In Science, we completed our investigation to find the material that would be best suited to repair a hole in the bucket. We used the 'Hole in my bucket' song to think more about the problem, planned what we were going to do as a class and then worked in teams to do the investigation. After the practical testing, we wrote a letter to Henry to explain our results.

In Jigsaw sharing assembly, we showed the rest of the school our gingerbread people which we had created during the 'Celebrating Difference' unit of work. We made a part of the person each week and had a focus for the ideas for each part such as identifying similarities and differences between ourselves and others.

We thoroughly enjoyed all of the Christmas fun in Year 1 this week including Christmas jumper day and the Christmas crafts provided by the Friends of Appleton School. Thank you to everyone who helped to make these activities so special. 

This week has been yet another busy week in Thames Class. We have produced lots of lovely work and enjoyed lots of Christmas activities. I have been so impressed with the children's hard work this term and they have all earned a well deserved break over Christmas.

In English this week we completed the first draft of our newspaper articles based on the crimes committed by the Three Little Pigs. We then edited and improved our writing before producing our final drafts. Have a look at some of their awesome work below.  

In Maths this week we started our new topic Position & Direction. We revisited coordinates in the first quadrant and produced some Christmas themed pictures. Here are a few examples of the children's work.

This week Thames Class has been another busy week and I have been incredibly impressed by how hard the children have worked!

​In Maths this week we have been dividing fractions by integers (whole numbers). We learnt that when the numerator is a multiple of the integer we are dividing by, we can just divide the numerator by the integer. But when the numerator is not a multiple to the integer we are dividing by, we can multiply the denominator by the integer to find the answer. 

In English we have been putting the skills we learnt whilst writing our newspaper articles about Goldilocks to good use by planning articles based on the Three Little Pigs. Once again we are giving it a twist by turning the pigs into the criminals and the wolf into the victim. Towards the end of the week the children started to independently write their articles and we will be finishing these off next week. In our reading sessions we have been enjoying the book Holes by Louis Sachar and this week we have focused on being detectives and developing our inference skills. We focused on finds quotes to support inferences already made or using a quote to make an inference. 

In Art this week we starter work on our final version of our mural depicting life in modern Britain. The children have picked a range of messages for their murals and have produced some fantastic artwork which I look forward to sharing with you next week. 

This week we have been learning about the nativity and completing lots of activities around the first Christmas. We have been very busy preparing and performing our nativity ready to stream to our Google Classroom. We have been practicing for a long time and we hope you enjoy watching it.
​
On Friday we set up the classroom to look like a theatre and watched a pantomime together it was called ‘Cinderella’ and it was very funny. We all joined in the refrains and laughed at all the jokes! In the interval we had some popcorn and a drink. It was a lovely way to end the week.

We very much enjoyed taking part in some Christmas activities this week including completing our filming for the Year 1 and 2 production of A Bundle of Joy. We watched the recording in class and the link to watch this is now available via Google Classroom. We hope that you enjoy watching it too. 

On Friday afternoon, we watched the Cinderella Pantomime. We very much enjoyed joining in with the traditional shouts and boos along with eating some delicious popcorn too! Thank you to The Friends of Appleton School for organising this for us. 

In PE this week we were very excited to have a try at some Tri-Golf. The equipment had very kindly been donated to the school by Fynn's family and it was most certainly a favourite! We learnt about how to hold and use the golf clubs and played a variety of aiming games in our teams. We are looking forward to some more Tri-Golf later in the year for one of our Interhouse Competitions. 

Dear parents and carers,

We really enjoyed watching the "Cinderella" pantomime today. Thank you to the Friends for buying us some popcorn!

In English this week we have planned our stories based on "Cosmic". Next week we'll be writing them! The children have worked really hard on their planning and I'm really looking forward to reading their stories.

In maths this week we have worked hard on factors, prime numbers and square numbers. Next week we'll be continuing with this by looking at cube numbers before moving on to multiplying and dividing by 10, 100, 1000. 

In our science lesson this week we learned about levers and pulleys. We watched a fantastic video about pulleys by Destin of Smarter Everyday. You can watch his YouTube channel by clicking the button below:

Mrs B

Three things to ask your child this week:

1. Why does a pulley (or snatchblock) make lifting things easier?
2. What did you enjoy about the pantomime?
3. What's special about prime numbers?

Year 4 have been busy on their persuasive writing texts - writing their own holiday brochures for Brazil. In maths we finished our unit on length and perimeter and have started on multiplication and division (today we were multiplying by 10). 

In PE we have been doing orienteering - looking further at map symbols and planning our own Christmas trails. We enjoyed singing our own versions of our Stop Bullying rap in music. 

On Friday afternoon we enjoyed watching the pantomine  - thank you to the Friends for the popcorn and the wonderfully prepared craft and present boxes ready for Friday. Next Friday we will not be having our usual PE lesson. 

Next week is sadly our last week with Mrs Thornton as Mrs Gold will be returning from maternity leave in January. Thank you to Mrs Thornton for all her hard work and kindness. Mrs Gold is hoping to join us on Thursday. 

A reminder to please continue to support your child with TT Rockstars times table practise - it would be great to have some year 4 children in the top 3 next week. Please also ensure children are reading and recording in their reading record and practising spellings which this week are more challenge words: complete, continue, experiment, famous, favourite, February, naughty, material, knowledge and remember. 

Have a lovely weekend. 

​We have all been working hard in Windrush Class this week as we finish off lots of our topics before the Christmas holidays!
In English this week we have planned, written and edited our own stories based on the book, ‘Star in a Jar’. We chose a different piece of treasure that our main characters could find and wrote about their discovery and adventure with it. I have been so impressed with all of the Must-do Mole attitudes as the children are so determined to produce their best piece of writing.
This week in our History lessons we have been using our knowledge of the Iron Age to write a letter. Inspired by our recent class book, ‘The Wild Way Home’ we imagined that we travelled back in time to the Iron Age and we wrote a letter to our families about our experiences. Although, the letter had a fictional theme, we had to make sure that our facts about the Iron Age were accurate!
The highlight of the week was definitely watching Cinderella on Friday afternoon; despite not being able to do our normal trip to the theatre, the class really enjoyed watching the virtual pantomime and having the treat of some popcorn as well!
                                                                                                                                              

Vale Virtual Quad Kids Competition
Congratulations to the Year 6 class who came in 7th place (out of 14 teams) in the Vale Virtual Quad Kids event. Their total score was 1031.

​Vale Virtual Cross Country Results
Well done to our Year 6 class who entered results for the Vale Virtual Cross Country Competition. The individual results for the Vale are now in. The top 3 teams and the 3 top individuals (even if they are part of a winning team) will go through to the county virtual results. 

Here are some of the top results for our children from the Vale event: 

Y5/6 Boys (results given up to 147th Place)
12th Place=Joel
14th Place= Tyler 
18th Place= Oscar 
24th Place= Elliot 
32nd Place= Charlie 
48th Place= Timmy 
57th Place= Matthew 
63rd Place= Noah 
71st Place= Rocco 
102nd place= Luis 
112th Place= Isaac 
123rd Place= Vishnu
134th Place= Will 

Y5/6 Girls (results given up to 136th Place) 
6th Place= Anna 
36th Place= Phoebe P 
37th Place= Clara 
43rd Place= Sophia 
75th Place= Mia 
99th place= Orla 
101st Place= Liv 
116th Place= Phoebe C 
118th Place= Caroline 
125th Place= Eleanor

Y5/6 Boys Team (out of 32 teams)
3rd Place= Appleton A 
11th Place= Appleton B

Y5/6 Girls Team (out of 28 teams) 
7th Place= Appleton