 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. Next week we have a few special events:
Monday: The children can bring party clothes to change into after lunch for our year 5/6 Christmas party, which will be happening that afternoon. Wednesday: Christmas lunch day (which had to be ordered in advance). Children can wear Christmas jumpers on that day too, if they wish. Thursday: The Friends have organised what looks like a brilliant craft morning (please do remember to make your £3 per child donation, if you haven't already). School will finish at 1.15pm. I have rounded off the term's spellings with the children, and haven't set any over the Christmas period. We'll start again in January. Mrs B Three things to ask your child this week:
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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. 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:
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:
Dear parents and carers, We had a really exciting day on Wednesday, when we were visited by art teachers from St Helen and St Katherine school as part of an art project on abstract art, which will lead to the children exhibiting their art at the school in February. The children worked hard on colour mixing and also on using collage techniques to create abstract art based around the art of American Sarah Cain. Sarah uses bright colours and patterns in her artwork, which bridges the inside and outside of buildings. Spellings for this week:
dependable comfortable understandable reasonable enjoyable reliable possible horrible terrible incredible Mrs B Dear parent and carers,
In our English lessons this week we have really enjoyed reading more of Cosmic, and finding out how Liam and Florida ended up in a space rocket. The children have been working really hard on their sentence stacking, where we've been developing our skills using "show don't tell" so that our readers are able to make inferences about how our characters feel. We've also been working on developing our use of complex sentences, which involves being able to use verbs in different forms. Next week we'll be continuing with this work. In maths this week we've been working on prime and square numbers, and also recapped using the inverse relationship between multiplication and division. Next week we'll be working on multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000, and also recapping multiples of 10, 100 and 1000 too. In our science lesson this week we've been learning about plant reproduction. We've recapped the parts of a flower, and also looked at different ways that plants distribute their pollen, including wind and insects. We also talked about how some plants reproduce asexually, by making clones of themselves. The children were thrilled to bring home their own mini spider plant today- they need a little water and they'll grow well. The plants are decedents of the plant that Mrs Evans gave me when she retired, so it's a part of Appleton School history! Next week's spellings all include -ent or -ence: innocence decent frequent emergent confidence competence transparent eloquence violent intelligence We're continuing with our outdoor PE lessons in the coming weeks, so please do make sure that you child has a warm sweatshirt/jogging bottoms or similar to wear to keep warm. Mrs B Three things to ask your child this week:
Dear parents and carers,
I hope that you all had a wonderful half term. Although we've only been back a week, it does feel like longer because we've already been very busy! In our English lessons we have started a new project based around Cosmic, by Frank Cottrell Boyce. We have been thinking carefully about what we're learning about Liam, the main character, from the choices that he makes. We read the first few chapters and then wrote lots of questions that we have, which we're hoping will be answered as we continue to read the book. We're also started some sentence stacking based around Liam's experience in the Porsche showroom, which we'll be continuing with next week. In our sentence stacking this week we have been looking at the effect that different sentence length can have on the tension of the writing. In maths we have been working on multiplication and division skills, concentrating on multiples and factors. This has pulled up a few children who are still not secure in their times table knowledge. I really like the Times Table Rockstars app which costs £6 for a family membership for a year, but is a really good way of encouraging children to learn their times tables. Alternatively, you can use other methods which don't involve an app- there are some really good ideas on this website. I was really impressed with the children's work on their Remembrance Day poppies, which Miss Sutton has used in the Remembrance Garden. They thought carefully about what Remembrance means, using the loving book Memorial, by Gary Crew and Shaun Tan, and then put that thoughtfulness into their artwork. The engineering project was also really good fun and you can see the results of that on this page. Here are the spellings for next week (test on Friday as usual): abundance brilliance elegance extravagance tolerance hesitancy relevancy vacancy dominancy abundancy Mrs B Three things to ask your child this week:
Have a look at our phOck class really showed their engineering mettle this week when I asked them to design and make a wind powered winch. We had talked about how we can use renewable, natural resources like wind, water and sunlight to create electricity, and how non-renewables like coal are pollutants and have cause environmental damage. Wind power has been used to hundreds of years in windmills, so we tried to emulate that, creating our own blade designs. This was a very tricky problem. There were a number of sticky engineering points to overcome. As well as designing and making the blades, they had to be attached properly to the shaft, and then the shaft had to rest on the table, without moving. The blades needed to be angled to catch the "wind" (i.e. my hairdryer!) but also hardy enough to stand up to the wind. The children also had to fashion a "basket", which could be pulled up as the shaft turned (without getting in the way of the blades). We decided to test the designs by using the hairdryer on its lowest setting, 50cm away from the turbine. I was really impressed with how well my class approached this problem. They showed lots of different animal attitudes, especially the bold badger and the bounce back bunny. They also worked incredibly well in their groups, showing me just how much they are growing in confidence. Have a look at our photos and videos below. Dear parents and carers,
In our English lessons this week we have been finishing off the editing and revising of our wonderful "Glide" stories. I am really impressed with how carefully the children have worked and how much progress they've already made in their writing. Next term we're going to be working on a different story- Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce, as part of our Space topic work. In maths this week we've been rounding off our work on statistics by looking at how to read and interpret tables. The children found using timetables difficult, so it would be fantastic if you can have a go at telling the time and thinking about duration (how long something lasts) at home. I know that people don't tend to use timetables as much these days, but if you can find any (like the Radio Times or even bus timetables) that would be brilliant. After half term we're going to be working on multiplication and division, including multiples, factors, prime numbers etc, as well as multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1,000. In science this week we've finished our work on Earth and Space. We carried out our first end of unit assessment, and the children did exceptionally well. Next half term we're going to be doing some work on living things and their habitats. I have set some spelling on Spelling Shed for half term, but other than that, there's no official homework. I hope that you all have a wonderful half term and that the children return refreshed for the run up to Christmas :) Mrs B Three things to ask your child this week:
Dear parents and carers,
In our Engish lessons this week the children have worked very hard on editing, revising and now redrafting their "Glide" stories. This has been tricky for the children, but they have really been Steadfast Squirrels and persevered well. We've worked particularly on picking up on key writing skills, including what a sentence actially is (and how to spot where it finishes!) and also how to control the tense of our sentences by choosing the appropriate form of verb. Next week we'll be rounding this off by finishing the redraft and sharing our finished stories. In maths this week the children have been working on reading and interpreting line graphs. They've drawn line graphs, read and interpreted them and also started solving problems with them. Next week we'll be moving on to looking at tables, including two-way tables and timetables before carrying out a quick end of unit assessment. In science this week we've finished off our work on Earth and Space by looking at the movement of the Moon, including working out why we can only see one side of the Moon from Earth. We discussed our different ideas, before role-playing as the Sun, Moon and Earth to find out what really happens. We discussed the Moon's rotation and orbit of the Earth. Next week we'll be rounding this off by addressing any remaining misconceptions and doing an end of unit assessment. On Monday next week we'll be doing a World Cup-inspired tag rugby session with Danny Taylor, our local sports partnership leader. As we are on an INSET day on Friday, I will be doing the weekly spelling test on Thursday instead (I have told the children this too!). It's a tricky set of "challenge" words this week, so I'd like the children just to have a really good try at learning as many as they can. appreciate cemetery conscious convenience environment immediately language sufficient thorough vegetable Mrs B Three things to ask your child this week:
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