be focusing on words with the prefixes il, im, un, in, im, dis which all have the meaning ‘not’
Our words this week are: illogical, illegal, illiterate, unkind, unclear, incomplete, incorrect, impolite, disagree, dislike
Please work with your child to ensure he or she understands the meanings of the words and can use them in a sentence as well as being able to spell them. There are different suggestions of activities to do each week to support practising the spellings.
Reading- We have continued with our ‘Volcanoes’ book and have enjoyed learning more technical language as well as understanding how the layout and features of non-fiction texts support our understanding. Ask your child about pumice, mud flows or pyroclastic currents!!
Maths- we have moved onto finding the area of shapes (using multiplication and division to support us) we will continue this into next week before beginning to look at decimal numbers.
We have had another practise with the Multiplication Tables Check App this week in preparation to have a go at the trial version by the 25th June.
The official Y4 multiplication check has been postponed until next year, however, as a school we have made the decision to trial it for ourselves this year. The game below is almost the same as the format for the multiplication check we will do in June. Please support your child to practise using this at home regularly alongside TTRock Stars
https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/477/Multiplication-Tables-Check
This week we will have a go at the official practise site to become familiar with how it works and what we have to do.
Science- we recorded the next results of our eggs in different drinks to find out the effects on our teeth. Coke, energy drinks and orange juice were the most damaging and water and milk were the best for keeping our teeth healthy.
We used classification keys to sort out sweets and then mini-beasts into different categories using questions.
RE- Our new RE topic is Judaism.
History and Geography- we worked very hard on Tuesday to inquire about the big question: What Legacy was left by the Ancient Greek civilisation? We thought about sub- questions to ask to support our research and used the I-Pads and library books to research Democracy, Olympic Games, Alphabet, Architecture and an area of our own choice. Did you know the Greeks invented the catapult and the vending machine?!
German- this week we will learn months of the year.
PE- this half term will focus on Athletics and Striking and Batting games (rounders and cricket). It will continue to be on Monday and Friday afternoons. Please ensure your child wears the Lostock Gralam PE uniform and has long hair tied back and earrings removed or covered please.
Our first Cricket club was very well attended. Please ensure that if your child is attending they wear their PE uniform, not their own clothes during the day and follow the same safety rules of bringing a hair band for long hair and taking earrings out/covering them with tape.
As always, please don’t hesitate to contact me via the school office if you want to discuss anything regarding your child.
Mrs Evans
Week beginning 7th June, by Mrs Evans
Date: 28th May 2021 @ 6:48am
Welcome to Goldfinches’ Weekly Blog
What another hardworking week we have had and I wish you all a happy, sunny half term holiday!
Star of the week goes to: Zach
Top Table award goes to: Mason J
In worship this week we have been learning about the Golden Rules mosaic which is displayed in the UN Headquarters and how it encourages everyone to live out their lives following the rules. ‘Do unto others as you would have then do unto you’.
We have also shared more of Mr Cliff’s answers to our ‘Big Questions’ we asked as part of our Ethos work before Easter.
This week we have discussed another P4C (Philosophy for children) sticker. Your child will wear a sticker home every now and again to prompt a family discussion!
We celebrated all getting on the Recognition Board for 'Getting straight on' with our work by going out and playing in the sunshine.
English- We have used the present perfect tense in our writing this week (have + past tense verb e.g. I have worked very hard this week). We have written letters imagining we were Tranio or Livia’s parents giving them advice about how to stay safe and we have continued to work on writing and punctuating direct speech. After the holiday we will complete our work on Escape from Pompeii with further historical writing.
Spellings- we will be focusing on words from the 4th column of the Y3/4 statutory word list
Words to learn this week: interest, island, knowledge, learn, length, library, material, medicine, mention.
Please work with your child to ensure he or she understands the meanings of the words and can use them in a sentence as well as being able to spell them. There are different suggestions of activities to do each week to support practising the spellings.
Reading- We loved starting our new ‘Volcanoes’ book and being immersed in some of the very technical vocabulary! We now know what a volcanologist! We have been learning more technical language as well as understanding how the layout and features of non-fiction texts support our understanding.
Maths- we have been solving division problems this week using the part whole method of partitioning to support us. After half term we will move onto finding the area of shapes (using multiplication and division to support us)
We have been enjoying practising with the Multiplication Tables Check App this week.
The official Y4 multiplication check has been postponed until next year, however, as a school we have made the decision to trial it for ourselves this year. The game below is almost the same as the format for the multiplication check we will do in June. Please support your child to practise using this at home regularly alongside TTRock Stars
https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/477/Multiplication-Tables-Check
This week we will have a go at the official practise site to become familiar with how it works and what we have to do.
Science- we recorded the results so far of our eggs in different drinks to find out the effects on our teeth. We were surprised that some of the shells were starting to dissolve and some were changing colour! We began researching ideas for a presentation on keeping teeth healthy.
RE- Our new RE topic after half term is Judaism.
History and Geography- we have found out where Ancient Greece fits in on the timeline and in the world using timelines and maps. We worked beautifully together in groups to research the question ‘How great was Alexander the Great?’
Music- we did so well and enjoyed our final Ukulele lesson.
German- this week we will learn months of the year.
PE- this half term will focus on Athletics and Striking and Batting games (rounders and cricket). It will continue to be on Monday and Friday afternoons. Please ensure your child wears the Lostock Gralam PE uniform and has long hair tied back and earrings removed or covered please.
As always please e-mail or phone the office if you would like to speak to me about anything.
Mrs Evans
Week beginning 24th May 2021, by Mrs Evans
Date: 19th May 2021 @ 10:09pm
Welcome to Goldfinches’ Weekly Blog
What another hardworking week we have had!
Star of the week goes to: Isabel C
Top Table award goes to: Riley
This week in worship:
We had a lovely class visit to Church and to meet Vicar Andrew.
We have played a board game to highlight the importance of water and to have an opportunity to enjoy playing with our friends. Our school councillors launched a competition to make a poster about saving water. These can be done at home and are due in on the first Tuesday back after half term.
We have shared some of Mr Cliff’s answers to our ‘Big Questions’ we asked as part of our Ethos work before Easter.
We enjoyed using our first P4C (Philosophy for children) stickers to prompt our discussions. Your child will wear a sticker home every now and again to prompt a family discussion!
Our No Outsiders focus was on including everybody and the special facemasks for people who are deaf.
English- We have looked at different tenses, completed a zone of relevance with key vocabulary from the book and recapped using speech punctuation.
Spellings- we will be focusing on words with the sion suffix
Words to learn this week: explosion, television, collision, division, invasion, decision, erosion, confusion, decision, revision.
Please work with your child to ensure he or she understands the meanings of the words and can use them in a sentence as well as being able to spell them. There are different suggestions of activities to do each week to support practising the spellings.
Reading- We have explored the layout and organisation of non-fiction books and how they can support our understanding of a topic and this has helped us expand our technical vocabulary. We will continue to use the book to investigate how a volcano is formed, erupts and becomes extinct.
Maths- we have been brilliant at use partitioning to support the division of 2-digits by 1-digit and moved on to 3-digit numbers, understanding how a remainder is created. Next week we will link our understanding of multiplication and division to finding the area.
The official Y4 multiplication check has been postponed until next year, however, as a school we have made the decision to trial it for ourselves this year. The game below is almost the same as the format for the multiplication check we will do in June. Please support your child to practise using this at home regularly alongside TTRock Stars
https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/477/Multiplication-Tables-Check
This week we will have another go at the official practise site to become familiar with how it works and what we have to do.
Science: this week we have continued about the importance of making healthy snack and drink choices and about how to look for the sugar content on food labels as part of our Change 4 Life focus. We have set off another investigation into the effects of different drinks on eggshells (which are very similar to the enamel of our teeth) and made predictions as to what will happen to the eggs after a week. Next week we will find out what has happened, record our results and learn about tooth care.
RE- we have continued to explore the theme of Discipleship.
History and Geography- we have compared and contrasted the similarities and differences of the ancient civilisations to find out what made them some of the world’s greatest civilisations. This week we will begin to discover where Ancient Greece fits in on the timeline and in the world.
Art- We have all used the techniques of collage to make a unique sunflower petal to form part of a whole school display. We have also all contributed to a beautiful piece of shared art for the Northwich Arts festival on the theme of ‘Belonging’.
Music- we are really working hard in our final few Ukulele lessons.
German- this week we learn and practise colours names of the week.
PE- this half term will focus on Athletics and Striking and Batting games (rounders and cricket). It will continue to be on Monday and Friday afternoons. Please ensure your child wears the Lostock Gralam PE uniform and has long hair tied back and earrings removed or covered please.
As always, please don’t hesitate to contact me via the school admin email if you wish to discuss anything.
Mrs Evans
Week beginning 29th March 2021, by Mrs Evans
Date: 26th Mar 2021 @ 8:35am
Welcome to Goldfinches’ Weekly Blog
Goldfinches have continued to work hard this week and make us so proud.
Star of the week goes to: Abi
Top Table award goes to: Grace D
This week we have… and next week we will…
…continued to enjoy the opportunities to be back together again and working in teams in lots of different subjects.
English- We have really got into the story of Leon and The Place Between and have met more of the characters. We have recapped our use of subordinate clauses within some beautiful descriptive writing. Next week we will continue to explore more of the story and of course, we are looking forward to finishing the term in our pyjamas for our very own World Book Day on Thursday.
Spellings- continuing with words with the spelling pattern ‘ey’ ‘ei’ ‘eigh’
Maths- In maths we have enjoyed exploring how to record multiplication methods in different ways in order to solve multiplication problems. We have started our times tables challenges again.
History- we investigated a range of pictures and artefacts to help investigate more about what life was like in Ancient Greece.
Music- Ukulele is going well and we are learning to play in time together which is a really tricky skill but lots of fun!
German- We enjoyed learning to greet each other and recapped asking each other’s names.
PE- We have enjoyed playing team games and solving problems together outside.
Art- We have found out about the artist Lynne Pugh who shares her Christian faith through art. Her painting has inspired us to create our own mixed media collage and we have begun by recapping tint in colour by adding white.
No Outsiders- Our story this week was ‘Crayon’ and through it we enjoyed giving advice about being the best people we can be and being proud to be ourselves.
As always, if you want to speak to me, please don't hesitate to contact the school office by phone or e-mail.
Mrs Evans
Week beginning 22nd March 2021, by Mrs Evans
Date: 19th Mar 2021 @ 7:58am
Welcome to Goldfinches’ Weekly Blog
It has been absolutely fantastic to welcome each and every one of our wonderful Goldfinches back into school. They have continued to make us so proud with their passion for learning and happy faces.
Star of the week goes to: Willow.
Top Table award goes to: Savannah
This week we have… and next week we will…
…enjoyed the opportunities to be back together again and working in teams in lots of different subjects.
English- We have enjoyed predicting and exploring our new English book ‘Leon and the place between’. Our sentence descriptions have been wonderful as we are developing a rich and varied vocabulary. We have started to read ‘The train to impossible places’ and are finding out about the characters and unusual setting. This week our focus is on using our rich and varied vocabulary to write a diary entry and to recap using a wider range of subordinating conjunctions.
Spellings- words with the spelling pattern ‘ey’ ‘ei’ ‘eigh’
Maths- In maths we have solved addition and multiplication problems after recapping multiplying and dividing by 1 and 0. We are moving on to using a range of written methods of multiplication.
Science- We explored a range of different foods from Mrs Evans’ cupboard and worked together to sort them into their food groups.
History- we read a range of myths and used them as sources of information to find out about life in Ancient Greece. This week we will use further primary and secondary sources of information to find further clues about the past.
Music- Ukulele is going well and we are learning to play in time together which is a really tricky skill.
PE- We have enjoyed playing team games and solving problems together outside.
Computing- Our first E-Safety lesson this term focused on playing online games safely together. We will use our understanding of this to support us in our next theme of ‘Entering a digital world’ and help us learn to create a presentation.
As always, if you need any support, please don't hesitate to contact me at school via e-mail or by phone.
Mrs Evans
Week beginning 15th March 2021, by Mrs Evans
Date: 10th Mar 2021 @ 5:19pm
Welcome to Goldfinches’ Weekly Blog
It has been absolutely fantastic to welcome each and every one of our wonderful Goldfinches back into school. They have continued to make us so proud with their passion for learning and happy faces.
Star of the week goes to: Edward.
Top Table award goes to: Ellie
This week we have… and next week we will…
…enjoyed the opportunities to be back together again and working in teams in lots of different subjects.
English- We launched our new English book ‘Leon and the place between’ with a visit to the circus and let our senses explore lots of delights! We have made predictions about our shared reading book ‘The train to impossible places.’ Next week we will write setting descriptions to support our use of a wider range of conjunctions and building a rich and varied vocabulary.
We will continue to award raffle tickets for home reading so please support your child to keep their diary up to date and signed as you read with them daily.
Spellings- words adding the prefix ‘inter’
Maths- In maths we have recapped multiplying and dividing by 10 and 100. Next week we will be multiplying and dividing by 0 and 1 and solving addition and multiplication problems.
Science- We have really enjoyed finding out about different scientists, jobs and inventions as part of Science week and were very successful at the balloon challenge. I was very impressed with how much knowledge and understanding the children were able to share of our Sound Topic. We will move on to our new topic Teeth, digestion and healthy food choices.
History- and Art skills were used to create our own clay coins inspired by the coins of the Ancient Greek city states.
Music- We enjoyed our first Ukulele lesson in Y4 and really impressed Dan.
German- We enjoyed recapping our knowledge of Germany and where it is in the world and are answering the register in German.
PE- We have enjoyed playing team games and solving problems together outside.
Thank you all for your continued support and as always, if there is something you would like to discuss with me, please don't hesitate to phone or e-mail the school office.
Mrs Evans
5.3.21, by Mrs Evans
Date: 16th Feb 2021 @ 8:25pm
Friday 5th March 2021 
Happy Friday everyone. Here we are again at the end of another hard working week. You are all amazing and we are just so proud of how much enthusiasm and hard work you are putting into your school jobs.
Well done superstars- we couldn’t be more proud of the amazing children we have at Lostock Gralam and don’t forget to tell your adults that we think they are superheroes.
Worship
Click on the link for Mrs Powell’s worship today: https://youtu.be/MTgdJpAbcc4
Science
Click on the link for today’s Science lesson with Mrs Evans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vghnALrWJxA
If you have them, you will need some drinking straws for today’s lesson (they can be any type but only use what you have already at home. Please don’t go out specially to buy them)
Reflect and return to school task:
Today we would like you to just reflect on the last 8 weeks of remote learning and to think ahead to your return to school. There are some lovely activities below to help you to do this. You might want to print them from the attachment, or you might want to create your own doodles in your own style.
If you want, you could play this lovely relaxing music whilst you create your ideas today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2UEqBdU7go&list=RD-j2uKUK5P10&index=2
This next activity might help you to zone in on your feelings and share your thoughts about Lockdown.
We are so excited about welcoming you back to school on Monday. Have a lovely weekend and see you very soon!
Love from Mrs Evans, Miss Randles, Mrs Shimmin and Mrs Whittingham xxxx
4.3.21, by Mrs Evans
Date: 16th Feb 2021 @ 8:25pm
Thursday 4th March 2021
Good morning everyone are you ready for our day’s lessons and learning?
Worship
Today’s sing and sign is I’m Gonna Jump up and down
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88sMclwWqdI
Maths
Can I Click this link for Mrs Evans’ lesson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCTzQMli2n4
Times Tables
Have a go at times table pairs. Have a go with the 12 x table. https://www.timestables.co.uk/times-tables-memory.html
Writing
Can I write a myth? Click the link for today’s lesson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAy2i_J3Gvk
Reading 
Global Goals
Look at this article!!! It’s amazing!
One of the best-preserved dinosaur footprints ever found in the UK has been discovered by a little girl on a Welsh beach…
Spellings
We are learning the words were where we’re wear.
There is an activity attached (you don’t need to print it, just have it up on the screen and write the correct word. (DON’T write out the whole sentence)
Story
Charlotte’s Web- the final chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69fNbfHypFc
PE
Try and use these PE ideas for mini brain breaks in between your lessons. Like we do in school with playtime and track time.
Banana, banana meatball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ9q4U2P3ig
Here is the 5 a day Jubilee dance that lots of you love doing in class https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBTvnJpwcKw
Enjoy your day today and I look forward to seeing your wonderful work.
Love from Mrs Evans, Miss Randles and Mrs Shimmin xxx
3.3.21, by Mrs Evans
Date: 16th Feb 2021 @ 8:24pm
Wednesday 3rd March 2021
Good morning Team Goldfinch and I hope you are all ready for another day. Can you do something today to makes someone feel proud of you?
- Tidy your room without being asked.
- Read out a piece of the work you are proudest of (perhaps to a relative over the phone)
- Help prepare or cook a meal (with an adult)
We could share our ideas on zoom tomorrow or on today’s discussion page.