Well done Year 5 for all of your hard work last week. I saw some really work on Google Classroom! 

This week we are sentence stacking Shackleton's motivational speech in English, and we are continuing with are and perimeter in maths. Have a look at the file above for more information, and keep an eye on Google Classroom for your assignments. 
​Mrs B

We began our unit of work on Poems to Perform by listening to the Rhythm of Life by Michael Rosen.  We discussed the repeated phrases and rhythm of the poem. We then had a try at learning the poem. We created actions to accompany the words. We were really impressed with the performance after learning the poem in a short space of time. 

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.
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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.