What an incredible few weeks it has been! It’s coming to the end of term and we are starting to get the children ready in Year 5. It has been a great year with some truly memorable moments. This is what we have been up to recently:

The Linking Network

Elm and Willow class have been part of a national program called The Linking Network since the start of the year. They have been taking part in activities with Warden Hill Junior School and over the past two weeks they got to reunite with their peers from Warden Hill.

Anglo Saxon trip

We were lucky enough to visit West Stow earlier in the term to find out how the Anglo Saxons used to live! We looked at a model village, artefacts and were able to ask one of the experts our questions.

Pizza making!

Throughout the next few weeks, each class will be designing and making their own pizzas! Elm class were the first to put on the chef aprons. The children were very happy with how their pizzas turned out – we hope you were able to try a slice!

It has been a very busy half term in year 3. We performed our Year 3/4 eco play which was absolutely fantastic, and I’m sure you would agree that the standard was exceptional if you came and watched it! The children did superbly and had a great time both practising and performing. A big thank you to the parents for helping learn these lines and bringing your children into school for the evening performance, it is very much appreciated! Let’s have a look at what the children in year 3 have been busy learning this half term…

Maths:

In maths the children were learning about fractions at the beginning of the half term. They worked really hard on this topic and lots of the children were really confident with explaining some of the key vocabulary and using this correctly in class discussions. It was really pleasing to see the hard work all year 3 classes put in to this topic and it really showed in the work they produced. We finished the half term on ‘mass and capacity’. We explored different ways we can measure involving both mass and capacity and the difference between the two. We looked at a variety of containers and had a go at estimating the volume and comparing them in groups. We also looked at reading scales accurately and finding out how to read and calculate the intervals on scales.

Reading:

We have started a new topic of poetry which the children seem to be really enjoying. There have been opportunities for the children to explore different poems by the author Valerie Bloom, and we have looked at some key vocabulary. We have worked together as a class and also in pairs, to come up with ideas for our own poem that we are writing. The children had to think of their favourite things that are calming, peaceful and that embody the 5 senses. By the end of the half term, the children would have written their own poem with 3 verses, all about someone special in their lives.

English:

Linking with our eco play, we have started a topic for the last few weeks on playscripts. This has been well received by the children as they are familiar with scripts, and have been given the opportunity to think about well known traditional tales. They were able to select their own traditional tale and transforming this into a playscript. We had think about the features of a playscript, as some of these rules are very different to other genres of writing we have done before.

Art:

In art, we have been looking at the style of pointillism and looking at the work of Georges Seurat. The children really enjoyed this and we used cotton buds to create the pointillism style. We designed flag bunting, colour wheels and we then looked at different ways of mixing colours and shading using this technique. We finished this topic by creating our own picture of our choice, using the style of pointillism.

We wish you and your families a very relaxing and enjoyable Easter break, and look forward to welcoming the children back in the summer term.

We have been really busy in year 3 and lots of exciting learning has been taking place. Have a read below to see what we have been up to!

Maths:

In our maths lessons we have been learning about mass and capacity. This has seen us using lots of practical resources to look at different weights, capacities and the units of measurement we use. The children really enjoyed this as they were using different containers to compare capacities which I think took lots of them by surprise! We then looked at converting measurements, equivalent measurements and adding and subtracting different quantities too. We are now moving into fractions again, where the children are learning how to add, subtract and find equivalent fractions.

English:

In our writing lessons we have been learning how to use similes, generalisers and headings/subheadings to help us write our own non chronological reports. The children have done some excellent descriptions of characters in the form of a postcard and trading cards – they really enjoyed this! There have been lots of examples of excellent handwriting and it is great to see such improvements across the year group.

DT:

A very exciting half term in our DT topic of making omelettes! We learnt about the different ingredients which are in season and what this means in terms of us as a consumer. We then looked at why eggs are important and what we can make using eggs. We tried some scrambled eggs and then decided on different ingredients that would be suitable for an omelette. The children loved practising cracking eggs, whisking, mixing and forming their own omelettes with the toppings of their choice. All in all, they did a great job and some children even had their first taste of an omelette and really liked it!

Reading:

Our new book that we started reading after the Easter holidays was ‘The Boy at the Back of the Class’. This has been a really good book and has taught us a lot about friendships, being kind and using our skills of empathy. We discussed different scenarios that took place in some of the chapters and what we would do in those situations, using drama in groups to show this. We have also practised our skills of retrieval, summarising, inference and prediction to explore the book in detail and taking the time to understand character’s thoughts, feeling and emotions.

Great work this half term year 3 – keep it up!

What a fantastic start to 2023 we’ve had. The children have been busy learning, take a look…

Rowan Class and Yew Class have had their first ever school trip to Whipsnade Zoo. Poplar Class are going next week and they have been hearing all about from their friends.

The children are studying Living things in their habitats in Science and were lucky enough to have a workshop at the zoo, where the children had to look at the clues to identify the different habitats which animals could be found in. The children found this hands on activity very engaging.

After lunch the children were explorers – finding the huge variety of animals in the zoo and finding out which habitat they live in.

It was a fun but tiring and very chilly day. Thank you to all the children for being well behaved.

In English and reading we are looking at this book:

We have been predicting what will happen next, comparing characters and practising reading with fluency. This week we have also listened to the text and drawn a picture – visualising the picture from the words.

The text said ” The Last Wolf was living in a cosy tree-cave, along with the Last Lynx and the Last Bear.” – this is what we visualised…

What a fantastic start to the year we have had in year 3! With new teachers beginning this year, there have been lots of changes and the children have settled really well with their new teachers and have been showing some fantastic pieces of work. Let’s have a look and see what year 3 have been up to…

English

We have been reading The Great Kapok Tree and have really enjoyed the book and learning about all the fascinating animals of the rainforest. We began the year by looking at what we might see in the rainforest and describing these animals using super adjectives. We made these descriptions of our animals into short descriptive paragraphs where the children were learning how to extend sentences using verbs, adverbs and well-chosen adjectives and we even looked at using speech! The children were given the opportunity to use this text to help them innovate their own story and write their own. Have a look below at some great examples of the hard work that year 3 have been putting in…

Maths

It has been a busy few weeks with our learning in maths. Lots of work on multiplication and division and the different methods we can use to solve calculations involving both of these operations. We had a look at some key vocabulary that the children may come across and learnt some of the synonyms for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. To help with our times tables, you would have seen the colourful times table chart that the children brought home this week. This is to help them with their times table knowledge up to 12×12 and is there to help them learn them. Each morning in our maths lessons we are performing a ‘TT Rockstars’ times table challenge. This is a personal challenge for the children and we are already seeing them beat their previous scores which is fantastic progress! They are really enjoying doing it so we hope that this will help them with their calculations in class. Have a look below at some wonderful examples of the hard work from the children in year 3 in maths…

History

Let’s go back to The Stone Age! What a fantastic topic we have had and we have learnt so many facts about The Stone Age. The children have produced some wonderful work in this topic and have really enjoyed it. They particularly enjoyed our cave painting lesson where the classrooms were transformed into real life caves, with paintings stuck under tables and children exploring them like they would have done back in the stone age! They then created some truly excellent cave paintings using charcoal and oil pastels. They used their skills of smudging and blending of colours and then scrunched their papers up to give them the effect of cave walls! We are very excited to take part in our Stone Age day next week on Tuesday and look forward to dressing up too! Have a look below at some of the brilliant work the children have produced…

Year 6 have been busy since the start of term, working hard to improve our maths and English skills whilst also finding out about what goes on inside our bodies-particularly our circulatory system.

In preparation for SATs in May we have had intervention lessons on reading comprehension and maths every week on Tuesday and Wednesday PM

In English we have been writing our own adventure tale based on a kidnap and learning how to weave a “Flashback” into our stories. Alongside this, we have been reading the book “Stormbreaker” by Anthony Horowitz which tells the story of a teenage spy and working on  improving our comprehension skills by analysing and discussing characters and actions.

Our maths topic this term has been fractions and decimals (a perennial favourite with pupils and parents alike). We have been learning how to: change improper fractions into mixed numbers and vice versa; add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions by whole numbers and other fractions and find equivalent fractions and simplify them. If that wasn’t enough, we have been learning about decimals and place value.

In science this half-term, we have completed our topic on Animals including humans, where we focused on the workings of the circulatory system-heart, lungs and blood. I can assure you that no children were harmed in the teaching of this topic!

In other areas of the curriculum, we have been revising greetings in French and in music we have been listening, appraising and singing the Carole King song, “You’ve got a friend”. In PHSE we have been looking at out strengths and weaknesses and setting goals for the future, both in school and outside.

In the remaining 2 weeks of this half-term in English, we will be: editing our Kidnapped story and producing a final piece; continuing to read Stormbreaker and interrogating the text and learning Yr 5/6 spellings weekly.

In maths we will be carrying on with work on decimals.

In science we have started a new topic on Light in which we will investigate How light travels  and light sources.

Next week (30th January) we will be carrying out mock SATs in Grammar and Spelling,  Reading and 3 Maths papers.

Spring 2

In English we will be working on creating a discussion text based on Stormbreaker  entitled  “Should children become spies”.

In maths we will be going on to look at Shape and the properties of different 2D and  3D shapes.

In science we will be continuing our work on Light where we will: carry out investigations on shadows and their sizes; look at the parts of the eye and optical illusions.

In other areas, we are carrying on with the Carole King song in music, looking at La Date – months, days and weeks in French and Dreams and Goals in PHSE.

A quick reminder that parents’ evening will be on the 28th and 29th March.

The year 6 team wish you all a fabulous February and and a marvelous March.

The Year 6 team

What a term!

Wow! What a term! From trips, to sculpting, to learning about climate change. Below are a few pictures of what we have been up to this term!

Thank you to the children for being so great this term and thank you to the parents for your support at home.

Happy holidays,

Mr Pateman, Mrs Feagan, Miss Shah & Miss Jenkins.