This week we continued using a column strategy to solve addition sums, now including carrying over to the next column. As we grew in confidence, we started to add numbers with different amounts of digits together, ensuring we are placing the digits in the correct column when laying out our sum. We started looking at persuasive language and completed note taking from a power point on the effects of littering on the Fife Coastal Path. We then returned to our information report structure to create a persuasive piece of writing. In grammar, we started to look at speech marks and where and how we should include them in our writing. In P.E, we focussed on different passing techniques in basketball and began our  Scottish Country dancing focus, starting with the Gay Gordons. We learnt about charities and the work they do and returned to one-point perspective with our art, including local businesses and Newport landmarks in our buildings. With Mrs Skilling, we have edited our own scripts in drama, made characters and recorded them acting out several scenes.   

This week we moved onto using a column strategy to solve addition sums, ensuring we were laying our sums out clearly, with one digit per square in our jotters. On Wednesday we learnt about ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs! For our report writing, we wrote about the River Tay, including information about its location, wildlife and human uses of it. Our grammar focus was on exclamation marks and question marks. We continued with our dribbling skills in basketball, aiming to grow in confidence by adding changes of direction while maintaining control while dribbling. We also played basketball traffic lights which was challenging but lots of fun. In dance, we added music to our dance ‘algorithm’. We created a mixed media art piece, using paint spatter techniques, oil pastel and a collage effect. We continued with our strategies for managing stress and worry with more storybook massage – a big hit – and we returned to our work in our committees.

This week we have been working on split strategy in addition, partitioning our numbers and adding the parts individually, before putting the answers back together. We also looked at directional co-ordinates. In our information report writing, we wrote about Balmerino Abbey, looking at the history and previous occupants. For our grammar focus, we learnt about directives – this, that, these and those – and why and where we would use them. We focussed on dribbling skills for our basketball – learning to move with the ball. In French, we created a game of snap for classroom items. We really enjoyed welcoming some of our adults to the class and they helped us create paper sculptures to represent different emotions. We did this using a variety of folding techniques.

This week, we have been using lots of different strategies to complete our addition sums, including compensation, to ten and more and recapped near doubles and jump stategy. We looked at a variety of addition problems and identified which method would be the most efficient. We also enjoyed plotting co-ordinates to reveal pictures. We have looked at identifying the correct article to use before different nouns and adjectives and wrote a collaborative information report about the Tay Rail Bridge disaster, focussing on sorting our facts into a logical order. We practised passing in basketball and linked our learning about algorithms to dance, creating a series of steps for each other to follow. We read ‘My Many Coloured Days’ by Dr. Seuss and discussed which colour we felt represented each emotion for us. We looked for emotion words in our reading books and started pieces of art to represent different emotions. We learnt about one-point perspectives, the horizon line and vanishing points in art and drew a picture of the Tay Rail bridge, using different watercolour techniques to create the impression of light on the water. 

This week, we have been investigating the features of an information report and learning about contractions, identifying the correct placement of the apostrophe. We have been developing our note-taking skills, gathering information on the Tay Bridge Disaster, as part of our Along the Tay topic. We have been focussing on fluency of expression in our reading groups and have started our new class novel, The Boy Who Made Everyone Laugh, by Helen Rutter. In numeracy, we looked at different addition strategies, the jump strategy and near doubles. We also started working on co-ordinates. We played team-work games in P.E, as a starting point to our block on basketball and enjoyed completing the daily mile, both alongside the rest of the school and as a class. We spent our afternoons at our Skills Academies, as part of the Lego, Animations, Games or Print-Making teams. 

Lastly, we welcomed Mr Watson to our class, who will be teaching our class part of the time until January. He has been a big hit and we are very excited to have him.

This week, we completed our final piece of writing for our narrative block. The children each planned their own story for the motivational meerkat character, picking a suitable name and setting and storyboarding each phase of their narrative, ensuring motivation would solve the problem. In numeracy, we have been working on mental maths skills and skip counting to build our confidence in the place value system. We started or mini topic on electricity, looking at what electricity is, how it is made, whether it is from a renewable source or non-renewable and considered safety and identifying hazards on the home and outside. We also started to look at circuits – what you need to create a circuit and why some materials conduct, and others do not. We enjoyed playing Capture the flag in our games block and played inter-house Yoshi with the upper classes. We have also worked very hard getting some of our work uploaded to our e-portfolios. 

With Mrs Skilling, we created our own Carroll diagrams and sorted information into the appropriate categories. 

This week we have been creating a story about our Enquiring Owl character, with all the children becoming more confident in how to develop their story and what to include to be successful. In numeracy we have looked at identifying patterns in number sequences to enable us to continue them and have been creating our own number sequences, growing in confidence to include decimal numbers. We have been creating Christmas cards using a variety of different skills and mediums including wet on wet and wet on dry water colour, ink line drawing and ink stamps. We continued with our committees, developing ideas to improve our school. In addition to our PE games, we enjoyed dance yoga. We have started to learn the words to ‘Les feuilles tombent’, which we are ging to sing at our Harvest together time celebration. If any families would like to practice, the video can be found on Youtube – Les feuilles tombent. Une chanson d’automne. A simple song about leaves. French fall song for kids. 

With Mrs Skilling, we conducted our own surveys and used the data to create a pie chart. We looked at key features of synagogues, Sikh gurdwara and churches. 

With Miss Tannock, we have continued with our narrative writing, this time for Millie, our spider who makes connections. We have been developing our skill at self-assessing our writing to see if we have met our success criteria. In numeracy, we have been ordering numbers and some of us have been introduced to decimals. We continued our rotation through our outdoor learning activities, enjoying gathering data on local birds, aging trees or storytelling. We enjoyed story book massage to promote relaxation and have been learning what an algorithm is and why it is important that instructions are in the correct order. We have enjoyed our first week attending our committees and having our voices heard to bring about change in our school. 

With Mrs Skilling, we started looking at different places of worship with a focus on Mosques this week.  We looked at how to take notes using bullet points and headings and have been practising while watching Newsround.    

With Miss Tannock we continued our narrative writing, this time about Pip the Persevering Parrott. We planned as a class but wrote our own stories. In numeracy, we looked at writing numbers up to seven digits in word form and we learnt about partitioning numbers and putting them back together and how this can support our mental maths. We did Counting choirs to test our ability to retain a number in our had and add to or subtract from it. We talked about how our brains work and played some memory games. In French, we revisited numbers from 20-31. We continued with our team games, making sure we were playing fairly, and showed Miss Tannock the trim trail. In art, we developed our observation skills by completing a ‘half’ tiger face, looking at proportion and shading.  

With Mrs Skilling we have been learning about how to access and use our e-portfolios this week.  We looked at analysing characters feelings in a text and identified nouns within a text.