Football Report
When we arrived we did a few short warm ups and then we received the news that we have changed group fro group A to C. We lost our first match 2-1 to Windmill. Then we won a match 2-0 and another match 2-1. In the end we got to the quarter finals and then got knocked out. By Charlie, Thomas and Harry. 

Dear parents and carers,

Wow- what an amazing week we've had!

The highlight for me has to be Wednesday, where we welcomed a swathe of special guests to the school. Firstly we had Oxford University's a capella group Out of the Blue, who kindly spent the whole day in school, working with all of KS2. Year 5 really enjoyed our workshop, learning how to sing The Lion Sleeps Tonight in 5 part harmony! The children were amazed when Out of the Blue performed for everyone at the end of the school day too. The Frozen medley was a real high point for the children, but hearing the Beach Boys classic God Only Knows was wonderful for me. 

That evening it was fantastic to welcome Bishop Colin to our KS2 carol service. The readers did a wonderful job with their nativity play, and all of the children sang beautifully. We work very hard to organise and arrange this service, so it was great to have so much positive feedback from parents and governors about the event.

In the classroom, year 5 have been working hard this week on reading and maths assessments (including arithmetic and reasoning/problem solving) in order to show me everything that they've learned since September. I've not marked the maths yet, but I am really pleased with how much effort they have put in. During our other English lessons this week, the children are working really hard on editing, revising and redrafting their stories inspired by Cosmic. They have all really knuckled down and have worked for extended periods of time on this writing, which shows how well the class are maturing as writers.

In science we ran an investigation to see what the best design was to carry a seed the furthest. We tried a variety of designs, but found that the parachute style ones work best. We think that this is because they have the largest surface area.

!In Science we have been learning about the different types of teeth and their functions. We thought about why animals have different teeth depending on their diet.
We planned an investigation to simulate what effect different liquids could have on our teeth. Rather than using our teeth we used egg shell which has a similar composition to tooth enamel. We chose to test immerse our eggs in water, vinegar, coke, diet coke, orange juice and milk to see what effect this would have on the colour of the eggshell. We talked about how to make this a fair test and how we might measure any changes that we saw. We made predictions about what we thought would happen but were surprised by quite how much of an effect the vinegar (acid) had upon the eggshell (see photos below)!  

We learned lots from our experiment, not least that we should have kept them in the fridge so that the milk didn't curdle! 

Luke also brought in what we think is a Megalodon tooth!

On Friday we started our maths lesson out on the astroturf measuring perimeter using trundle wheels. This really helped the children to think about what perimeter means and how we can measure and calculate it. 

Out of the Blue to perform at Appleton Primary School!

Mrs Barker is thrilled to announce that the Oxford University a capella group, Out of the Blue, will be performing at school for the children next Wednesday, 11th of December. Each KS2 class will have a singing workshop with the group, before the choir give a whole school performance at the end of the day. 

We are particularly excited to welcome Out of the Blue to school as former pupil Rhys Surtees is a member of the choir. He was part of Mrs Barker's first class, back in 2007!

Everyone at Appleton Primary would like to thank the Appleton Trust for their kind donation to pay for this special event.

We’ve had a busy couple of weeks in Windrush Class with lots of exciting things happening as we get closer to Christmas! This week we enjoyed a Science show on Monday afternoon, the pantomime on Tuesday and we also watched the Year 1 and Year 2 Christmas Play on Wednesday!
We have also been very busy working as well!
In English, we have written a first draft of a fairy tale with a twist. We have planned and thought carefully about the key things that happen in each story step and where we can include the features we have been practising; such as, onomatopoeia, dialogue and metaphors. Next week, the children will finish their first drafts and write their final versions.
In maths we have continued with our work on multiplication and division. We have finished our work on the three and four times tables and next week we will be looking at the 8 times table.
Our Science lessons over the last few weeks have focused on investigating different types of soils. This week we investigated different soil profiles. Each group chose a different type of soil, and half-filled their jam jars with it. We then covered the soil with water and had to shake the jar for 5 minutes (we took turns doing this as it was quite hard work!). After this, we let the mixture settle overnight and the following day we could observe the different layers that had formed. We found out that the heavier particles (sand/gravel) settled at the bottom, lighter particles (silt and clay) settled in the middle and the organic matter floated on top of the water.  
​
This week’s spellings have been set on Spelling Shed; we will have a short test on Tuesday next week.
This week’s list is a set of ‘Challenge Words’:
centre
decide
disappear
early
heart
learn
minute
notice
regular
therefore
 

Dear parents and carers,

In our English lessons this week, the children have been working on writing the first draft of their stories about Liam and Florida's adventures in space, inspired by Cosmic. Next week we'll be working on editing/revising and redrafting these stories. We'll also be building on our work this week on reading comprehension skills by having a go at a reading comprehension paper.

In maths this week we've tackled the tricky challenge of perimeter and area, including rectangles and compound shapes. The children have found this hard, but have worked really hard and are getting there! Next week we'll be consolidating this, and also doing an arithmetic and a reasoning maths paper.

We have a really busy week next week, including our "Out of the Blue" day on Wednesday. I'm sure that the children will really enjoy the workshop and the performance, and I'm looking forward to hearing one of my former pupils sing!

I wasn't in school this morning, so I'll do the spelling test on Monday. Next week's spellings will be:
accommodate
available
controversy
dictionary
marvellous
opportunity
secretary
sincerely
suggest
twelfth
This is a set of tricky challenge words, so I just need to see that the children have had a good go at learning them. I'll test these next Friday (13th December) as usual.

Mrs B

Three things to ask your child this week:

1. What do "area" and "perimeter" mean?
2. What do you know about how choirs work?
3. How is the first draft of your story going?

We have had a busy week this week, finalising parts of our play ready for next week. 
We have also been doing some writing to see if we can remember key things we should include: capital letters, full stops, adjectives, adverbs, similes... We did really well.

We have been practising spelling common exception words too!

In Maths, we have been learning how to add and subtract, crossing through the tens and using the column method, eg,

        34
     + 20
     ____
     ____

We found that drawing pictures of tens and ones, or using base 10 really helped us to work out the answers.

Dear parents and carers,

In our English lessons this week we have been working on planning our stories based around our work on Cosmic. We've planned out our story steps and decided whether these steps are positive or negative, and we've thought carefully about which features we will include in each step, such as commas in a list or short sentences for effect. Next week we'll start writing our first drafts of these short stories.

In maths this week we've started looking at perimeter, which is the measurement around the outside of a 2d shape. We've done this with rectangles and also with compound shapes. Next week we'll use this knowledge to look at the area of rectangles and compound shapes.

This week's spellings:
reliably
dependably
comfortably
possibly
horribly
terribly
visibly
incredibly
sensibly
legibly
The test will be on Friday, as usual.

Next week is very busy, with lots of special events and changes to routine. It's worth bearing in mind that if your child is cranky (and I know that mine can be!) they might just need an early night!
Mrs B

Three things to ask your child this week:

1. What's going to happen in your story?
2. What does perimeter mean, and how do you work it out?
3. What did you learn about Jane Goodall and chimpanzees in science this week?