Week beginning 18th March

Maths

This week in Maths, we have continued to study Mass and Capacity:

Compare mass

Add and subtract mass

Measure capacity and volume in millilitres

Measure capacity and volume in litres and millilitres

Equivalent capacity and volume (litres and millilitres)

English

In English we have continued to use The Firework Maker's Daughter to write a character description. We have learned how to use conjunctions, fronted adverbial, expanded noun phrases and similes to add extra detail to our descriptions so that our reader can clearly picture the character in their head. 

Wider Curriculum

We have had lots of fun with our DT project: Making it Move. We have studied cam mechanisms and have begun to build our own cam mechanisms using different shaped cams. We will use these skills to make an automaton toy. 

In Art we used our clay skills to make ammonites, please see photos below!

Week beginning 11.03.2024

Maths

This week has been assessment week in Maths. We have revised all of our arithmetic and reasoning and problem solving skills and done papers on both of these areas. 

English

In English this week we have focused on conjunctions, speech and using adverbs to write adverbials. This is all to build our skills and creativity to write a character description next week. 

Wider Curriculum

We enjoyed a visit to the pond this week where we spotted lots of frogspawn, a couple of tadpoles and even two frogs! We look forward to going back again soon to find even more frogs. Please see the photos below. 

We also put all of our fantastic clay skills to use creating ammonites! Please see the photos below. 

Week beginning 04.03.2024

Maths

In Maths we have started a new unit on Mass and Capacity. We have spent lots of time exploring different weights and comparing them to everyday objects. We have also looked at:

Using scales

Measure mass in in grams

Measure mass in kilograms and grams 

Equivalent masses (kilograms and grams)

English

This week in English we have been completing our spring reading assessments. The children have worked brilliantly and have really persevered, even when it's seemed a bit tricky!

We have also started our new unit looking at character descriptions using The Firework Maker's Daughter.

Wider Curriculum

In Science we have been exploring magnetism and enjoyed carrying out an experiment with magnets. 

We had a great time looking around the roving bookshop and have all enjoyed celebrating reading this week. 

Week beginning 26.02.2024

Maths

In Maths we have covered:

Fractions and scales

Fractions on a number line

Count in fractions on a number line

Equivalent fractions on a number line

Equivalent fractions as bar models

English

In English we have planned and drafted our non-chronological reports about Mount Vesuvius. The children have loved finding out even more facts about the famous volcano and are doing a brilliant job at presenting their work neatly. 

Wider Curriculum

We have enjoyed learning all about earthquakes this week and have been shocked to see some of the devastating pictures of Italy after an earthquake. 

In Science we learned how to draw bar graphs to represent our data from an experiment we carried out testing the amount of Newtons it took to drag a shoe across different surfaces. 

Week beginning 19.02.2024

Maths

In Maths this week we have started a new unit all about fractions! We have covered:

Understanding the denominator of unit fractions

Compare and order unit fractions

Understand the numerator of non-unit fractions

Understand the whole

Compare and order non-unit fractions

The children have tackled this fractions unit with great enthusiasm and willingness to challenge themselves.

English

In English we are working on all the skills to write a non-chronological report. We have looked so far at adverbs, subordinating conjunctions, paragraphs and question openers. The children have really enjoyed finding out lots about Mount Vesuvius so that they can write their own non-chronological report in the coming weeks. 

Wider Curriculum

Sycamore class enjoyed their first forest school session this week (please see photos below) and Mrs Scrivener was incredibly impressed with their attitude to learning whilst outside. 

We had a great time on Friday afternoon supporting Mr Vickers with his London Marathon training on the school field. Some of us even managed to run quicker than him!

w/c 5th February 2024

English

In English this week the children have carefully drafted and edited our stories. To do this we worked in pairs to read them out and then highlighted the key parts of the success criteria we included. This then told us what we needed to ass to make sure that we had hit all the success criteria.

After half term we will be writing a non-chronological report on Mount Vesuvius.

Maths 

In maths this week we continued our length and perimeter unit. We found out the perimeter is all the lengths of a shape added together. We then calculated the perimeter of different shapes and used our knowledge to help us. For example, if we had a square with a side of 5cm we would calculate 5x4=20 because a square has sides of equal length.

After half term we will be starting our new unit on fractions. 

Wider curriculum

In geography we looked at volcanoes and found that there are 4 different types of volcano: shield, dome, cone and stratovolcano. We then found out that there are 2 types of active volcanoes: effusive and explosive.

In PE this week Chestnut class started their swimming lessons. These will continue for the next 7 weeks. 

After half term we will also be starting forest school with Sycamore class starting on the first monday back

w/c 29^th January

English

This week in English we looked at using speech in writing. We looked at what punctuation would need to be used and also explored different synonyms for the word ‘said’. We then planned our own story about a pebble. Next week we will begin writing our own stories.

Maths

In maths this week we have begun looking at our topic of length and perimeter. We have carefully measured in metres and centimetres and explored what the best measurement would be to measure the length of certain objects. We also looked at equivalent lengths. For example, 3cm and 5 mm can also be seen as 35mm.

Wider curriculum

In science we have continued looking at forces. We experimented by pulling a show on different surfaces and measured in newtons the force needed to move the shoe.

In topic we explored different soil types. We then went out to forest school and dug up some soil to see what soil we had. We then looked at the tectonic plates and how over millions of years they have drifted apart from the supercontinent they used to be.

In PE we have continued our cricket lessons with the coaches and have practiced hitting the ball with a cricket bat.

Next week Chestnut class will have swimming lessons on Thursday morning.

w/c 22^nd January 2023

English

This week in English we have began reading the book ‘Pebble in my pocket’ by Meredith Hooper. We realised that the story started over 480 million years ago and follows the journey of some rock as it forms into a pebble. We then looked at a story written about a pebble and identified the language features used. We then focused on writing some expanded noun phrases and similes that could be written about a pebble. Next week we will be continuing to look closer at different language features like fronted adverbials and speech.

Maths

We finished our unit of maths by looking at dividing with remainders. To answer questions like these we had to flexibly partition numbers. For example, for 74 ÷ 3 we would partition 74 into 30, 30 and 14. We can then easily divide 30 by 3 to get 10. We would then divide 14 by 3 which would be 4 with 2 leftover. The answer would then be 24 remainder 2.

Wider curriculum

In topic we have looked at the layers of the earth and what each layer is like. We then looked at different rocks and their properties.

In art we created motifs from different spiral images. We will be creating a plan for a motif that will be printed in the next few weeks.

In science we were measuring the force it would take to pull objects. We learnt that force was measure in newtons and we had to use force meters to measure the force.

w/c 15^th January 2024

English

This week in English we began by looking at question openers in a biography. We created lots of different questions to include in our writing. We then carefully planned using all the features from our success criteria and began writing our biography. Next week we will begin by editing our biography and then we will begin our new piece of writing about a book called ‘Pebble in my pocket’ by Meridith Hooper.

Maths

We have continued looking at timsing a 2-digit number by a 1-digit number. We then moved onto dividing a 2 digit number by a 1-digit number. We started out by dividing with no exchanges. For example, 36 ÷ 3 – we would begin by partitioning into tens and ones (30 and 6) then dividing both numbers by 3. We then looked at flexibly partitioning to answer a division with an exchange. For example, 42 ÷ 3 – we would partition into 30 and 10 and then divide both by 3 then add them together. Next week we will continue practising this skill before completing our end of unit assessment.

Wider Curriculum

In geography this week we have been busy looking at compass points, climate zones and counties and cities across the UK. Next week we will begin looking at out topic of rocks, relics and rumbles.

In science we began looking at friction and completed an investigation into how friction slows a moving object.

This week we had Prime VR come in and show the children all the different volcanoes. We saw the view from in a picture and even took a ride in a helicopter and saw the ‘fireworks’!

w/c 8^th January 2024

It has been lovely to welcome the children back after the Christmas holidays and we have enjoyed listening to the amazing adventures some of you have had. They have settled back into routines well and have had a jam-packed week full of learning and activities.

English

This week in English we have began looking at Mary Anning. She was a fossil hunter in the 1800s but she didn’t become famous until 2010! Next week we will be writing a biography about her life. To do this we have carefully looked at using coordinating and subordinating conjunctions. We have looked at the clauses used in sentences and have began moving the subordinating clause in a sentence.

Maths

This week in Maths we have been looking at related calculations. For example, if we know that 3 x 5 = 15. Then we also know that 30 x 5 = 150, 3 x 50 = 150. We then looked at multiplying a 2-digit number by a 1-digit number. To do this, we realised that we had to partition the 2-digit number into tens and ones. For example, to answer 31 x 3 we would partition 31 into 30 and 1 then do 30 x 3 = 90, 1 x 3 = 3 then add the answer together to get 93.

Wider curriculum

In science, we have began looking at forces. We focused on push and pull forces and identified where the contact was in some pictures and how the object was being moved. For example, to move a bike your foot pushes the pedal to move.

In art, we have began looking at ammonites. We used sketching techniques like shading, stippling and cross-hatching to draw some ammonites.

This term we have started off with out mini geography topic of our world, our planet. We began by finding different countries and their capital cities on a map. We then looked at human and physical features and drew a table to show what features we have seen out and about. For example, a monument (like Stonehenge) is a human feature because people built it a long time ago. Whereas a river in a physical feature as it was made naturally. We also had a visit from the Oxfordshire Museum to show us rocks, fossils, and ammonites. We loved seeing all of these up close and learning more about who found them and how.

For PE this week, Sycamore class have begun their gymnastics unit and Chestnut class have begun their tag rugby unit. Both classes have also had some visitors in to teach them cricket. This will continue until half term.