This week the Wrens have been reading the book "The Tiny Seed" by Eric Carle.  In the story a tiny seed overcomes lots of challenges to grow into a beautiful plant.  We have been carefully watering our seeds and keeping a close eye on them and have started to notice some changes.  In science with Mrs Postlethwaite this week, we looked more closely at the different parts of a plant. We carefully stuck the different pieces together to create our own picture of a plant.  We then used our expert phonics knowledge to label the different parts.

In maths, we are starting to look at numbers beyond 10.  We are practising counting forwards and backwards to 10 and identifying each different number on a number line.  We focussed on 10-13 this week learning to build each number with the maths apparatus by making the 10 first and then the extra ones.  We enjoyed playing some games later in the week to practise what we had learnt and it was lovely to hear the children using their mathematical skills during their play.

In PSHE, we are looking at Relationships this term. Last week we looked at the different roles within our families.  This week we have been thinking about friendships.  We read the story "Mr Big" by Ed Vere in which the gorilla is very lonely.  We discussed what the word lonely meant and how we could help someone who is lonely like Mr Big. Fortunately, the story has a happy ending.

We are very much looking forward to our Mini Olympics trip to The Chantry on Wednesday next week.  Please send your child to school dressed in their PE kit with a water bottle. They do not need their uniform to change back into later.  Myself and Mrs Lench will be accompanying them.

In English this week, we have been exploring diary entries in more detail. The children completed their planning sheets for their diary entry as Iris, who is the main character in our book. They then began to write their diary entry thinking carefully about their wording to ensure it was written in the past tense and also that it was very detailed and descriptive. We spoke about the importance of rereading and editing our writing to make it the best it can be.

In maths, Year 1 have moved onto multiplication and division. They have been recognising and making equal groups. They have also been finding the total of equal groups through repeated addition and using and creating arrays. Year 2 have solved calculations about mass using the four operations. They then moved on to learning about volume and capacity. They have learnt to compare volume and capacity and measure in millilitres and litres.

In science this week, we explored how plants grow and how to plant them. The children all planted their own broad bean and wrote simple instructions for how to do this. They have been so eager each morning and throughout the day to check how their bean is growing!

In geography, we built upon last week's learning about human and physical features. The children were given an aerial map of Abberley and they labelled this with the human and physical features they could spot. Then, in pairs, the children drew their own sketch maps of Abberley using symbols to represent different things such as our school, the church and the village hall.

In English, we have completed our newspaper report and are now working on a diary entry from the point of view of the main character of the story.

In maths, we are continuing our work on Mass and Capacity. We have looked at comparing kg and g as well as adding and subtracting them. We will be moving onto volume next week.

In geography this week, the children were learning about the lives of indigenous peoples living in the Amazon rainforest. We looked at different buildings that might be found in the Amazon rainforest and they weren't always as the children expected! The children were able to discuss how they thought the indigenous peoples used the Amazon and how they thought the indigenous peoples felt about the Amazon.

In music, we have started our new topic, Minimalism. We have listened to examples of Minimalist music by composers including Steve Reich and used percussion instruments to perform a rhythmic cell. In groups, we have created our own melodic cell that we will develop using rhythmic displacement.

We conducted a fantastic experiment on the viscosity of different ketchups last week and in this week's lesson we used thermometers to discover variation in temperature.

In art, the children completed some great work on mood through colour based on the work of Henri Matisse. The children completed different mood pages in their sketch books using both cold and warm colours. This week we will be starting our influenced by Matisse's work.

In RE, we are looking at the Gospels. These are the "Good News" stories of the life of Jesus. We delved into the lives of the disciples prior to following Jesus and the stories surrounding how they became disciples.

In English this week, we have continued to read 'The Wind In The Willows'. Toad has become infatuated by motor cars and Mole and Ratty have enjoyed a meal with Badger. The children have been building up a resource bank to help them write their recounts next week. We have focussed on using time adverbials and coordinating and subordinating conjunctions to improve their sentences. The children have also been writing using the technique of 'show don't tell' where they use physical descriptions to convey emotions.

In maths, Y4 have continued with their work on decimals, the focus this week being problem solving which many of them find tricky. They have been using place value grids to help them and encouraged to break down the problem into smaller chunks and focussing on one part at a time. It's been lovely to see how they have taken this advice on board. Y5 have taken their understanding of fractions and decimals and applied this to percentages. They have also needed to use their prior learning of equivalent fractions in order to find equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages.

As the weather has been so awful lately, we have changed our Wednesday morning PE topic to Yoga as this is not weather dependent! Hopefully, the summer weather will appear soon which will give the field a chance to dry out so that we can continue our focus on rounders after half-term.

This week in Merlins class, we have continued to consolidate all our grammar and punctuation learning in preparation for SATs. The children have continued to practised reading skills such as 'giving evidence from the text' as well as answering 'according to the text...' questions. This week, we have covered phrases; synonyms and antonyms; suffixes and prefixes; word families and standard and non-standard English.

In maths, we have learnt how to calculate angles in polygons. In addition to this, we have learnt about the parts of a circle such as radius, diameter and circumference. The children have learnt about the relationship between diameter and radius and how we can calculate one using the other. We ended the week with learning how to calculate the mean of any set of numbers.

In PE, we have begun our topic of Yoga. This half term, we have decided that the field is not ready for rounders so will postpone this until the second half of the summer term. This week, we learnt how to form the cobra and downward dog. The children then performed a sun salutation routine.

In science this week, the children recapped their understanding of how a foetus develops in the womb and then used measurement data to produce a line graph to show to either the foetus' weight or height develops during pregnancy. We also looked back at how humans change during their life cycle and the children were predicting what they would be like as teenagers, adults and seniors.

In music, we have started our new topic, Planets. We have listened to excerpts of Holst's 'The Planets Suite' and thought about how the inter-related dimensions of music have been used to represent each planet. In groups, we have begun to compose a piece of music to reflect the chosen planet, using a selection of tuned and untuned percussion.

In geography this week, we explored the physical geography of the Mojave desert. The children conducted research in pairs to find out about certain physical features of the desert such as sand dunes, natural arches, salt flats, mesa and mushroom rocks.

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