Hi everyone,
Hope you are all well rested after our busy week last week.
The children who took part in the dance at the Parr Hall were fantastic and the behaviour was exemplary considering it was such a long day, thank you children.
Mrs Clancy and Mrs Hemmings were extremely impressed with the children they took along to the Steel Pan Workshop last week. They were amazed at how much the children took in such a short amount of time and also congratulated the children on their excellent behaviour. Thank you to Mrs Clancy and Mrs Hemmings for taking the children to the event.
Most of the Year 5 and 6 children took part in 'The Kids of Steel Triathlon' on Friday morning. This was a great event which the children really enjoyed, we were really lucky to be able to take all of the children and we had a great time.
It was also Spanish week last week and the children did lots of work on Spain and the Spanish language. They came in with some fantastic homework on a famous Spanish person. They also enjoyed the Flamenco dancing on Thursday, even the boys, who weren't too keen at first. We even had children Flamenco dancing out of school on Friday afternoon!!
This week is also a busy one, so much for lazy summer days!
We will start our preparations for Sports Day this week. We are really hopeful that the weather will be kind to us as we love Sports Day, but as I am writing this the sky has just gone black and I have had to run outside and bring the washing in!!
Anyway we shall persevere and sort out which races the children are in tomorrow. We may have to go outside at a moments notice this week (whenever the weather allows) so it is important that the children have their PE kit in school at all times. They will need a white t-shirt and blue shorts and suitable footwear. It is also a good idea for them to have suncream, a cap and a water bottle in school each day.
If the weather permits Sports Day will take place in the 8th July, the 10th July is our reserve date in case it has to be cancelled, hopefully it will go ahead.
On Tuesday our Year 6 children have a teacher from St Gregory's RE department coming in to school to start a transition project with them. She will come in this Tuesday and next Monday.
Most of this week will be spent putting together our production. The date has still not been finalised yet and hopefully we should be able to do this tomorrow and let you know. Because we have been so busy over the last few weeks we have hardly had any time to practice, therefore most of this week will be spent on preparations.
What with Sports Day practice and Production practice you will be wondering if we can fit in any curriculum this week but as always the answer is yes!
We will be continuing with our work on Spanish artists and also making clay models with Mrs Fox.
We also have our modern day Shakespeare stories to write after we planned them a few weeks ago and we have myths to write which we also planned a few weeks ago.
In maths we will be reviewing our learning over the past few weeks as we have not had to the time to do the subjects we have looked at in enough detail.
Please see the last few weeks blogspots for information and websites.
Thanks.
Year 5/6 Team.
Sunday 29 June 2008
Sunday 22 June 2008
Week Beginning 23rd June 2008
Hola! (I don't have an upside down exclamation mark on my keyboard but there should be one at the beginning of Hola)
We had a bit of an emotional roller coster last week with the boys football team. They were beaten on penalties in the semi final of the Penketh Cup by Penketh South. The boys should be really proud of themselves as the they were fantastic and showed great sportsmanship throughout the entire tournament. Well done boys. Thank you also to the parents who came along to all the games and to Mr Buckley for preparing them.
Ten of our Year 6 children also went to St Gregory's to play in a rounders tournament, they played really well and came second, fantastic considering they had no practice sessions before hand. Thank you to Mrs Morgan for taking the children and to the parents who helped us with transporting the children to the High School.
We have another really busy week this week. On Monday evening 20 of our Year 5 and 6 children are taking part in the Primary Arts Network Performance Evening at the Parr Hall. The children will perform poems and a dance. Parents are welcome to attend and tickets can be bought at the box office. If your child is involved in this event they will need to be collected from the Parr Hall at 8.30pm.
On Tuesday our Year 6 children are going to St Gregory's for the day. This is a really exciting time for them as they will be put into the classes they will be in next year. The children have to wear their uniform, some of them have asked if school summer uniforms are ok and this will be fine, whatever you would wear if you were coming to school on a normal day.
On Wednesday, 16 of our Year 5 and 6 children will be taking part in a Steel Pan Drum Workshop at Sir Thomas Boalter High School. They will travel from school on a coach. If your child has been chosen for this event you will have received a letter. Some letters did go out to children by mistake as a supply teacher gave out the wrong ones. If your child received a letter with their name on then they have been chosen.
On Friday all of the Year 5 and 6 children and staff will be travelling to Lymm High School to take part in 'The Kids of Steel Triathlon'. You should have received a letter by now with the details on. All the children need to attend the event as there will be no staff in school to look after them.
They will need a swimming kit and towel and a PE kit preferably with trainers. The bike and bike helmet will be provided. The children will not return to school until 12.30pm and therefore will all need to have a packed lunch.
I told you it was another busy week! Running alongside all these activities it is also Spanish week and we will be exploring lots of things about Spain. We will look at Spanish culture, geography, history, art, music and language.
We already know a lot about the Spanish language, we will be reviewing our learning and also learning so new words.
We will be looking at 4 different Spanish Artists by using the following website:-
http://www.albany.edu/~jd7111/isp561/artistindex.html
On Thursday all the children will be taking part in a Spanish dance workshop.
The children have been informed that they can come dressed as the colours in the Spanish flag on Friday. As we are attending the triathlon in morning we feel that they should wear something that identifies them as a member of our school. For example they could wear their red and yellow clothes and then wear a school jumper or cardigan over the top while we are out of school. If they have a school cap or coat these would also be acceptable.
That's all for now, make sure you get some much needed sleep for a very busy week.
Year 5/6 Team.
We had a bit of an emotional roller coster last week with the boys football team. They were beaten on penalties in the semi final of the Penketh Cup by Penketh South. The boys should be really proud of themselves as the they were fantastic and showed great sportsmanship throughout the entire tournament. Well done boys. Thank you also to the parents who came along to all the games and to Mr Buckley for preparing them.
Ten of our Year 6 children also went to St Gregory's to play in a rounders tournament, they played really well and came second, fantastic considering they had no practice sessions before hand. Thank you to Mrs Morgan for taking the children and to the parents who helped us with transporting the children to the High School.
We have another really busy week this week. On Monday evening 20 of our Year 5 and 6 children are taking part in the Primary Arts Network Performance Evening at the Parr Hall. The children will perform poems and a dance. Parents are welcome to attend and tickets can be bought at the box office. If your child is involved in this event they will need to be collected from the Parr Hall at 8.30pm.
On Tuesday our Year 6 children are going to St Gregory's for the day. This is a really exciting time for them as they will be put into the classes they will be in next year. The children have to wear their uniform, some of them have asked if school summer uniforms are ok and this will be fine, whatever you would wear if you were coming to school on a normal day.
On Wednesday, 16 of our Year 5 and 6 children will be taking part in a Steel Pan Drum Workshop at Sir Thomas Boalter High School. They will travel from school on a coach. If your child has been chosen for this event you will have received a letter. Some letters did go out to children by mistake as a supply teacher gave out the wrong ones. If your child received a letter with their name on then they have been chosen.
On Friday all of the Year 5 and 6 children and staff will be travelling to Lymm High School to take part in 'The Kids of Steel Triathlon'. You should have received a letter by now with the details on. All the children need to attend the event as there will be no staff in school to look after them.
They will need a swimming kit and towel and a PE kit preferably with trainers. The bike and bike helmet will be provided. The children will not return to school until 12.30pm and therefore will all need to have a packed lunch.
I told you it was another busy week! Running alongside all these activities it is also Spanish week and we will be exploring lots of things about Spain. We will look at Spanish culture, geography, history, art, music and language.
We already know a lot about the Spanish language, we will be reviewing our learning and also learning so new words.
We will be looking at 4 different Spanish Artists by using the following website:-
http://www.albany.edu/~jd7111/isp561/artistindex.html
On Thursday all the children will be taking part in a Spanish dance workshop.
The children have been informed that they can come dressed as the colours in the Spanish flag on Friday. As we are attending the triathlon in morning we feel that they should wear something that identifies them as a member of our school. For example they could wear their red and yellow clothes and then wear a school jumper or cardigan over the top while we are out of school. If they have a school cap or coat these would also be acceptable.
That's all for now, make sure you get some much needed sleep for a very busy week.
Year 5/6 Team.
Saturday 14 June 2008
Week Beginning 16th June 2008
Hi everyone and welcome to this week's blog.
Some of our Year 5 and 6 boys are doing really well in the Penketh Cup Football Tournament. On Monday they played St. Joseph's and won 2-1 and on Wednesday they played Barrow Hall Lane and won 9-0, they also played a friendly against Barrow Hall Lane on Monday and won 3-1.
This is the group stage of the competition and they have another game on Monday at 3.30pm at Stocks Lane. The final will be played on the week beginning 23rd June.
They boys have worked really hard and their behaviour is fantastic, I can't believe they are so skill full at such a young age!!
During the game against St. Joespeh's, William Fazakerly was awarded 'man of the match' and during the Barrow Hall Lane game 'man of the match' went to Edward Shaw, well done boys.
We have lots of other events going on in the next few weeks as well. On Thursday this week St. Gregory's are holding a rounders tournament for all the feeder schools, unfortunately we can only take a team of 10, when the children were asked if they wanted to play they response was overwhelming so unfortunately we will have to pick names out of a hat. If your child is chosen you will get a letter on Monday, we would appreciate any help with transporting the children to the high school. Thanks.
On Monday 23rd June we are involved in The Primary Arts Network Performance Night.
The event is to take place at the Pyramid Arts Centre, we will be performing a poem and a dance to theme of 'Echos in Water'.
Again, if your child is chosen to be part of this event you will receive a letter with the details on Monday.
The performance will start at 7pm and tickets can be purchased from the box office.
Last week we had two Police Constables from Cheshire Police in School to talk about anti-bullying. It was very informative and the children really enjoyed it. They had lots of questions to ask, although so of them did stray from the subject! We are really pleased that our children have such inquisitive minds!
On Saturday 21st our Year 3 children will be receiving their First Holy Communion. We wish them good luck and are sure it will be a very happy and enjoyable time.
This weeks curriculum .....
Literacy
Our 5 children will continue on the theme of myths and legends. We had great fun last week listening to some myths and legends and picking out the features of them.
This week we will be picture cards to help us to plan our own myths and legends, this will eventually lead to us writing our own myth or legends. We are even planning to record the stories and we may publish them on the internet, if we feel they are good enough.
This week we
Must be able to identify features in stories.
Should be able to use the story mountain to plan our own stories.
Could start to think about and use different methods to build tension in our stories e.g. short sentences.
Here is a reminder of the website we are using and where will publish our finished stories.
http://myths.e2bn.org/
The Year 6 children will continue their work on William Shakespeare, this week they will begin to read one of his most famous stories 'Romeo and Juliet.' This is great preparation for high school.
Please see last week's blog for websites.
Numeracy
The Year 6 children will be continuing with their transition project this week.
Miss Wright's and Mrs Morgan's group have raced through the maths curriculum this year, we have spent some time reviewing subjects that the children found difficult when completing their tests and now feel that it is time to start preparing them for next year's curriculum. We will therefore be starting some of the Year 6 topics. This week we will be looking at expressing a quotient as a fraction, or a decimal rounded to one decimal place. This means that we will be doing sums that don't divide into a whole number exactly e.g. 46 divided by 7 and finding out the answer is 6 and 4/7.
It's sounds difficult but if the children have good knowledge of their tables they will find it much easier, so keep working on those tables.
Science
Because of our SATs preparation we have not have had the opportunity to prepare and teach anymore lessons to our Year 1 and 2 children. This week we will use the knowledge we have acquired in our topics of Gases Around Us and Changing State to start to plan a lesson for the younger children.
The children really do love doing this and it is an excellent way of consolidating their learning, we are always amazed with the lessons they come up with and will have to keep and eye on our own jobs as we are sure some children have their sights set on them!
Topic
Our Dragons Den topic is hotting up now and we got a lot of market research done last week. We now feel it is time to start to make prototypes and samples of our products, exciting times!!
Production
We have started to put together a running order for the production and hopefully this week we will be able to get some practice in.
With this much to fit in I think we all need to start sleeping at school just to get through it!!
We will do our best to get through it all but we may have some very tired children, and teachers, by the end of this week!
Have a great weekend, see you on Monday.
Year 5/6 Team
Some of our Year 5 and 6 boys are doing really well in the Penketh Cup Football Tournament. On Monday they played St. Joseph's and won 2-1 and on Wednesday they played Barrow Hall Lane and won 9-0, they also played a friendly against Barrow Hall Lane on Monday and won 3-1.
This is the group stage of the competition and they have another game on Monday at 3.30pm at Stocks Lane. The final will be played on the week beginning 23rd June.
They boys have worked really hard and their behaviour is fantastic, I can't believe they are so skill full at such a young age!!
During the game against St. Joespeh's, William Fazakerly was awarded 'man of the match' and during the Barrow Hall Lane game 'man of the match' went to Edward Shaw, well done boys.
We have lots of other events going on in the next few weeks as well. On Thursday this week St. Gregory's are holding a rounders tournament for all the feeder schools, unfortunately we can only take a team of 10, when the children were asked if they wanted to play they response was overwhelming so unfortunately we will have to pick names out of a hat. If your child is chosen you will get a letter on Monday, we would appreciate any help with transporting the children to the high school. Thanks.
On Monday 23rd June we are involved in The Primary Arts Network Performance Night.
The event is to take place at the Pyramid Arts Centre, we will be performing a poem and a dance to theme of 'Echos in Water'.
Again, if your child is chosen to be part of this event you will receive a letter with the details on Monday.
The performance will start at 7pm and tickets can be purchased from the box office.
Last week we had two Police Constables from Cheshire Police in School to talk about anti-bullying. It was very informative and the children really enjoyed it. They had lots of questions to ask, although so of them did stray from the subject! We are really pleased that our children have such inquisitive minds!
On Saturday 21st our Year 3 children will be receiving their First Holy Communion. We wish them good luck and are sure it will be a very happy and enjoyable time.
This weeks curriculum .....
Literacy
Our 5 children will continue on the theme of myths and legends. We had great fun last week listening to some myths and legends and picking out the features of them.
This week we will be picture cards to help us to plan our own myths and legends, this will eventually lead to us writing our own myth or legends. We are even planning to record the stories and we may publish them on the internet, if we feel they are good enough.
This week we
Must be able to identify features in stories.
Should be able to use the story mountain to plan our own stories.
Could start to think about and use different methods to build tension in our stories e.g. short sentences.
Here is a reminder of the website we are using and where will publish our finished stories.
http://myths.e2bn.org/
The Year 6 children will continue their work on William Shakespeare, this week they will begin to read one of his most famous stories 'Romeo and Juliet.' This is great preparation for high school.
Please see last week's blog for websites.
Numeracy
The Year 6 children will be continuing with their transition project this week.
Miss Wright's and Mrs Morgan's group have raced through the maths curriculum this year, we have spent some time reviewing subjects that the children found difficult when completing their tests and now feel that it is time to start preparing them for next year's curriculum. We will therefore be starting some of the Year 6 topics. This week we will be looking at expressing a quotient as a fraction, or a decimal rounded to one decimal place. This means that we will be doing sums that don't divide into a whole number exactly e.g. 46 divided by 7 and finding out the answer is 6 and 4/7.
It's sounds difficult but if the children have good knowledge of their tables they will find it much easier, so keep working on those tables.
Science
Because of our SATs preparation we have not have had the opportunity to prepare and teach anymore lessons to our Year 1 and 2 children. This week we will use the knowledge we have acquired in our topics of Gases Around Us and Changing State to start to plan a lesson for the younger children.
The children really do love doing this and it is an excellent way of consolidating their learning, we are always amazed with the lessons they come up with and will have to keep and eye on our own jobs as we are sure some children have their sights set on them!
Topic
Our Dragons Den topic is hotting up now and we got a lot of market research done last week. We now feel it is time to start to make prototypes and samples of our products, exciting times!!
Production
We have started to put together a running order for the production and hopefully this week we will be able to get some practice in.
With this much to fit in I think we all need to start sleeping at school just to get through it!!
We will do our best to get through it all but we may have some very tired children, and teachers, by the end of this week!
Have a great weekend, see you on Monday.
Year 5/6 Team
Friday 6 June 2008
Week Beginning 9th June
Hi Everyone!
Hope you had a fantastic half-term break and are raring to go for the last half term before the summer break. This is a really short term and we are hoping it will be fun (and sun) all the way!
END OF YEAR PRODUCTION
We still have a lot of work to fit in as well as a year 5/6 end of year PRODUCTION. We really enjoyed the singing element of last year’s end of year performance and so this is the route we felt it would be good to go down this year. We felt we would like a slight twist though, so we have decided that we are going to showcase music and artists throughout the decades, starting with the 1940’s right through to present day! This should make sure that there is something to tickle every musical taste bud. Dust off those Michael Jackson wigs, and blue suede shoes NOW!
No doubt you have already pestered your parents with ideas of who you would like to be and what song you will possibly be singing/performing/miming to.
As always, we need to make sure that the year 6 take priority for the parts in the production, however we will need year 5’s as well. Remember year 5’s that your time will come next year!
We are hoping that during this next week children will have a good idea of children’s roles within the production, and you can therefore start practicing at home, and thinking about costume ideas. We realise that some costumes will be more complicated to put together than others and so want to let parents know ASAP. We will not be giving out specific costume letters as we feel that it is much easier for you to look at the artist your child is impersonating and choose a look you feel is easiest to replicate. As soon as we know details of performance dates we will send them home.
LITERACY
Year 6
A few years ago we trialled teaching some Shakespeare to year 6! We were so impressed with the children’s enthusiasm and understanding we thought we would try it again this year! We will spend the start of the week finding out some information about the Bard himself. Later in the week we will begin to read and respond to a ‘child friendly’ version of Romeo and Juliet. Although this still has a lot of Shakespearian language included it is much more accessible for children. Whilst reading the play we will act out certain parts, create poetry, take part in quizzes and generally absorb ourselves in the play. This should take us up to the end of half-term and also be brilliant transition for key stage 3. We will keep you updated as to how we get on with this project. In the meantime web sites that may help with Shakespeare include the following…..
www.shakespeareforkidz.com
www.shakespeareforkids.co.uk
www.shakespeare.org.uk
Year 5
We will be starting on a new topic about Myths & Legends. We have covered aspects of Myths & Legends before, however this will give us the opportunity to delve deeper and gain a deeper understanding of this genre. Targets this week, will include the following….
Style: Language effects
Use powerful verbs to show character.
Use well-chosen phrases or vocabulary to engage the reader.
Interpretation and response
Identify and discuss issues locating evidence in the text.
Knowing how text works
Identify features of different fiction genre, i.e. myths and legends.
To identify the features of myths.
To investigate how characters are presented.
Write character sketches, focusing on small details to evoke sympathy or dislike.
To adapt writing for different readers and
purposes.
To understand how paragraphs or chapters are used to collect and order ideas.
MATHS
Year 5
The curriculum continues as usual and the children in both Mrs Morgan’s and Miss Wright’s group will be learning the following…
To subtract integers of up to 10,000 using formal and informal methods.
To subtract numbers to 2 decimal places.
As usual loads of games and interactive learning will take place to make these topic as fun as possible.
By the end of the week children,
MUST use an informal method to subtract integers up to 10,000.
SHOULD use both formal and informal methods to subtract integers up to 10,000.
COULD begin to subtract numbers to 2 decimal places.
Try logging on to www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk and following the Maths links for some excellent speed subtraction games to help you with these objectives.
Year 6
We will be embarking on some transition work to ease the year 6’s into the Mathematics required for the High School. Much of this knowledge is what we have already acquired, but just requires the children to think in a more sophisticated manner. The DFES provide a pack of material for children to further develop their understanding, and we will build on this in school. We will be consolidating lots of learning, but also favouring a more problem solving route where children are encouraged to think for themselves more, and see patterns in number and data. This sounds really hard going, but lots of fun will be had, and children will feel more confident about what will be expected of them in September.
The week before half-term the children worked in collaborative learning teams to produce lessons and lesson material to teach a mathematical concept, such as times tables to year 3 and 4. The children will get the opportunity to finish resources this week and hopefully teach their session to a group of the younger children. From the quality resources I have seen made, we teachers will soon all be out of a job!!!
SCIENCE
This week in Science we will be continuing with our topic on Changing State. The week’s theme is UPS and DOWNS and we will be Measuring water temperature from freezing point to boiling point. Our objectives for this week are to understand…
· that the boiling point of pure water is 100 ºC, and that beyond that point further heating does not result in any further rise in temperature;
· that the freezing point of pure water is 0 ºC;
and ………
· to obtain evidence by careful observation and measurement;
· to identify patterns in data and to use these to make predictions;
· to explain the patterns they observe in terms of scientific knowledge and understanding.
TOPIC – DRAGON’S DEN
As we explained before half-term we have invited the children, in groups, to come up with a new concept that they will make and market, if the 'Dragons' agree to give them the funding! The excitement generated by this project as been huge and the children are buzzing with ideas for their concept. This week children are still at the planning and design stage of their products and will continue to complete marking research on their product by completing questionnaires and surveys. We are still trying to get across to the children that although some of the ideas are amazing, they do need to be products that can actually be DESIGNED and CONSTRUCTED with minimal work. We have a wonderful new ice-cream design in production, but how easy this will be to make is debatable!! Any help from home in encouraging the children to design products that can be created would be really helpful!!
We hope that this topic will encompass the creative curriculum in a fun, engaging manner. A cross-curricular topic allows for Design Technology, Art, Science, English (Speaking and Listening) and Maths to be taught concurrently.
That’s all for this fun-filled, super-packed week. Have a great one!
The Year 5/6 Team
Hope you had a fantastic half-term break and are raring to go for the last half term before the summer break. This is a really short term and we are hoping it will be fun (and sun) all the way!
END OF YEAR PRODUCTION
We still have a lot of work to fit in as well as a year 5/6 end of year PRODUCTION. We really enjoyed the singing element of last year’s end of year performance and so this is the route we felt it would be good to go down this year. We felt we would like a slight twist though, so we have decided that we are going to showcase music and artists throughout the decades, starting with the 1940’s right through to present day! This should make sure that there is something to tickle every musical taste bud. Dust off those Michael Jackson wigs, and blue suede shoes NOW!
No doubt you have already pestered your parents with ideas of who you would like to be and what song you will possibly be singing/performing/miming to.
As always, we need to make sure that the year 6 take priority for the parts in the production, however we will need year 5’s as well. Remember year 5’s that your time will come next year!
We are hoping that during this next week children will have a good idea of children’s roles within the production, and you can therefore start practicing at home, and thinking about costume ideas. We realise that some costumes will be more complicated to put together than others and so want to let parents know ASAP. We will not be giving out specific costume letters as we feel that it is much easier for you to look at the artist your child is impersonating and choose a look you feel is easiest to replicate. As soon as we know details of performance dates we will send them home.
LITERACY
Year 6
A few years ago we trialled teaching some Shakespeare to year 6! We were so impressed with the children’s enthusiasm and understanding we thought we would try it again this year! We will spend the start of the week finding out some information about the Bard himself. Later in the week we will begin to read and respond to a ‘child friendly’ version of Romeo and Juliet. Although this still has a lot of Shakespearian language included it is much more accessible for children. Whilst reading the play we will act out certain parts, create poetry, take part in quizzes and generally absorb ourselves in the play. This should take us up to the end of half-term and also be brilliant transition for key stage 3. We will keep you updated as to how we get on with this project. In the meantime web sites that may help with Shakespeare include the following…..
www.shakespeareforkidz.com
www.shakespeareforkids.co.uk
www.shakespeare.org.uk
Year 5
We will be starting on a new topic about Myths & Legends. We have covered aspects of Myths & Legends before, however this will give us the opportunity to delve deeper and gain a deeper understanding of this genre. Targets this week, will include the following….
Style: Language effects
Use powerful verbs to show character.
Use well-chosen phrases or vocabulary to engage the reader.
Interpretation and response
Identify and discuss issues locating evidence in the text.
Knowing how text works
Identify features of different fiction genre, i.e. myths and legends.
To identify the features of myths.
To investigate how characters are presented.
Write character sketches, focusing on small details to evoke sympathy or dislike.
To adapt writing for different readers and
purposes.
To understand how paragraphs or chapters are used to collect and order ideas.
MATHS
Year 5
The curriculum continues as usual and the children in both Mrs Morgan’s and Miss Wright’s group will be learning the following…
To subtract integers of up to 10,000 using formal and informal methods.
To subtract numbers to 2 decimal places.
As usual loads of games and interactive learning will take place to make these topic as fun as possible.
By the end of the week children,
MUST use an informal method to subtract integers up to 10,000.
SHOULD use both formal and informal methods to subtract integers up to 10,000.
COULD begin to subtract numbers to 2 decimal places.
Try logging on to www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk and following the Maths links for some excellent speed subtraction games to help you with these objectives.
Year 6
We will be embarking on some transition work to ease the year 6’s into the Mathematics required for the High School. Much of this knowledge is what we have already acquired, but just requires the children to think in a more sophisticated manner. The DFES provide a pack of material for children to further develop their understanding, and we will build on this in school. We will be consolidating lots of learning, but also favouring a more problem solving route where children are encouraged to think for themselves more, and see patterns in number and data. This sounds really hard going, but lots of fun will be had, and children will feel more confident about what will be expected of them in September.
The week before half-term the children worked in collaborative learning teams to produce lessons and lesson material to teach a mathematical concept, such as times tables to year 3 and 4. The children will get the opportunity to finish resources this week and hopefully teach their session to a group of the younger children. From the quality resources I have seen made, we teachers will soon all be out of a job!!!
SCIENCE
This week in Science we will be continuing with our topic on Changing State. The week’s theme is UPS and DOWNS and we will be Measuring water temperature from freezing point to boiling point. Our objectives for this week are to understand…
· that the boiling point of pure water is 100 ºC, and that beyond that point further heating does not result in any further rise in temperature;
· that the freezing point of pure water is 0 ºC;
and ………
· to obtain evidence by careful observation and measurement;
· to identify patterns in data and to use these to make predictions;
· to explain the patterns they observe in terms of scientific knowledge and understanding.
TOPIC – DRAGON’S DEN
As we explained before half-term we have invited the children, in groups, to come up with a new concept that they will make and market, if the 'Dragons' agree to give them the funding! The excitement generated by this project as been huge and the children are buzzing with ideas for their concept. This week children are still at the planning and design stage of their products and will continue to complete marking research on their product by completing questionnaires and surveys. We are still trying to get across to the children that although some of the ideas are amazing, they do need to be products that can actually be DESIGNED and CONSTRUCTED with minimal work. We have a wonderful new ice-cream design in production, but how easy this will be to make is debatable!! Any help from home in encouraging the children to design products that can be created would be really helpful!!
We hope that this topic will encompass the creative curriculum in a fun, engaging manner. A cross-curricular topic allows for Design Technology, Art, Science, English (Speaking and Listening) and Maths to be taught concurrently.
That’s all for this fun-filled, super-packed week. Have a great one!
The Year 5/6 Team
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