October 2021
Literacy and English
Our current class novel is ‘Cliffhanger’ by Jacqueline Wilson. The children have loved using the book as a basis for practising different reading strategies. They have enjoyed looking at the different characters and their personalities.
Exploring adjectives in our PM Writing texts has helped the children visualise characters and setting, and the trickier words are also giving them opportunities to develop their dictionary skills.
We have also been practising recount writing in class. The children are becoming confident at following more complex structures and creating their own recounts. The children have created writing targets for themselves that they will continue to refer back to.
“My writing target is to use my thesaurus to help me learn new WOW words” – Robert.
Numeracy and Mathematics
This term the boys and girls have been developing their knowledge of estimation and rounding and place value. They have also been practising our written and mental strategies for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. “I have enjoyed doing multiplication with Mrs Gilroy on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and division with Miss May on Thursday and Friday” – Lewis.
Mental maths is incorporated into our daily learning and children are improving their times tables, sequencing and place value through interactive games, both as a whole class and in small groups.
From now until Christmas we will be continuing to practise the skills we have learned already as well as starting on money and fractions, decimals and percentages.
HWB
To keep us healthy and active, we have been participating in our mile walk every day. This has proved to be a great opportunity for not only keeping fit, but also talking and getting to know one another a lot better. Our outdoor and indoor gym sessions have proved to be very popular – the children have participated in lots of team games and practising ball skills. It has been great to be able to be back in the gym hall. “I have enjoyed playing games with my friends in gym and competing with other people in my class” – Amber.
Google Classroom
During ICT lessons, we have been exploring our Google Classroom. We had some practice at creating posts on our class stream as well as undertaking partner research to find out more information about our ‘Tudors’ topic.
We would encourage you to continue spending time with your child at home looking at the homework and resources that are posted weekly online. “I enjoy doing my homework with my spelling words in it and when I do it I learn more” – Haylie.
Expressive Arts
We recently started our FUNdamentals of music block, where a specialist music teacher delivers lessons via a live video link. The children participate in music-making games and develop their performance skills. Everyone has thoroughly enjoyed using body percussion to add sounds to ‘Firework’ by Katy Perry. “We have learned that ‘tempo’ means ‘the speed of a beat’ and how to say ‘slow’, ‘medium’ and ‘fast’ in Italian” – Kali. These sessions will continue until the end of January.
Social Subjects
Our topic at the beginning of the term was ‘The Tudors’. The children learned lots of interesting facts about Tudor houses and the birth of the Tudor Rose, and used different art materials to create their own. “I learned that Tudor houses are made out of animal dung and wood” – Kelsie Ann.
