​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!
                                                                                                                                              

We have had another great week in Windrush Class and the festive excitement is building as we get closer to the Christmas holidays!
We have finished recording our parts for the Key Stage 2 Christmas Service this week and next week we will be completing our artwork to go along with it.
In maths this week we have started our new unit of work on Multiplication and Division, focusing on the 3, 4 and 8 times tables. In English, we have finished our sentence stacking lessons based on ‘Star in a Jar’ and next week we’ll be completing a piece of independent writing which links to this book.
This week in our RE lesson we looked at how the Trinity is represented in different pieces of art. We looked at a variety of paintings and stained-glass windows. We then wrote about the art that we thought best represented the Trinity and had a go at creating our own Trinity design.
In our Science lesson on Friday we learnt about magnetic and non-magnetic materials. At the start of our investigation, we predicted that all types of metal were magnetic. We then used magnets to test different objects as well as different types of metal. As we tested more objects, we realised that not all metals are magnetic and we learned that, in fact, there are just three magnetic metals: iron, steel and nickel. We were also surprised to find that parts of the classroom wall were magnetic and discussed how they may be lined with one of the three magnetic metals!

This week in Windrush Class we have come to the end of our sentence stacking lessons for our explanation text, ‘How does a robot dog work?’. On Friday, we started the first step towards planning our own explanations texts; we designed and drew our own robot pet and started to think about its features and functions. I was really impressed with the range of creative ideas!
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In our PE lessons this week we completed our second inter-house competition of the year. This time we focused on basketball skills; we spent our lesson on Tuesday getting used to passing and dribbling the basketballs. On Thursday we played games in our teams and everyone worked really hard trying to score points for their houses!

In our History lessons for the past two week we have been learning about life in the Bronze age. We have thought about how the Bronze Age compared to the Stone Age, how things improved and became more advanced. We have also learnt about the Bell Beakers that were made during this time period; on Tuesday we designed our own patterns which we will be using when we have a go at making our own Bell Beakers in a couple of weeks.

We have also enjoyed celebrating Children in Need this week. In particular, we have had lots of fun doing the Strictly Come Dancing Children in Need challenges as well as watching the Five to Thrive videos that Children in Need have filmed with Joe Wicks!

​​We have a great week in Windrush Class and the children have settled after half-term!
In our maths lessons we are focusing on addition and subtraction; this week we have been starting to use the column method. There are lots of steps to remember in the column method, particularly when the calculation needs an exchange but there have been lots of Must-do Moles trying their best!
In English we have started a new piece of writing using a short film clip about a man who has a robot dog for a pet. In our sentence stacking lesson we have started to write an explanation text, thinking about the technical language we need to use as well as focusing on how a non-fiction text is different to fiction.
In our PE lessons this half-term we are focusing on developing our football skill, as well short distance and longer distance running. This week we practised our dribbling skills and particularly looked at stop-turns. We also practised our sprinting technique, using our arms to give us more momentum.
We have also been learning about Remembrance Day this week; we thought about why we celebrate this day and why it is important. We also made poppies using lots of different types of red paper which were put together as a wreath and displayed at St Laurence Church. 

In English this week we have been focusing on the language and techniques we can use in poetry. We finished the week by writing an Autumn acrostic poem. The children thought of lots of lovely descriptions about the leaves, weather and celebrations, as well as some great similes to describe the colours we see during Autumn.

We had another great music lesson this week! Mrs Davies challenged the class to play 8 songs before the end of the lesson; the children completed the challenge successfully and we really enjoyed playing a variety of different pieces!

In our Art lesson this week we finished off and evaluated our Stonehenge silhouettes. The class have worked hard on their preparations and practise for this final piece over the last few, learning how to use water colours and thinking about the shape and size of the silhouettes. The final pieces look brilliant!
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Have a great half-term!

​We have had lots of fun with our learning in Windrush Class this week!
In English, we have now finished writing our own traditional tales with a twist, based on The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. The children have worked so hard on their independent writing and have thought of lots of fantastic ideas. Next week, we will be having a go at editing our writing.
We had our third music lesson on Thursday; the class are becoming experts in safely holding their instruments and preparing their bows. This week we focused on rhythm and pulse; we enjoyed learning about the different notes we can play and used the D and G strings to play three different songs. We also learnt that pizzicato means that we pluck the strings; in one song we had to really concentrate as had to swap between pizzicato and using a bow!

​I have been really impressed with how hard the class have been working this week!
We have come to the end of our sentence stacking lessons based on The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and we have now begun to plan our own traditional tales with a twist. The children have come up with lots of creative ideas and have worked very hard on planning their stories.
In Art this week, the class have carefully prepared their sunset backgrounds in preparation for finishing their Stonehenge silhouettes next week. We discussed the colours that we can see in a sunset and also thought about how we can blend these colours together.
In our History lesson, we learnt about cave paintings; we found out lots of information about how people in the Stone Age made their paints and what they used to paint with. We also learned about the typical things they used to paint, such as animals and hunting scenes. We are all looking forward to having a go at our own cave painting style pictures next week!
In Science, we have continued our topic on Animals and Humans. This week we learnt about different types of skeleton; endoskeleton, exoskeleton and hydrostatic skeletons. During the lesson, we watched a short video showing how animals with exoskeletons shed their old skeleton to reveal the new one underneath – we were quite fascinated by this process! We also learnt about the difference between the types of skeletons and grouped animals according to which skeleton they have. 

​This week we have continued our writing based on The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka. We have thought about how we can use questions in our writing to keep the reader interested and we have also been practising how to use inverted commas for dialogue.
We have been focusing on Place Value in our maths lessons so far this year and have learnt more about 3-digit numbers. This week, we have been adding and subtracting 1, 10 or 100 from 3-digit numbers and we have used the greater/less than symbols to compare numbers. On Friday we played a maths-version of the game ‘Connect 4’ to help us revise our learning so far.
In our History lesson, we learnt about how people in the Stone Age found their food. We learnt about hunting techniques, how they made weapons as well as the things that they were able to gather. We found out lots of interesting and surprising facts, such as the glue they used was made from resin, beeswax and charcoal. The children made fantastic fact files about Stone Age Hunter-Gatherers.
On Friday morning we celebrated the Harvest Festival. We talked about what Harvest means to us and how Christians celebrate Harvest. We then created some Harvest artwork, inspired by the fruit and vegetables that are gathered. We drew cross-sections of different fruits and then painted them using water colours.