It has been a brilliant week in Thames Class and so lovely to all be back together again! There has been a real buzz of energy on the classroom all week and lots of happy faces. 

We started the week by sharing our designs for our dream classrooms which was part of our remote learning, I loved seeing the range of creative ideas the children came up with. 

This week our main focus has been a book by Oliver Jeffers, I have have yet to reveal the title to the children but will be sharing this with them next week. We started off by thinking about a place we most feel at home in. We though about what
is in the place, how does it make us feel and what is it about the place that makes you feel this way. We then produced a drawing of the place we feel most at home. 

Next we used an illustration from the book as inspiration for some paired artwork. In pairs, we each chose a colour  that represents us. We then painted it onto paper using watercolours, our swooshes needed to converge with that of our partners. When the paint was dry, we overlayed this with pictures, letters, symbols and numbers drawn with oil pastels or pastels that tell a story of us with  some of the shared interests or dreams between the pairs at the convergence points. 

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. 

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 

This week in English we continued to write our newspaper report about the crimes committed by Goldilocks in Goldilocks and the Three Bears. This week we practised using the power of three in a list, complex sentences, the subjunctive form, bullet points, dashes for parenthesis, quotes and formality shifts in our writing. Below are the brilliant Tweets written by Joel, Rocco and Finley for our class model, in this section we practised formality shifts.  

Tweet all about it!
@SimonSquirrel_2010@OnceUponATimes
What is R wood coming to? U people are disgusting! I don’t feel safe no more – NO PORRIDGE IS SAFE. #Lockup #Pawbears#nobearsaresafe#staysafe
 
@WiseOwlsxoxo@OnceUponATimes
It’s a hoot observing down on all this from the elder tree. Instead of running in circle, the police should question the amazingly clever creatures.

This week in English we started writing our newspaper articles based on the crimes committed by Goldilocks in our sentence stacking lessons. The children have produced some fantastic writing and have been working hard to include criminal vocabulary.  Here is a copy of our class model so far .

In Science this week we finished off out Light unit of work by writing a set of instructions explaining how to signal using a mirror and reflected light. Here are some examples of the children's work. 

In PE this week we enjoyed playing a game called Empty the Safe. The purpose of this game was to evaluate and change the way we move through small spaces. In teams we formed a human castle around a pile of equipment (gold) and then a raider would approach the castle with a thrown down disc which they would place down next to the castle. Keeping one point of contact with the throw down disc at all times the raider had to attempt to reach into the human castle and collect the gold without touching anyone. 

This week we started our new unit of work in English, newspaper articles based on fairy tales. We started off this unit by reading an example newspaper article about the crimes Jack commits in Jack and the Beanstalk and found the shapes that make up this type of writing. We learnt that the shapes fit together like a jigsaw pieces to help us write our own texts. Next we read Goldilocks and the Three Bears and discussed the crimes committed by Goldilocks before role playing an interview with the victims of Goldilocks crimes. 

This week we have continued to focus on the importance of Remembrance. In English we started the week by finishing our poems from the previous week. Here are the final versions of our poems.

In Maths this week we started our Fractions unit. We started it off by revisiting equivalent fractions, we reminded ourselves that equivalent doesn’t necessarily mean ‘the same’ or ‘identical’. Equivalent means the same value or amount. We used fraction walls and bar models to help us visualise this before moving onto using our times tables to help us find equivalent fractions. We then moved onto simplifying fractions, we learnt that simplifying fractions means making an equivalent fraction with the smallest numbers possible. Once again we used bar models to help us do this before moving onto using our times tables. Towards the end of the week we practiced converting improper fractions to mixed numbers. 

In PE this term we are taking part in Oxfordshire School Games victual competitions. This involves completing a number of athletics events during our lesson, this week we competed in the 600m, standing long jump, tennis ball throw, speed bounce and the 10 m shuttle run.

This week in Thames Class we have been focusing on Remembrance. As part or our English work we read Poppy Field by Michael Morpurgo and created a story map to show the key events in the story. This story is based on the poem 'In Flanders Field' by John McRae so next we read his poem and annotated it to identify what we thought the poet meant when he used certain phrases.

Next using some of the artwork from the book as inspiration we thought about how we might feel if we were there during the war and worked in pairs to create a mind map showing what we would see, hear, smell, touch and taste. On Friday we began to turn our ideas into a senses poems and tried to include poetic devices such as similes and metaphors. We will be finishing our poems next week. Watch this space for for fantastic Year 6 Remembrance poetry. 

In Art we turned plastic bottles into poppy wreaths. You can see our wonderful work on display at St Lawrence Church as part of the Remembrance display. 

In Maths this week we have been busy bushing up on our mental maths skills. In pairs we played a game called number puzzle. ​We each took in in turns to select a card from our Number Puzzle Top Cards and the work out the 3-digit calculation using an appropriate mental method. If we calculated the answer correctly we could keep the card and if not we returned it to the pile. The winner was the person with the most cards.

This week in Thames Class we have been celebrating Black History Month. We started off the week by looking at Vashti Harrision's book Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History. We looked at the illustrations of Angela Davis, Harriet Tubman, Alma Woodsey Thomas and Tessa Sanderson. We thought about how Vashti had represented them as being 'bold' thinking about the colours, shapes and actions of the characters. We then imagined we had been included in the book and drew ourselves along with two things that would symbolise how bold we are.

We then looked at four illustrations from Vashti Harrison's Little Leaders: Exceptional Men in Black History. This time we thought about how Frederick Douglas, Louis Armstrong, Charles R Drew and Thurgood Marshall had been portrayed as 'exceptional' in each illustration.

​Next in pairs we each researched a significant black person and produced some fantastic poster to share what we had learned about them.