Dear parents and carers,

This week in our English lessons the children have really enjoyed exploring a wonderful book called Perfect, written by Nicola Davies and illustrated by Cathy Fisher. This is a spectacular picture book that explores some heartwarming themes around change and growth, linking the arrival of a new baby sister to the return of the migrating swifts. So far we have predicted what the book might be about, learnt about swifts and also written beautiful poetry about the swifts, using alliteration. We have also been watching the swifts at the Museum of Natural History, via a webcam which is set up to see their nest. We were amazed at how long the wing feathers of the swift are, as well as how short their beaks are. You can watch the swifts on their webcam here.

In maths this week we have been practising problem solving skills, which has also meant lots of being a bold badger, must do mole and bounce back bunny! The children have used their calculation skills and knowledge of fractions to solve some tricky problems, explaining their reasoning and justifying their answers.

Next week we are continuing with our secret agent training. We have been working in small groups for this, always with me, so that the children feel comfortable and calm. I've been very impressed with their wonderful work on this so far.

We have enjoyed lots of other lessons this week, including PE (where we did our inter-house table tennis competition), science (where we have started to look at habitats and living things) and Jigsaw PSHE (where we were talking about secret and worries, and how we should share them). 

Mrs B

Three things to ask your child this week:

1. If you have a worry secret, who can you tell?
2. What have you learned about swifts?
3. What living things might you find in your own back garden?

Well done Thames Class for a brilliant SATs week!  You showed the Appleton Animal Attitudes all week!  You were determined, resilient, took responsibility and worked together to ensure you could all achieve the best! Thames Class finished the week with some well deserved treats which included watching a film, ice creams, popcorn and a trip to the park!

We hope all your parents are as proud of you as we are!  Well done and enjoy a earned break over the weekend!

This term in Thames Class have been learning about the role of the circulatory system in the human body. To help us understand how nutrients and water are transported around the body we carried out several different mini investigations. 

The first investigation involved putting Skittles on a plates with some water and observing what happened, this helped us understand that nutrients are absorbed through the walls of our intestines into the blood.

We also placed cola bottles in petri dishes with water for 24 hours and after this period they had almost doubled in size. This helped us understand that water doesn’t need breaking down and moves between membranes in the body to arrive in the correct place. 

Please bear with us while we continue to rebuild our school website. If you need copies of any documentation or policies, please contact the school office.

Glyme class have been enjoying learning about Anglo-Saxons.  
We have been finding out more about the discoveries at the Sutton Hoo ship burial site, as well as making brooches, and learning about Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, including designing our own style of decorative lettering.
We have enjoyed creating our own board games involving decimals, using the knowledge and understanding we have gained from lessons.
Most of us have been progressing with our swimming skills too, as well as enjoying our 'Daily Mile' sessions.

This week we finished publishing our information pages about Greek Gods and will soon be putting them together into a class information text.  We then started writing our own 'hero adventure' myth, re-telling the Labours of Heracles which we have enjoyed hearing in our Read Aloud sessions.

In Maths we have been calculating with decimals, including using leaves and stones to help us explore how to correctly lay out number with different numbers of digits.  We need to ensure that the decimal points (the stones) are aligned to make sure our place value columns are correctly lined up.

In our PE lesson, we enjoyed a cricket session led by Sam from Chance to Shine Cricket.  We especially enjoyed the Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes warm-up game.  Sam also taught us how to bowl, making sure we kept a straight arm and aimed towards the stumps.