Today we have had our Nativity dress rehearsal. Mrs Pollock thought we sounded very good and our hard work and practising has paid off.  Some people still need to bring in their trousers/jeans or leggings for the show.   In preparation for tomorrow’s Christmas Dinner we made our reindeer antlers.

This morning we learned two new dances: The Flying Scotsman and the Canadian Barn Dance. We joined up with Mr McMullan’s class.  We found out that Scottish Country dancing is a really good way to keep fit as our hearts were pumping fast and we got really hot. We will have another go at Scottish Country Dancing at our parties next Monday afternoon.

Remember: to bring  in jeans/ leggings for tomorrow’s dress rehearsal and Christmas lunch is on Wednesday.

Everyone was really pleased with their tables test results today because they either got full marks again or improved on a previous mark .

This afternoon,  pupils enjoyed exploring the Victorian artefacts and playing the Victorian games.

Dates for your Diary:

Tuesday 8th Dec – need to bring in jeans/trousers/leggings for dress rehearsal

Wednesday 9th Dec – from this day onwards please bring in party food donations for the Christmas Party on Monday 14th

Friday 11th Dec- Nativity 9.30 and 1.30

This morning we were very busy in our Literacy groups.  One group was writing drama scripts from the novel Carrie’s War, another group was using their notes to write a summary of Chapter 5 from Kaspar Prince of Cats and another group were reading a non fiction book about Mount Everest.

This afternoon we learned about Primary and Secondary Sources of information. We then played a game outside which involved identify whether or not a source was primary or secondary.  This work will help us when we come to look at sources of information relating to the Victorians.

This morning in maths we were using calculators to work out costs and change given.  Some people were using the Argos website, others were using information from text book and others were using Tesco Christmas Gift Catalogue.  The final question was optional. It was very tricky but some people demonstrated a fantastic growth mindset and found the solution in the end.

In Maths we continue to look at money. Some children are working on money to £1, £5, £10, £20 or £100 so the activities below can be adapted to allow the children to practise with the amounts of money they are most comfortable with.

Look at catalogues, websites etc and analyse the cost of different items in different shops and analyse impact of special offers on their overall costs and budget.

Christmas Budget Challenge- children to budget for a family for Christmas including dinner, gifts, transport/travel, clothes, special treat such as panto/cinema.

Children take on jobs for modest pay (concepts that money has value and finding the best deal will get them most for their money). Discuss concept of saving money from several jobs to purchase more expensive items.

Using newspaper/ internet/ adverts compare interest rates on credit cards and other companies and the impact this has on final cost items.

Here are some websites that you may find useful!

The Cost of Money Quiz – http://www.nationwideeducation.co.uk/finance-education/personal/students/07-11_cost-of-money/int_quiz.php

Financial Soccer – http://www.financialsoccer.com/index.php?language=12&countryID=49

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/ks2numeracy-shape-and-weight.html#quad

Many children still need to spend time learning their tables. It would be helpful if the children could have their times tables “at their fingertips”. The times tables help the children in so many areas of maths. Each child in the class knows what tables they should be working on. Between now and Christmas we will be having table tests every week. Here are some ideas to help your child learn their tables:

TGT (Team Game Tournament) children can make the cards at home.

Chant/Sing/Write the tables out

http://www.teachingtables.co.uk/ (this website has links to many other websites)

Literacy

We have been working on Thriller stories. Here are some ideas for a triggers:

• A Hobby- Two children go fishing. One of them falls in the loch. Who will come to rescue them?
• Noises- Odd sounds are coming from the professor’s workshop. The main character decided to investigate.
• The box- A parcel arrives marked ‘Fragile-open with care@. Someone clumsy tries to open it!
• Night Lights- Two friends see strange lights at night. They decide to stay up one night and solve the mystery.

Text Detectives- We have been looking at how powerful verbs can help writer show what characters are like rather than telling the reader what they are like. Look through different books and find examples of powerful verbs for walked , said and looked.

Advent

Research charities that show care and love for others at Christmas. Make a list of them and a brief outline of how they show care and love.

CHRISTMAS SONGS ANAGRAMS

1. Deck the halls with gbuobs of holly!
2. When Santa got stuck up the nyiecmh!
3. Whilst pershedhs watch their flocks by night!
4. egiljn bells eginjl bells elginj all the way!
5. Joy to the rowdl, the Lord is come!
6. In the akleb mid winter!
7. We wish you a merry mactshirs!
8. You’d better not thous, you’d better not cry!
9. Sleigh bells ring! Are you glinsetni?
10. Come and join the blatienorce, it’s a very special day.
11. Tip, if you are stuck write the letters on paper and rearrange, look for patterns-tion sp ie etc

Christmas Baubles

Choose 3 colours. You may not use any other colours. Now colour the baubles but make sure that each one is different. (You may use each colour more than once on any bauble if you wish.) How many different designs can you make?   See your jotter for the bauble design.

We had great fun in P.E. with Scottish Country Dancing.  We played Musical Statues whilst freestyle dancing to the ceildh music, then we split into groups and created our own Scottish Dances. We performed, as a group, on the stage and another pupil filmed our routines.  Finally, Mrs Pollock taught us Strip the Willow which we all enjoyed without too many arms and legs being tangled up.

This week our maths has focused on the Christmas Fayre. This has given us many opportunities to practise our maths skills in a real life context.  In our learning logs we created a mind map of the ways we used maths to help us with the Christmas Fayre.  Remember the Christmas Fayre begins tomorrow at 10am.

Today we have been very busy making things to sell at the Christmas Fayre. We decided to form a production line. After one or two issues with the stock we had to stop and do a full quality control check. A few people were threatened with dismissal.  After rectifying the quality control issues normal production continued. Tomorrow we will be selling raffle tickets at 50p for the Chocolate Advent Calendar

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