Newsletters

It has been a lovely first week back in school in Wrens.  We have started our new class book "Emma Jane's aeroplane" and discovered the first place that Emma Jane visits is London.  We have really enjoyed finding out about our capital city.  Some of us have visited London and shared with the class our own experiences.  We used printing techniques to produce some fantastic artwork based on Big Ben with Mrs Postlethwaite on Monday and enjoyed building our own city of London in the tuff tray complete with a Tower Bridge and underground train track!   We also learnt about some of the famous landmarks in London through reading a non-fiction book.  Year 1 will be using this knowledge next week to write a postcard from London and we will be trying very hard to remember to include capital letters at the start of our sentences and for proper nouns.

In maths Reception have begun to explore the concept of one more and one less.  We will be playing some games next week to consolidate our understanding of this area of learning before moving onto to explore the numbers between 5 and 10 later in the half term.  Meanwhile, Year 1 have been investigating the inverse relationship between addition and subtraction to write fact families.  This is quite a tricky concept and we found we had to think carefully whether our number sentences made sense when writing them.

In PE, Reception have started 2 new topics - gymnastics and ball control.  We are lucky to have the indoor space in the village and school hall so we can do PE whatever the weather!  In RE, Reception are starting to look at special stories. This week we talked about which books are special to us and why. If your child has a special book at home they would like to bring into school and share with the rest of the class at storytime, we would love to read them.  

Year 1 please do not forget your PE kits on Wednesday 18 January 2023 for the Multiskills Festival at the Chantry.  I know it will be great fun!

In Skylarks this week, the children have started to explore and read our new class book, ‘A Squash and a Squeeze’. We started off by looking at the front cover and made predictions about what the story might be about by using the illustrations and titles. The children then rewrote the story using time connectives at the beginning of sentences. We looked at examples of speech between the characters and learnt how to use inverted commas (speech marks) in our own writing. 

In maths our new topic is shape. The children have worked hard at getting to know the names of 2D and 3D shapes. They have looked at the properties of shape and how many faces, edges and vertices 3D shapes have. 

In RE, we read the parable of the ‘Lost Son’ and the children discussed together what the ‘hidden’ message of the parable was. They drew pictures of the story and the important parts which resonated with them. 

In Art, our new focus is watercolour. We began the lesson by being given the freedom to explore watercolour paints to see what they can ‘do’ on paper. After this, we looked in detail at the artist Paul Klee, who uses watercolour in many ways to create very imaginative art. 

In PSHE, we all made special treasure boxes so we can store any targets/goals we might achieve between now and February half term. Ask your child what targets they would like to set and once they complete it to write or draw their achievement which can be stored in their unique treasure box. 

In Geography, we looked at different modes of transport and in particular the different types of transport using the busy road in Abberley. We used our field skills to collect data about the different modes of transport and then used the computer to create a graph. 

Homework

Today, Year 2 pupils came home with their new spellings to learn. Please remember to help them learn these spelling rules. All pupils are able to log into EdShed to play educational games. If you are unsure how to do this then please come and ask.

This week in English, we have been focusing on the very beginning of The Iron Man by Ted Hughes. In groups, the children explored a poem that is based around the first chapter of the book. They identified clues and key information that helps us, as the reader, to understand more about who the Iron Man is. They also noted the key linguistic features used in the poem. For example, personification and similes. The children used their imagination to become fishermen at sea, where they spot the Iron Man toppling from the top of a sheer cliff. They wrote a first-person account of what they witnessed. We have also delved deeper into what makes an effective opening to a story. 

In maths, we have been continuing to focus on multiplication and division. Their recall of multiplication and division facts up to 12x12 is definitely improving. However, they must continue to practise these at home. They can do this on TTRS or through playing some of the games we play in class with someone at home. Both Year 3 and 4 have learnt about multiplying and dividing by 0, 1 and itself. They have also been practising and applying their knowledge of the x3 and x8 times table to multiplication and division problems. Year 3 have also focused on multiplying and dividing by 4. Whereas, Year 4 looked at multiplying and dividing by 6.

We have started French this half term and the children are really enjoying it. We have been looking at basic greetings, asking if somebody is ok and how to respond to this. We have played games to practise this vocabulary and the children have applied their newfound knowledge to do a small amount of writing in French. 

In science, our focus is sound and hearing. The children have learnt how sounds are made and how they can travel through the air. The children completed an experiment with rice on the skin of the drum to show the vibrations. We have also looked at how different instruments make their sounds and have identified how sounds change.

In English this week, we have read the nonsense poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll and have worked together to decipher the meaning of the poem. The children have been learning about portmanteau (words that are made from blending the sounds and the meanings of two words) and then spent time covering our classroom windows with their own made-up words. We have started creating our own nonsense poems based on Jabberwocky through looking at the construction of the poem and Carroll's use of iambic tetrameter (four stressed syllables and four unstressed syllables in each line).

In maths, we have continued with our focus of formal long multiplication and the children have mastered this quite difficult method very well. We have moved up to 4 digit by 2 digit multiplication and the children have been able to use this method to solve quite tricky word problems. This is another area of maths where a strong times tables knowledge is extremely beneficial so we warmed up by practising different times tables through playing games.

In science, Y5&6 have been testing different materials to establish their electrical and thermal conductivity and also whether they are magnetic or not. The children had to find objects from around the classroom, making sure they were made from different materials and didn't repeat any.

In music, we started our focus of old school hip hop. The children were listening to 'The Fresh Prince of BelAir', looking at the construction of the song as well as focussing on the rhythm used and learning to sing/rap!

In PSHE, our topic is Dreams and Goals this half term. This week, the children were thinking about different jobs that they might have in the future. They were then given different occupations and they had to try and match the starting salary to the job, which proved to be more difficult than they originally thought and the children were surprised at the final answers, which led to some very interesting discussions.

This week in Merlins class we have begun our English lessons based on themes in Alice in Wonderland. We have begun to write an alternative narrative by changing the character of Alice to a character of our choice with a personality which may contrast Alice significantly.  After watching Alice chase the white rabbit and fall down the rabbit hole, we have considered how our character might react to the same events happening to them. 

In maths, we have been finding fractions of amounts. These amounts have ranged from small two-digit numbers all the way to complicated units of measure. The children have worked hard to follow the method of dividing by the numerator and then multiplying by the numerator.  We ended the week by finding the whole when we have the fraction and the unit quantity. 

In geography this week, year 5 and 6 have explored what summer is like in Athens, following the life of a young Greek girl as she experiences a typical day. We have compared her day to a day in the life for us and identified the similarities and differences. We then plotted her route from Athens to the port, ready to take a ferry to the island of Amorgos. We noticed her pass many significant landmarks such as the parliament building and the Parthenon. We ended the lesson by finding out a little about the island of Amorgos and wrote about a day on this beautiful island.