Week 5 (w/c 13th May)

Maths

In our maths lessons this week, we have started a new unit on time. We have been recapped our learning from Year 3 by reminding ourselves about the relationship between years, months, weeks and days, as well as hours, minutes and seconds. We have also converted between digital and analogue times.

English

After editting and evaluating our diaries of a classroom object at the beginning of the week, we have now started unit looking at character descriptions within a recount, based on a Mouse, Bird, Snake, Wolf by David Allmond. We considered our WAGOLL (What A Good One Looks Like) and identified the features that we would be learning about. We then explored these different features in our skills lessons, considering how in our descriptions we should "show, not tell" our reader about our character. We have also recapped how to use subordinate clauses and speech within our recounts.

Wider Curriculum

In our history lessons, we listened carefully to a podcast about ancient Sumerian society and identified information about the hierarchy, considering the importance of all of the different roles.

In art, we continued to explore Islamic art, building on our learning from previous weeks. This week we focused on how stars feature within many geometric patterns, and the significance of this representation - it is believed to symbolise the light and perfection of Allah.

We have carried out an investigation into electrical conductivity in our science lesson this week, testing materials to see if they were conductive or non-conductive. Before beginning the investigation, we made predictions and justified why this might have the case. After testing a variety of materials, we were able to reflect on our results and discuss why materials were electrical conductors.

Next week

English - writing our own character descriptions/recounts.

Maths - continue with our time unit (converting between 12 and 24-hour clock)

Wider Curriculum - learning about the Ancient Egyptian civilisation. Sports day!

Week 4 (w/c 6th May)

Maths

In maths lessons this week, we have continued our unit on money. We have been learning to estimate with money. We applied our knowledge of rounding to help us to solve problems around whether we had enough money to make a purchase. For example:

Once we were confident with estimating, we moved onto calculating with money to find the sum of two (or more) amounts.

English

This week we have been introduced to a diary entry from a classroom pencil sharpener, describing a day in its life. This included many examples of personification as the pencil sharpener took on human characteristics to reveal its thoughts and feelings. We all really enjoyed thinking of how other classroom objects might feel in a variety of situations - such as our chairs which get fed up of being sat on all day, or the classroom pencil who is incredibly proud and boastful to its friends when it has been freshly sharpened. We then planned and drafted our own diary entries for classroom objects.

Wider Curriculum

In history, we considered the enquiry question - 'if you lived in a Sumerian city state, what would you see, hear, taste, touch and smell?' We collected evidence from the information provided to understand what life would have been like for those living in ancient Sumer.

Within our science lesson, we considered the properties of materials and their uses, before introducing the property of electrical conductivity, understanding the difference between a conductive and non-conductive material.

In art, we recapped the meaning of the word 'motif', rememembering that we had explored motifs when learning about William Morris in DT in the autumn term. We then looked at how grids canm be used to help structure motifs and patterns. We then explored ways in which we could use the grid to create our own motifs.

Next week

English - recount linked to the text Mouse, Bird, Snake, Wolf by David Almond

Maths - starting a block of learning about time

Wider Curriculum - exploring stars in Islamic art and investigating conduction and non-conductive materials in Science.

Week 3 - 29.04.24

English

This week in English we have been writing a recount of our time at PGL. We initially looked at Mr Little's favourite moments, noting his use of ambitious vocabulary, multi-clause sentences and apostrophes. We practised these features before planning and writing about our three favourite activities. See below for an example. 

Maths

This we finished our unit on decimals, looking at how to write halves and quarters as decimals. We revised everything we'd learnt and then showed our understanding in an end of unit assessment. We then moved onto a linked unit all about money. We initially learnt to write units of money as decimals. We then expanded this by converting between pounds and pence, using these converted amounts to compare which units were greater or less than. 

Wider curriculum

Carrying on our learning of ancient civilisations, we looked at how ancient Sumaria grew due its use of farming and nutrition. As the nomadic groups settled down, they started looking at ways of easing their life. ​​​​​​​We explored this further by investigating inventions developed by the ancient Sumarians, including brick building, astronomy and a number system. In Art, we started looking at how geometric shapes are used in Islamic art. Continuing our learning about electricity, we created and fixed simple circuits. 

Next week:

English - 'Day in the life of a classroom object'

Maths - Continuing our work on money

Wider curriculum - Creating a pattern from a motif / Ancient Sumarian cities / Conductivity

Week 2 - 22.04.24

English

Due to PGL, we only had two lessons this week. We spent the time finishing our letters to Mrs Ashcroft about the importance of outdoor education. We concentrated on a second paragraph which set out how it could fit into the curriculum and benefit other subjects. On Tuesday, we peer edited our work and ensured it had all the features we had been learning. 

Maths
Due to PGL, we only had two lessons this week. We looked at how to order decimals, noting that you always work from left to right. We also discussed how you always need a digit (even if it is a 0) in the ones column. Linking back to when we rounded whole numbers, we saw that it was the same process for decimal numbers - 0/4 rounds down, 5+ rounds up. 

Wider curriculum

Please see the pictures of our great experience at PGL. We are going to be having an assembly on our PGL experience on the 16th May - please join us for it. 

Next week
English - PGL recount

Maths - Finishing decimals and starting money

Wider curriculum - Islamic Art; farming and inventions in ancient Sumer; building and fixing circuits. 

Week 1 - 15.04.24

English

This week we have been writing a persuasive letter to Mrs Ashcroft, asking her to consider increasing the amount of outdoor learning in our curriculum. Initially, we looked at how a letter like this could be structured, noting down some of the vocabulary used, range of sentence types and the use of present perfect tense (Additionally, students who have participated in forest school). After planning the letter, we started writing it, ready to finish it next week. 

Maths

This week we started a new unit on decimal numbers. We initially looked at how to create whole numbers with tenths and hundredths. We then built on this understanding by partitioning decimal numbers both into their columns (ones, tenths, hundredths) and flexibly. Finally, we looked at how to compare decimal numbers, noting which order we use columns to assess their size. 

Wider curriculum

We have started our new unit on Ancient Civilisations by exploring what a civilisation is. To summarise - A civilisation is a developed society. Civilisations share common features, including cities, inventions, language, writing, hierarchy, leadership, infrastructure, arts and culture, trade and religion. Ancient civilisations first appeared over 6000 years ago in an area of land in the Middle East known as the Fertile Crescent. The climate, availability of water and variety of plants in the Fertile Crescent meant that nomadic hunter-gatherers could settle in one place and begin to farm for the first time.

In Science, we started exploring electricity and conductive materials. We discussed all areas of our life where electricity is used and started looking at simple circuits and their components. 

Next week:

English - Finishing our letter

Maths - Ordering and rounding decimals

Wider curriculum - PGL!