Hi everyone and welcome to the second half of the Spring Term, hopefully this half term we will see a lot more of Spring like weather!!
This is a very busy and important half term in Year 5/6 as this is the final run up to our tests.
On Tuesday this week we will be having a assembly in school about recycling. Someone from Warrington Council will come into school to talk to the children about this important matter and they will also bring with them a rapping robot to get the message across to the children.
Ash Wednesday
This week sees the start of Lent. We will be holding a short service in the hall to mark Ash Wednesday and the children will receive their ashes in the classrooms afterwards. Should you wish to receive ashes in school, please join us at 9am in the hall.
To read about the traditions and customs of Ash Wednesday, go to http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/easter/ashwednesday.htm
Wednesday this week sees the start of cycling training for some of our Year 6 children. Your child will know if they have been chosen to take part in the training as they will have received a letter last half term. Please remember that the children will need to bring their own bike in on this day. They will also need so old warm clothes and a coat in order to take part in the training.
This weeks curriculum:-
The Year 6's this week will be carrying on with their revision of reading and writing tests. This weeks we are back on reading and will be looking at how to tackling inference and deduction questions. Remember children to keep reading for 15 minutes each night and try and beat how much you have read the previous night.
Here are some websites to help the Year 6 children with all the areas they need to revise:-
http://www.icteachers.co.uk/children/children_sats.htm SATs questions, you can choose which subject you want to look at.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/index.shtml our old favourite bbc revisewise.
http://www.yourschoolsite.co.uk/tests/Introduction.html SATS question quiz.
http://www.buzzin.net/revision_tips/revtips.htm revision tips.
http://www.st-josephs-pickering.n-yorks.sch.uk/past_test_papers.htm download SATs papers.
http://www.samlearning.co.uk/primary/index.html revision exercises and SATs questions.
http://www.teachingtreasures.com.au/maths/year_6_maths_true_or_false.htm maths true or false quiz.
http://www.counton.org/games/mathonaire/ who wants to be a mathonaire.
http://www.subtangent.com/maths/games.php lots of maths games to help you revise, I love the Weakest Link.
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/revision/engindex.html reading comprehension practise.
http://www.channel4learning.net/sites/essentials/science/index.shtml choose a science area to revise.
http://www.teachingandlearningresources.co.uk/millionscience.html who wants to be a Science Millionaire.
The Year 5's will be finishing their final pieces of work on persuasion this week, they have really worked hard and enjoyed this topic.
This week the Year 5's will be completing and improving their argument and re-writing it as a letter written to persuade. We look forward to reading their finished pieces of writing.
Try these websites to review your learning:-http://www.kidsonthenet.org.uk/dragonsville/poster.htm design your own persuasive poster.
http://www.little-g.com/shockwave/hotel.html answer some simple questions and design your own travel advert.
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/writing/index.asp?topic=Persuasive persuasive writing workshop.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/english/revision_bites/argument1.shtml revision of persuasive writing.
http://www.lancsngfl.ac.uk/nationalstrategy/literacy/index.php?category_id=248&page_no=&preview=1&s=!B121cf29d70ec8a3d54a33343010cc2 points for persuasive writing and other genres.
http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc-home/vtc-ks2-home/vtc-ks2-eng/vtc-ks2-eng-writing/vtc-ks2-eng-writing-genres/vtc-ks2-eng-writing-newspapers.htm understanding persuasive writing.
I know there are lots of websites here but now that the children have their own laptops they do not need to be hogging the home computer!!
Numeracy
Mrs Morgan's and Mr Barker's groups will be carrying on with their revision. After completing a past paper before the half term, we now have a really clear idea of what each individual child needs to help them improve their levels.
Science
Again, our Year 6's will be continuing with their revision.
Our Year 5's will be moving onto the topic of Changing Sounds. This week the children should learn:
that sounds are made when objects or materials vibrate
to make careful observations
to draw conclusions about sounds from their observations
Topic
After our assembly on Tuesday we will be using our topic of the environment to create our own recycling raps using the inspiration of the rapping robot. This, I am sure will prove to be a very interesting and fun activity!!
That's all for this week.
Year 5/6 Team.
Sunday, 22 February 2009
Sunday, 8 February 2009
Week Beginning 9th February 2009
Hi everyone and welcome to the last week of the half term.
First of all we would like to thank everyone for supporting out book fair last week, it was a great success and we were so pleased with the amount of Year 5 and 6 children who entered into the spirit of book week and got dressed up on Friday. You all looked fantastic, well done.
We would also like to thank Miss Knight for organising the week.
This week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we will be holding out parent consultations. You will have received your time slot by now. The appointment times are 10 minutes long and we do try to stick to these times. If you feel you need longer then pleased arrange another convenient time with your child's teacher.
There will be a mass held in the school hall at 9.15am on Friday, on the theme of Communion. This is to tie in with our current Here I Am theme and will be led by staff and children from Key Stage 2. All primary schools in the Parish are following the program and each term, a mass will be held on school, on the theme of the Here I Am topic. You are warmly invited to attend, but please remember that space is at a premium in the school hall. If you have prams or buggies, then please feel free to leave them in the infant area if needed.
On Friday afternoon Mr Slavin has arranged a football match with Penketh South Primary School which will take place on the school field at 2pm. The children already know whether they are in the team or not. We would like to thank Mr Slavin for giving up his time to arrange football training each week and also for arranging the game. We would also like to thank Mr Phocou and other parents who have been involved in helping with the football.
Assessment and Review Week
As you know the last week of each half term is assessment and review week. We will be reviewing and assessing all the objectives that the children have covered in this half term which will help to inform our planning next half term.
Literacy
The children have really enjoyed making their electronic books for reception and year 1. We may need to put some finishing touches to them at the beginning of the week but then we will be ready to share them with the younger members of our school. The children cannot wait to do this and we really feel that we have some budding authors and illustrators in the making.
We also be completing an assessed piece of writing this week which we will mark and give the children targets for the next half term.
Maths
Mrs Morgan's and Mr Barker's groups completed a past paper last week. The children will be getting their results this week and we will spend some time working on the subject they found difficult.
Miss Wright's and Mr Slavin's groups will be looking at subtraction next Monday and Tuesday. We will look quickly at counting on and move to column subtraction using the exchange method for subtracting 2 and 3 digit numbers.
On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we are going to give the children the Y5 paper they took last term to see what progress they have made. The children will complete the paper and then we will go over the answers with them.
Here are some websites to help with subtraction:-
Subtraction Web Sites
Easyhttp://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/maths/big%20sums/big20sums%20subtract.html
Medium/Hardhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/numbers/wholenumbers/addsubtract/mental/flash11.shtml http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/subtractiontest.htmlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/maths/tests/subtraction.shtml
Challenging Puzzles/Gameshttp://nrich.maths.org/public/index.php
Science
We now have a program on the big laptops which helps us assess the children's learning in each area of the science curriculum.
The children complete a short test on the computer and we can then go into their results and see what they have and haven't understood.
This week they will complete the test on our topic 'more about dissolving' and we will then address an areas that need revisiting.
Topic
Last week the children began to make power points on an area they were concerned about in the environment. This week we will be finishing the power points and then sharing them with the rest of the class.
A lot of thought and research has gone into these presentations and we can't wait to see the results.
That's all for this half term. We hope to see you at the parent consultation meetings and wish you a very happy and restful half term.
Year 5/6 Team.
First of all we would like to thank everyone for supporting out book fair last week, it was a great success and we were so pleased with the amount of Year 5 and 6 children who entered into the spirit of book week and got dressed up on Friday. You all looked fantastic, well done.
We would also like to thank Miss Knight for organising the week.
This week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we will be holding out parent consultations. You will have received your time slot by now. The appointment times are 10 minutes long and we do try to stick to these times. If you feel you need longer then pleased arrange another convenient time with your child's teacher.
There will be a mass held in the school hall at 9.15am on Friday, on the theme of Communion. This is to tie in with our current Here I Am theme and will be led by staff and children from Key Stage 2. All primary schools in the Parish are following the program and each term, a mass will be held on school, on the theme of the Here I Am topic. You are warmly invited to attend, but please remember that space is at a premium in the school hall. If you have prams or buggies, then please feel free to leave them in the infant area if needed.
On Friday afternoon Mr Slavin has arranged a football match with Penketh South Primary School which will take place on the school field at 2pm. The children already know whether they are in the team or not. We would like to thank Mr Slavin for giving up his time to arrange football training each week and also for arranging the game. We would also like to thank Mr Phocou and other parents who have been involved in helping with the football.
Assessment and Review Week
As you know the last week of each half term is assessment and review week. We will be reviewing and assessing all the objectives that the children have covered in this half term which will help to inform our planning next half term.
Literacy
The children have really enjoyed making their electronic books for reception and year 1. We may need to put some finishing touches to them at the beginning of the week but then we will be ready to share them with the younger members of our school. The children cannot wait to do this and we really feel that we have some budding authors and illustrators in the making.
We also be completing an assessed piece of writing this week which we will mark and give the children targets for the next half term.
Maths
Mrs Morgan's and Mr Barker's groups completed a past paper last week. The children will be getting their results this week and we will spend some time working on the subject they found difficult.
Miss Wright's and Mr Slavin's groups will be looking at subtraction next Monday and Tuesday. We will look quickly at counting on and move to column subtraction using the exchange method for subtracting 2 and 3 digit numbers.
On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we are going to give the children the Y5 paper they took last term to see what progress they have made. The children will complete the paper and then we will go over the answers with them.
Here are some websites to help with subtraction:-
Subtraction Web Sites
Easyhttp://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/maths/big%20sums/big20sums%20subtract.html
Medium/Hardhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/numbers/wholenumbers/addsubtract/mental/flash11.shtml http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/subtractiontest.htmlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/maths/tests/subtraction.shtml
Challenging Puzzles/Gameshttp://nrich.maths.org/public/index.php
Science
We now have a program on the big laptops which helps us assess the children's learning in each area of the science curriculum.
The children complete a short test on the computer and we can then go into their results and see what they have and haven't understood.
This week they will complete the test on our topic 'more about dissolving' and we will then address an areas that need revisiting.
Topic
Last week the children began to make power points on an area they were concerned about in the environment. This week we will be finishing the power points and then sharing them with the rest of the class.
A lot of thought and research has gone into these presentations and we can't wait to see the results.
That's all for this half term. We hope to see you at the parent consultation meetings and wish you a very happy and restful half term.
Year 5/6 Team.
Sunday, 1 February 2009
Week Beginning 2nd February 2009
Hi everyone and welcome to book week.
First of all we would like to thank the Year 6 children for their excellent behaviour while attending Young Citizen 2009 at the Peace Centre on Friday. The Year 5 children were also extremely well behaved while in school.
Thank you children we are really proud of you when we take you out of school.
On Wednesday evening there will be a meeting held in school for the parents of Year 5 children who will make their first Reconciliation this year. Please send the reply slip back so we know how many people will be attending this meeting.
We have the book fair in school this week and as usual on book week we base a lot of our curriculum work on books to tie in with this event.
Please do come in and have a look at the book fair this week after school. The children will have the opportunity to browse the book fair on Monday and choose a wish list of books for their class which parents can donate to school. These books will have a sticker inside telling everyone that your child has donated the book.
The friends of St. Vincent's are also holding a cake sale on Friday afternoon to tie in with the book fair.
Please remember that for each book you buy school will receive commission to buy resources. Thank you.
We have been monitoring the children's diaries and have noticed that the number of comments made about children's reading is dwindling. Please make sure that you hear your child read each week and make a comment in their reading diary.
We have asked the children to read for 15 minutes each night and then try to speed
up the next night to beat the amount of pages the read the night before. This is because 15 minutes is the amount of time they get to read the booklet in the reading SAT so they do need to fully concentrate for this amount of time on reading and be able to take all the information they have read in.
We will be monitoring the children's diaries again this week and will let you know the percentage of children who have been heard read that week.
Curriculum...
In literacy this week we will be concentrating on the theme of book week and basing our work on our favourite books and authors. Please take the time this week to let your children look through their book collection and decide which their favourite books and authors are.
We will be using the laptops to research our favourite author and then write a biographies of the author.
We will also be writing reviews of our favourite book, looking at illustrators and doing art work based on illustrators work and sharing our favourite books with each other.
On Friday the children will be allowed to come to school dressed as their favourite character from a book. Please ensure that if your child is taking part in this they do come dressed as a character from a book and not from a movie. There will be a prize for the best costume in each class.
Numeracy
Mrs Morgan's and Mr Barker's groups will be continuing with their revision this week. The children are working really hard on this and we can see the benefits in their class work from the revision they have been doing at home. We feel that having the mini laptops is making a big difference with this. We would love to hear how you feel about this , if you have any comments about how the mini laptops our helping your child at home please let us know through the diaries.
We think that we are raising a generation of computer technicians as the vastness of the children's knowledge in sorting them out never ceases to amaze us!!
Keep it up guys we are really pleased with you!!
Miss Wright's and Mr Slavin's groups will be looking at strategies for adding strings of 1, 2 and 3 digit numbers and multiples of 10.
The will be looking at all the possible strategies and then choosing the one they feel the most comfortable using.
Try these websites to help:-
http://www.ictgames.com/technowithflock.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/numbers/wholenumbers/addsubtract/mental/flash9.shtml
http://www.10ticks.co.uk/s_showGames.aspx?gameID=5#gamesContent
Topic
Our topic this week will involve us becoming authors and illustrators ourselves. We will spend the time designing and writing our own books aimed our foundation stage and Year 1 children. We will then make them into electronic books using software on our school computers and scanning in the illustrations that the children have prepared to go with their books.
After the books are completed we will invite the younger children to book readings from the authors.
We will then hope to put the finished books on our school website.
This promises to be a really interesting and exciting week!
Hope to see you at the book fair.
Year 5/6 Team.
First of all we would like to thank the Year 6 children for their excellent behaviour while attending Young Citizen 2009 at the Peace Centre on Friday. The Year 5 children were also extremely well behaved while in school.
Thank you children we are really proud of you when we take you out of school.
On Wednesday evening there will be a meeting held in school for the parents of Year 5 children who will make their first Reconciliation this year. Please send the reply slip back so we know how many people will be attending this meeting.
We have the book fair in school this week and as usual on book week we base a lot of our curriculum work on books to tie in with this event.
Please do come in and have a look at the book fair this week after school. The children will have the opportunity to browse the book fair on Monday and choose a wish list of books for their class which parents can donate to school. These books will have a sticker inside telling everyone that your child has donated the book.
The friends of St. Vincent's are also holding a cake sale on Friday afternoon to tie in with the book fair.
Please remember that for each book you buy school will receive commission to buy resources. Thank you.
We have been monitoring the children's diaries and have noticed that the number of comments made about children's reading is dwindling. Please make sure that you hear your child read each week and make a comment in their reading diary.
We have asked the children to read for 15 minutes each night and then try to speed
up the next night to beat the amount of pages the read the night before. This is because 15 minutes is the amount of time they get to read the booklet in the reading SAT so they do need to fully concentrate for this amount of time on reading and be able to take all the information they have read in.
We will be monitoring the children's diaries again this week and will let you know the percentage of children who have been heard read that week.
Curriculum...
In literacy this week we will be concentrating on the theme of book week and basing our work on our favourite books and authors. Please take the time this week to let your children look through their book collection and decide which their favourite books and authors are.
We will be using the laptops to research our favourite author and then write a biographies of the author.
We will also be writing reviews of our favourite book, looking at illustrators and doing art work based on illustrators work and sharing our favourite books with each other.
On Friday the children will be allowed to come to school dressed as their favourite character from a book. Please ensure that if your child is taking part in this they do come dressed as a character from a book and not from a movie. There will be a prize for the best costume in each class.
Numeracy
Mrs Morgan's and Mr Barker's groups will be continuing with their revision this week. The children are working really hard on this and we can see the benefits in their class work from the revision they have been doing at home. We feel that having the mini laptops is making a big difference with this. We would love to hear how you feel about this , if you have any comments about how the mini laptops our helping your child at home please let us know through the diaries.
We think that we are raising a generation of computer technicians as the vastness of the children's knowledge in sorting them out never ceases to amaze us!!
Keep it up guys we are really pleased with you!!
Miss Wright's and Mr Slavin's groups will be looking at strategies for adding strings of 1, 2 and 3 digit numbers and multiples of 10.
The will be looking at all the possible strategies and then choosing the one they feel the most comfortable using.
Try these websites to help:-
http://www.ictgames.com/technowithflock.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/numbers/wholenumbers/addsubtract/mental/flash9.shtml
http://www.10ticks.co.uk/s_showGames.aspx?gameID=5#gamesContent
Topic
Our topic this week will involve us becoming authors and illustrators ourselves. We will spend the time designing and writing our own books aimed our foundation stage and Year 1 children. We will then make them into electronic books using software on our school computers and scanning in the illustrations that the children have prepared to go with their books.
After the books are completed we will invite the younger children to book readings from the authors.
We will then hope to put the finished books on our school website.
This promises to be a really interesting and exciting week!
Hope to see you at the book fair.
Year 5/6 Team.
Sunday, 25 January 2009
Week Beginning 25th January 2009
Hi everyone and welcome to the last week of January, we just don't know where the time goes!!
First of all we would like to say thank you to the 6 children who attended the athletics competition at St. Gregory's on Friday. The children really did us proud with their behaviour and they mixed really well with both the other primary school children and the Year 10 sports leaders from St. Greg's. We did really well in the competition coming 2nd out of all the other feeder school. Great work children, you were fantastic.
Thank you also to the parents and grandparents that helped with transporting the children to the high school, we couldn't take part in these events without you.
Friends of St Vincent’s
The friends held a meeting in school this Friday at 3pm, in response to a dwindling turnout at their evening meetings. There were a few new faces, but they would love to have many more! They have helped to provide many of the new equipment and resources that we have in school, and the greater their numbers, the easier the workload! They have offered to make some drawstring bags for us, in order to store some of the new playground equipment. To help with this, they have asked that if anyone has any material which they wish to donate, then please send it into school. Maybe you have some old duvet covers that you no longer need, or some material that you promised you make something from! Many thanks in anticipation of your generosity.
On Friday this week our Year 6 children will be visiting the Peace Centre to attend Young Citizen 2009. They will be attending lots of different workshops including road safety, bicycle safety, fire safety etc. This is a valuable experience for the children and also an enjoyable one. We still have a few permission slips outstanding. This is becoming a real problem now, please encourage your child to give you any letters that have come home from school straight away and get them to put them straight back in their bags ready for school the next day. Previously we have rang parents on the morning of the trip and asked for their permission. We will no longer do this, so if your child does not have a slip then they cannot go out of school.
On the last week of term we will be holding our Spring Term parent's evenings. You should have a received a letter about this last week. We still have lots of slips outstanding, please ensure that you have sent beck your letter so we can avoid sending you out an appointment time that you cannot make. Thank you.
This week's curriculum...
Literacy
Our Year 5's will be continuing with their unit of work on persuasion. This week they will read and spell words through: identifying phonemes in speech and writing; blending phonemes
for reading; segmenting words into phonemes for spelling. Use independent spelling strategies, including: sounding out and spelling using phonemes. Identify how and why paragraphs are used to organise and sequence information. From examples of persuasive writing, investigate how style and vocabulary are used to convince the intended reader. To assemble and sequence points in order to plan the presentation of a point of view.
They will do this by reading different arguments and identifying the features and then moving on to planning their won persuasive argument.
Our Year 6's will be concentrating on writing this week as we will alternate between reading and writing each week.
We will be looking at examples of writing and which levels the writing had been given and we will also be looking at mark schemes to see where we can pick up marks in our writing.
We will be working on our VCOP (vocabulary, connectives, openers and punctuation) and trying to see how we can improve some of these areas. We will also be levelling some writing ourselves to see where extra marks can be picked up.
If you would like to have a go at some writing at home this week try some of these ideas (both for Year 5 and 6).
Writing an argument
You read a quote in the newspaper which says: ‘All children are mindless hooligans who watch too much television and have no idea of the way they should behave. If I had my way, they would all be put in the army, as it didn’t do me any harm.’ (Mr D. Green) Write a reply to the editor, arguing against the views in the letter.
Recounting events
Something happened on your way home from school last night. Recount the event to your friend.
Newletters
Your school is organising a sponsored 12 hour dance-athon for charity. Write a newsletter to encourage people to take part in the event.
Science fiction stories
The year is 2134 and the Intergalactic Space Police are on the trail of a master criminal, who has stolen the Life Diamond (the diamond at the centre of the earth, that controls the planet’s temperature.) Write a science fiction story based on this idea.
Stories with a dilemma
Jenny and her friends face a problem. The Lard Street Gang have called them soft because they won’t smoke cigarettes. Jenny doesn’t want to lose face with her friends but she doesn’t want to start smoking either. Write a story about what Jenny decides to do.
Stories with a twist
Ben could hear a noise. It was coming from his cellar. He decides to investigate. What does Ben find in the cellar? Tell the story to the end of his investigation, but try to include a twist at the end.
Fantasy adventures
Blakely has been captured by the evil high lords and put to work as a slave in the salt mine. He escapes and starts a journey back home to Little Hamlet. On his way home, Blakely meets a friendly creature and is nearly captured. Write a fantasy adventure based on this idea.
Numeracy
Miss Wright's and Mr Slavin's groups will be concentrating this week on area and perimeter.
They will be calculating the area and perimeter of regular/irregular polygons and using a formula to calculate the area of a rectangle.
Try these websites to get a head start:-
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/measures.htm#Area
http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/maths/perimeter_and_area/index.html
http://www.mathplayground.com/area_perimeter.html
Mrs Morgan's and Mr Barker's group will be continuing their work with percentages and decimals as we spent more time than we thought last week on ordering fractions.
Topic
Last week in our environment topic we did some art work based on the Tin Forest. We did the colourful aspect of the forest. This week we will be doing contrasting art work using tin foil to create out pictures.
If you have any spare tin foil at home please send it into school for your child to use. Thank you.
Drama
Ms Chapel could not make it school for the Year 6's drama session last week, we are expecting her this week so hopefully the drama will continue.
Finally, you should have received a letter informing you of the website Mr Worrall has set up to help combat the problems some people are having connecting their mini laptops to the internet. The website address is www.stvincentstech.co.uk there is lots of useful information on the site and if you are still having problems you can ask questions. Once again we would like to thank Mr Worrall for giving up his time and expertise to help us, we really appreciate it.
Have a great week.
Year 5/6 Team.
First of all we would like to say thank you to the 6 children who attended the athletics competition at St. Gregory's on Friday. The children really did us proud with their behaviour and they mixed really well with both the other primary school children and the Year 10 sports leaders from St. Greg's. We did really well in the competition coming 2nd out of all the other feeder school. Great work children, you were fantastic.
Thank you also to the parents and grandparents that helped with transporting the children to the high school, we couldn't take part in these events without you.
Friends of St Vincent’s
The friends held a meeting in school this Friday at 3pm, in response to a dwindling turnout at their evening meetings. There were a few new faces, but they would love to have many more! They have helped to provide many of the new equipment and resources that we have in school, and the greater their numbers, the easier the workload! They have offered to make some drawstring bags for us, in order to store some of the new playground equipment. To help with this, they have asked that if anyone has any material which they wish to donate, then please send it into school. Maybe you have some old duvet covers that you no longer need, or some material that you promised you make something from! Many thanks in anticipation of your generosity.
On Friday this week our Year 6 children will be visiting the Peace Centre to attend Young Citizen 2009. They will be attending lots of different workshops including road safety, bicycle safety, fire safety etc. This is a valuable experience for the children and also an enjoyable one. We still have a few permission slips outstanding. This is becoming a real problem now, please encourage your child to give you any letters that have come home from school straight away and get them to put them straight back in their bags ready for school the next day. Previously we have rang parents on the morning of the trip and asked for their permission. We will no longer do this, so if your child does not have a slip then they cannot go out of school.
On the last week of term we will be holding our Spring Term parent's evenings. You should have a received a letter about this last week. We still have lots of slips outstanding, please ensure that you have sent beck your letter so we can avoid sending you out an appointment time that you cannot make. Thank you.
This week's curriculum...
Literacy
Our Year 5's will be continuing with their unit of work on persuasion. This week they will read and spell words through: identifying phonemes in speech and writing; blending phonemes
for reading; segmenting words into phonemes for spelling. Use independent spelling strategies, including: sounding out and spelling using phonemes. Identify how and why paragraphs are used to organise and sequence information. From examples of persuasive writing, investigate how style and vocabulary are used to convince the intended reader. To assemble and sequence points in order to plan the presentation of a point of view.
They will do this by reading different arguments and identifying the features and then moving on to planning their won persuasive argument.
Our Year 6's will be concentrating on writing this week as we will alternate between reading and writing each week.
We will be looking at examples of writing and which levels the writing had been given and we will also be looking at mark schemes to see where we can pick up marks in our writing.
We will be working on our VCOP (vocabulary, connectives, openers and punctuation) and trying to see how we can improve some of these areas. We will also be levelling some writing ourselves to see where extra marks can be picked up.
If you would like to have a go at some writing at home this week try some of these ideas (both for Year 5 and 6).
Writing an argument
You read a quote in the newspaper which says: ‘All children are mindless hooligans who watch too much television and have no idea of the way they should behave. If I had my way, they would all be put in the army, as it didn’t do me any harm.’ (Mr D. Green) Write a reply to the editor, arguing against the views in the letter.
Recounting events
Something happened on your way home from school last night. Recount the event to your friend.
Newletters
Your school is organising a sponsored 12 hour dance-athon for charity. Write a newsletter to encourage people to take part in the event.
Science fiction stories
The year is 2134 and the Intergalactic Space Police are on the trail of a master criminal, who has stolen the Life Diamond (the diamond at the centre of the earth, that controls the planet’s temperature.) Write a science fiction story based on this idea.
Stories with a dilemma
Jenny and her friends face a problem. The Lard Street Gang have called them soft because they won’t smoke cigarettes. Jenny doesn’t want to lose face with her friends but she doesn’t want to start smoking either. Write a story about what Jenny decides to do.
Stories with a twist
Ben could hear a noise. It was coming from his cellar. He decides to investigate. What does Ben find in the cellar? Tell the story to the end of his investigation, but try to include a twist at the end.
Fantasy adventures
Blakely has been captured by the evil high lords and put to work as a slave in the salt mine. He escapes and starts a journey back home to Little Hamlet. On his way home, Blakely meets a friendly creature and is nearly captured. Write a fantasy adventure based on this idea.
Numeracy
Miss Wright's and Mr Slavin's groups will be concentrating this week on area and perimeter.
They will be calculating the area and perimeter of regular/irregular polygons and using a formula to calculate the area of a rectangle.
Try these websites to get a head start:-
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/measures.htm#Area
http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/maths/perimeter_and_area/index.html
http://www.mathplayground.com/area_perimeter.html
Mrs Morgan's and Mr Barker's group will be continuing their work with percentages and decimals as we spent more time than we thought last week on ordering fractions.
Topic
Last week in our environment topic we did some art work based on the Tin Forest. We did the colourful aspect of the forest. This week we will be doing contrasting art work using tin foil to create out pictures.
If you have any spare tin foil at home please send it into school for your child to use. Thank you.
Drama
Ms Chapel could not make it school for the Year 6's drama session last week, we are expecting her this week so hopefully the drama will continue.
Finally, you should have received a letter informing you of the website Mr Worrall has set up to help combat the problems some people are having connecting their mini laptops to the internet. The website address is www.stvincentstech.co.uk there is lots of useful information on the site and if you are still having problems you can ask questions. Once again we would like to thank Mr Worrall for giving up his time and expertise to help us, we really appreciate it.
Have a great week.
Year 5/6 Team.
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
Week Beginning 19th January 2009
Hi everyone.
First of all can I apologise for the blogspot not being updated at the weekend this week. I have been decorating and my internet connection was stood on by a workman!! I have been waiting for a new one to be delivered and have finally received it. It is really surprising how useless you feel without the internet.
Due to this happening to me I do realise how frustrating it is for the children to be given their brand new laptops and then not being able to connect to the internet at home.
From the sounds of things the majority or children are now up and running with their home connections, which it great, thank you for persevering with this and trying everything you can think of at home and also offering advise to each other.
For those of you who are still not managing to get on line, Mr Worrall has kindly offered to set up a technical support website to help with any problems that we cannot deal with. You will receive a letter with this web address on and will be able to look at the information that is already on and if you cannot find the answer to your query you can post a question to be answered.
Mr Worrall is doing this out of the goodness of his heart and we are very, very grateful for his time and efforts.
On Friday this week 6 of our Year 6 children will be taking part in an indoor athletics tournament at St Gregory's High School. If your child has been chosen you will have received a letter giving you information about this event. We will let you know how the children get on next week.
This week's curriculum......
Literacy
Year 5 will be continuing with their unit of work on Persuasive Writing. They really enjoyed beginning this topic last week.
This week they will be learning to identify the use of powerful verbs, identifying different
types of text, e.g. their content, structure, vocabulary, style, layout and purpose. Make short
notes, e.g. by abbreviating ideas, selecting key words, listing … .
Fill out brief notes into connected prose. From examples of persuasive writing, investigate how
style and vocabulary are used to convince the intended reader.
This week they will move to designing their own persuasive advert. We look forward to seeing some fantastic results. If you have magazines at home it would be helpful for the children to have a look at some adverts to see how they are presented.
Year 6 will be continuing with their revision. We have been very impressed with how hard the children are working at home as well as in school and we hope that they continue to keep up the good work throughout their revision programme.
This week we are looking at tackling longer questions in the reading test. These are 3 mark questions that children usually find difficult to answer. We will be starting off the week answering them in pairs and then go onto answering them ourselves. We will then look at the mark schemes for the tests to check what the expected answers are.
Have a look at last week's blogspots for websites to help with the reading test.
Numeracy
Miss Wright's and Mr Slavin's groups will be continuing their work on fractions but this week extending their work to include decimals and percentages.
There are loads of websites to help with this subject some our favourites are:-
http://www.mathszone.co.uk/
http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/maths/contents08fracdecperratprop.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/maths/activities/percentages.shtml
Mrs Morgan's and Mr Barker's groups will be continuing with their revision programme. We have noticed this week that the children are struggling with ordering fractions we have worked on this in class but it may form a good focus for your child's maths revision this week. The children have been on websites this week to help with this subject so they are aware of what can help, their revision books will also come in handy.
Science
We are continuing our dissolving topic and also continuing with revision for our Year 6's. This week the children will be focusing on living things.
Practical science this week will focus on the Earth, Sun and Moon.
Try these websites:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/science/living_things.shtml
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/revision/Science/living.htm
http://www.thegrid.org.uk/learning/science/ks1-2/resources/index.shtml
http://www.crickweb.co.uk/ks2science.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/science/activities/earth_sun_moon.shtml
http://www.thegrid.org.uk/learning/science/ks1-2/resources/index.shtml
http://www.engineeringinteract.org/teachers5.htm
Topic
This week in our Environment Topic we will be looking at Pollution. We will first look at our local area and then focus on Pollution around the world.
This could be a good opportunity to talk to your child about the need to recycle.
We will also be taking part in this year's Yellow Woods Challenge. The challenge this year will be slightly different. In previous years the children have brought old Yellow Pages into school. This year as Warrington now have blue bins you can recycle the Yellow Pages in the blue bin and the children just need to bring the front page into school.
Have a look at these websites:-
http://www.recyclezone.org.uk/tz_curriculum.aspx
http://www.ace.mmu.ac.uk/Resources/Fact_Sheets/Key_Stage_3/Air_Pollution/pdf/glossary.pdf
http://www.thegrid.org.uk/learning/geography/ks1-2/resources/
Thanks for visiting the blogspot, see you next week.
Year 5/6 Team.
First of all can I apologise for the blogspot not being updated at the weekend this week. I have been decorating and my internet connection was stood on by a workman!! I have been waiting for a new one to be delivered and have finally received it. It is really surprising how useless you feel without the internet.
Due to this happening to me I do realise how frustrating it is for the children to be given their brand new laptops and then not being able to connect to the internet at home.
From the sounds of things the majority or children are now up and running with their home connections, which it great, thank you for persevering with this and trying everything you can think of at home and also offering advise to each other.
For those of you who are still not managing to get on line, Mr Worrall has kindly offered to set up a technical support website to help with any problems that we cannot deal with. You will receive a letter with this web address on and will be able to look at the information that is already on and if you cannot find the answer to your query you can post a question to be answered.
Mr Worrall is doing this out of the goodness of his heart and we are very, very grateful for his time and efforts.
On Friday this week 6 of our Year 6 children will be taking part in an indoor athletics tournament at St Gregory's High School. If your child has been chosen you will have received a letter giving you information about this event. We will let you know how the children get on next week.
This week's curriculum......
Literacy
Year 5 will be continuing with their unit of work on Persuasive Writing. They really enjoyed beginning this topic last week.
This week they will be learning to identify the use of powerful verbs, identifying different
types of text, e.g. their content, structure, vocabulary, style, layout and purpose. Make short
notes, e.g. by abbreviating ideas, selecting key words, listing … .
Fill out brief notes into connected prose. From examples of persuasive writing, investigate how
style and vocabulary are used to convince the intended reader.
This week they will move to designing their own persuasive advert. We look forward to seeing some fantastic results. If you have magazines at home it would be helpful for the children to have a look at some adverts to see how they are presented.
Year 6 will be continuing with their revision. We have been very impressed with how hard the children are working at home as well as in school and we hope that they continue to keep up the good work throughout their revision programme.
This week we are looking at tackling longer questions in the reading test. These are 3 mark questions that children usually find difficult to answer. We will be starting off the week answering them in pairs and then go onto answering them ourselves. We will then look at the mark schemes for the tests to check what the expected answers are.
Have a look at last week's blogspots for websites to help with the reading test.
Numeracy
Miss Wright's and Mr Slavin's groups will be continuing their work on fractions but this week extending their work to include decimals and percentages.
There are loads of websites to help with this subject some our favourites are:-
http://www.mathszone.co.uk/
http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/maths/contents08fracdecperratprop.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/maths/activities/percentages.shtml
Mrs Morgan's and Mr Barker's groups will be continuing with their revision programme. We have noticed this week that the children are struggling with ordering fractions we have worked on this in class but it may form a good focus for your child's maths revision this week. The children have been on websites this week to help with this subject so they are aware of what can help, their revision books will also come in handy.
Science
We are continuing our dissolving topic and also continuing with revision for our Year 6's. This week the children will be focusing on living things.
Practical science this week will focus on the Earth, Sun and Moon.
Try these websites:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/science/living_things.shtml
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/revision/Science/living.htm
http://www.thegrid.org.uk/learning/science/ks1-2/resources/index.shtml
http://www.crickweb.co.uk/ks2science.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/science/activities/earth_sun_moon.shtml
http://www.thegrid.org.uk/learning/science/ks1-2/resources/index.shtml
http://www.engineeringinteract.org/teachers5.htm
Topic
This week in our Environment Topic we will be looking at Pollution. We will first look at our local area and then focus on Pollution around the world.
This could be a good opportunity to talk to your child about the need to recycle.
We will also be taking part in this year's Yellow Woods Challenge. The challenge this year will be slightly different. In previous years the children have brought old Yellow Pages into school. This year as Warrington now have blue bins you can recycle the Yellow Pages in the blue bin and the children just need to bring the front page into school.
Have a look at these websites:-
http://www.recyclezone.org.uk/tz_curriculum.aspx
http://www.ace.mmu.ac.uk/Resources/Fact_Sheets/Key_Stage_3/Air_Pollution/pdf/glossary.pdf
http://www.thegrid.org.uk/learning/geography/ks1-2/resources/
Thanks for visiting the blogspot, see you next week.
Year 5/6 Team.
Sunday, 11 January 2009
Week Beginning 12th January 2009
Hi everyone and welcome to the second week of the Spring Term.
The children came back after Christmas ready and eager to learn.
We had a great time at the Panto on Friday and as usual when we take the children out of school their behaviour was fantastic, thank you.
Last week we had at least 10 people from each class without PE kits, please ensure that PE kits are in school this week, our PE lessons will be indoor although it is a good a idea to have an outdoor PE kit in school as well just for any unexpected times that we cannot use the hall.
Year 6 started their drama unit with Ms Chapel this week, the children really enjoyed it and Ms Chapel informed me that they were fantastic at it, we always knew we had a lot of drama queens in our midst!!
On Tuesday this week after school football will continue, Mr Slavin is running the club with help from some college students. Mr Slavin is also trying to arrange games with other local schools for the children. Thank you to Mr Slavin for giving up his time for this.
On Monday at 7pm we will be holding a meeting about the mini laptops. As explained on the letter you will be able to take your child's laptop home after the meeting providing that you have signed the relevant paper work and paid the insurance. Unfortunately we cannot let the laptops go home without the insurance payment as they will not be covered by the insurance.
If you cannot attend the meeting please arrange another time to come into school to sign the paper work and pay the insurance otherwise your child will not be able to take the laptop home.
This week's curriculum...
Literacy
This week will be splitting into 4 groups for literacy, 2 groups of Year 5 and 2 groups of Year 6.
The Year 5 children will be starting a unit of work on persuasive writing.
Their objectives this week will be:-
To evaluate advertisements for their impact, appeal and honesty, focusing
in particular on how information about the product is presented: exaggerated claims, tactics
for grabbing attention, linguistic devices, e.g. puns, jingles, alliteration, invented words.
To use alternative words and expressions which are more
accurate or interesting than the common choice.
To identify adverbs and understand their functions in
sentences.
To revise and extend work on adjectives.
Here are some websites to get you started:-
http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/english/contents06writingnonfiction.htm
http://www.teachit.co.uk/index.asp?CurrMenu=searchresults&tag=580
Our Year 6 children will be starting to prepare themselves for the SAT's this week by working on how to tackle the reading test.
We will be working on our speed reading, skimming and scanning and reading for information.
We will also be looking at how to tackle the questions and understanding what the question actually wants us to find out.
You can help your child with this by ensuring that they are reading at home every night and they are doing quality reading and actually understanding what they are reading.
You could do this by reading a few chapters ahead of them and then questioning them on what they have read.
Here are some SAT's websites:-
http://www.brightminds.co.uk/sats-englishks2.htm
http://www.parentsintouch.co.uk/waystohelpyourchild/howicanhelpmy7-11yearold.htm
http://www.sats-past-papers.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=83
Numeracy
Mrs Morgan and Mr Barker's groups will also be preparing for their SAT's in their numeracy lessons. After completing a past paper before Christmas we know have a clearer idea of which children need to review which subjects and therefore there will be lots of different activities going on in the classroom to work on different subjects.
This week we will be reviewing decimals, fractions and percentages. We will be using the mini laptops as well as other games and workbooks to complete activities based on these subjects.
We will also be compiling a list of useful websites that will help with revision at home as well as in school.
Look out for the children's list of websites which will make it's way to you as soon as it is compiled.
Miss Wright's and Mr Slavin's group will be continuing their work on fractions this week but will be moving onto looking at equivalent fractions.
Take a look at these fraction worksheets.
http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mepres/book7/bk7i10/bk7_10i2.htm
http://www.mathsisfun.com/equivalent_fractions.html
http://www.learningplanet.com/sam/ff/index.asp
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/maths/revision_bites/fractions2.shtml
Science
Our Science lessons this week will consist of continuing with our topic on more about dissolving. We will also have a practical science lesson on the effects of exercise on heart rate.
Each week our science lessons will consist of completing our topic for that half term and also having a practical lesson where the children will have a question that they will need to design an experiment to test it out.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/science/revision_bites/reversible_irreversible3.shtml
http://www.thegrid.org.uk/learning/science/ks1-2/resources/index.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/9_10/keeping_healthy_fs.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/9_10/keeping_healthy_fs.shtml
Topic
This week we will starting our new topic on the environment. We will be basing our topic on a book called 'The Tin Forest' by Helen Ward and Wayne Anderson.
This week we will be using the mini laptops to do some research endangered species, we will then be completing a report on our chosen animal and thinking of solutions to try and stop these species being extinct.
Our topic will be the basis for a lot of our foundation subjects this half term. We will be incorperating drama, music, geogrpahy, history, PHSE and ICT into the our environment topic.
That's all for this week.
Year 5/6 Team
The children came back after Christmas ready and eager to learn.
We had a great time at the Panto on Friday and as usual when we take the children out of school their behaviour was fantastic, thank you.
Last week we had at least 10 people from each class without PE kits, please ensure that PE kits are in school this week, our PE lessons will be indoor although it is a good a idea to have an outdoor PE kit in school as well just for any unexpected times that we cannot use the hall.
Year 6 started their drama unit with Ms Chapel this week, the children really enjoyed it and Ms Chapel informed me that they were fantastic at it, we always knew we had a lot of drama queens in our midst!!
On Tuesday this week after school football will continue, Mr Slavin is running the club with help from some college students. Mr Slavin is also trying to arrange games with other local schools for the children. Thank you to Mr Slavin for giving up his time for this.
On Monday at 7pm we will be holding a meeting about the mini laptops. As explained on the letter you will be able to take your child's laptop home after the meeting providing that you have signed the relevant paper work and paid the insurance. Unfortunately we cannot let the laptops go home without the insurance payment as they will not be covered by the insurance.
If you cannot attend the meeting please arrange another time to come into school to sign the paper work and pay the insurance otherwise your child will not be able to take the laptop home.
This week's curriculum...
Literacy
This week will be splitting into 4 groups for literacy, 2 groups of Year 5 and 2 groups of Year 6.
The Year 5 children will be starting a unit of work on persuasive writing.
Their objectives this week will be:-
To evaluate advertisements for their impact, appeal and honesty, focusing
in particular on how information about the product is presented: exaggerated claims, tactics
for grabbing attention, linguistic devices, e.g. puns, jingles, alliteration, invented words.
To use alternative words and expressions which are more
accurate or interesting than the common choice.
To identify adverbs and understand their functions in
sentences.
To revise and extend work on adjectives.
Here are some websites to get you started:-
http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/english/contents06writingnonfiction.htm
http://www.teachit.co.uk/index.asp?CurrMenu=searchresults&tag=580
Our Year 6 children will be starting to prepare themselves for the SAT's this week by working on how to tackle the reading test.
We will be working on our speed reading, skimming and scanning and reading for information.
We will also be looking at how to tackle the questions and understanding what the question actually wants us to find out.
You can help your child with this by ensuring that they are reading at home every night and they are doing quality reading and actually understanding what they are reading.
You could do this by reading a few chapters ahead of them and then questioning them on what they have read.
Here are some SAT's websites:-
http://www.brightminds.co.uk/sats-englishks2.htm
http://www.parentsintouch.co.uk/waystohelpyourchild/howicanhelpmy7-11yearold.htm
http://www.sats-past-papers.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=83
Numeracy
Mrs Morgan and Mr Barker's groups will also be preparing for their SAT's in their numeracy lessons. After completing a past paper before Christmas we know have a clearer idea of which children need to review which subjects and therefore there will be lots of different activities going on in the classroom to work on different subjects.
This week we will be reviewing decimals, fractions and percentages. We will be using the mini laptops as well as other games and workbooks to complete activities based on these subjects.
We will also be compiling a list of useful websites that will help with revision at home as well as in school.
Look out for the children's list of websites which will make it's way to you as soon as it is compiled.
Miss Wright's and Mr Slavin's group will be continuing their work on fractions this week but will be moving onto looking at equivalent fractions.
Take a look at these fraction worksheets.
http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mepres/book7/bk7i10/bk7_10i2.htm
http://www.mathsisfun.com/equivalent_fractions.html
http://www.learningplanet.com/sam/ff/index.asp
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/maths/revision_bites/fractions2.shtml
Science
Our Science lessons this week will consist of continuing with our topic on more about dissolving. We will also have a practical science lesson on the effects of exercise on heart rate.
Each week our science lessons will consist of completing our topic for that half term and also having a practical lesson where the children will have a question that they will need to design an experiment to test it out.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/science/revision_bites/reversible_irreversible3.shtml
http://www.thegrid.org.uk/learning/science/ks1-2/resources/index.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/9_10/keeping_healthy_fs.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/9_10/keeping_healthy_fs.shtml
Topic
This week we will starting our new topic on the environment. We will be basing our topic on a book called 'The Tin Forest' by Helen Ward and Wayne Anderson.
This week we will be using the mini laptops to do some research endangered species, we will then be completing a report on our chosen animal and thinking of solutions to try and stop these species being extinct.
Our topic will be the basis for a lot of our foundation subjects this half term. We will be incorperating drama, music, geogrpahy, history, PHSE and ICT into the our environment topic.
That's all for this week.
Year 5/6 Team
Sunday, 4 January 2009
Week Beginning 5th January 2009
Happy New Year everyone an d welcome to 2009!
We hope you all had a happy and relaxing Christmas break and are reading to get down to some serious learning this half term.
We would like to start off by thanking you for all the fantastic Christmas cards and present the staff received at Christmas, it is very thoughtful of you and we really do appreciate it. Thank you.
Now let's see what's happening this week.
Monday
Monday this week is an INSET, the children do not return until Tuesday at 8.45am.
Wednesday
On Wednesday afternoon our Year 6 children we will starting drama sessions with Ms Chapel, who is a drama teacher at St Gregory's High School. The children really enjoy these sessions and also get a lot out of them.
We had also arranged a meeting for Wednesday evening about the new mini laptops. You will not have received a letter about this yet as we have been waiting for the insurance company to get back to us. As that has not happened yet we will have to delay the meeting until next week. Keep an eye out for the letter this week.
Even though the laptops are not going to go home this week we will get them out in school to get the children used to using them.
Friday
On Friday the whole school will be attending the Pantomime at the Parr Hall. We will be leaving school after the register and will return back around lunch time.
If you have not returned the permission slip yet please do so as soon as possible as we will not be able to take your child out of school without the slip.
Curriculum
Literacy
This week in Literacy we will be starting a revision unit on narrative writing.
We will be identifying narrative writing including past tense.
Understanding underlying themes & points of view. Expressing distinctions of meaning through the use of verb tense, Identifying story structure then creating a plan.
Using the techniques of dialog talk to explore ideas and issues.
Understanding how writers use different structures to create coherence/impact. Using different structures to shape & organise text. Write story following a plan.
Setting challenges to extend experience in writing.
Using a range of strategies to spell unfamiliar words.
Using paragraphs for pace, using punctuation to clarify meaning. Evaluating narrative. Appraising texts quickly, deciding on its value & quality. Reading extensively & discussing personal reading with others.
Understanding & using a variety of ways to criticise constructively. Participating in small group debate. Writing diary entries.
Using different narrative techniques to engage and entertain the reader.
This may seem like a lot to get through but it is a revision unit and therefore it is a review of objectives we have already visited in this academic year.
Numeracy
Miss Wright's and Mr Slavin's groups will be reviewing mixed numbers and improper fractions.
Try these websites:-
http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mepres/book7/bk7i10/bk7_10i4.htm
http://www.visualfractions.com/MixtoFrCircle.html
http://www.themathpage.com/Arith/fractions.htm
http://www.mathplayground.com/fractions_mixed.html
http://www.aaamath.com/fra57c1-mixed2fractld.html
Mrs Morgan's and Mr Barker's groups will be using the exam papers we did before Christmas to decide which topics we need to review this week. We will go through them on Tuesday picking out what each individual child needs and set up work shops in the maths lessons for the rest of the week on the topics we need to do review.
This is a great time to start some revision yourself at home to get an idea of what you need to revise.
Try these websites:-
http://www.atschool.co.uk/subject/subject.asp?AreaSel=16
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/
http://www.coxhoe.durham.sch.uk/Curriculum/Numeracy.htm
www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/
Science
As this week is a short week we will be completing a short topic called more about dissolving.
This week we will be setting the children a challenge, to obtain some clear water from some dirty water eg 'collected' from a puddle which has clearly visible particles eg gravel in it and solids dissolved in it. Then asking them to give a step-by-step description of what they did so that another class or group could follow it.
Here I Am
This week in Here I Am we will start the new topic of Journeys. We will start by looking at the journey of the three wise men as they went to visit baby Jesus.
We will also link this to Spanish this week as Epiphany is a big celebration in Spain and we will use the laptops to research we traditions the Spanish culture follow at this time of year.
Have a look at these websites:-
http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0310500/epiphany.html
http://www.annieshomepage.com/epiphany.html
http://gospain.about.com/od/christmasinspain/f/three_kings_day.htm
Finally we would like to congratulate Mr and Mrs Narraway and Faith on the birth of their new baby girl, Ellen Rose over the Christmas holidays. We are extremely pleased for them and hope to see Mrs Narraway and Ellen Rose soon.
That's all for this week.
Year 5/6 Team.
We hope you all had a happy and relaxing Christmas break and are reading to get down to some serious learning this half term.
We would like to start off by thanking you for all the fantastic Christmas cards and present the staff received at Christmas, it is very thoughtful of you and we really do appreciate it. Thank you.
Now let's see what's happening this week.
Monday
Monday this week is an INSET, the children do not return until Tuesday at 8.45am.
Wednesday
On Wednesday afternoon our Year 6 children we will starting drama sessions with Ms Chapel, who is a drama teacher at St Gregory's High School. The children really enjoy these sessions and also get a lot out of them.
We had also arranged a meeting for Wednesday evening about the new mini laptops. You will not have received a letter about this yet as we have been waiting for the insurance company to get back to us. As that has not happened yet we will have to delay the meeting until next week. Keep an eye out for the letter this week.
Even though the laptops are not going to go home this week we will get them out in school to get the children used to using them.
Friday
On Friday the whole school will be attending the Pantomime at the Parr Hall. We will be leaving school after the register and will return back around lunch time.
If you have not returned the permission slip yet please do so as soon as possible as we will not be able to take your child out of school without the slip.
Curriculum
Literacy
This week in Literacy we will be starting a revision unit on narrative writing.
We will be identifying narrative writing including past tense.
Understanding underlying themes & points of view. Expressing distinctions of meaning through the use of verb tense, Identifying story structure then creating a plan.
Using the techniques of dialog talk to explore ideas and issues.
Understanding how writers use different structures to create coherence/impact. Using different structures to shape & organise text. Write story following a plan.
Setting challenges to extend experience in writing.
Using a range of strategies to spell unfamiliar words.
Using paragraphs for pace, using punctuation to clarify meaning. Evaluating narrative. Appraising texts quickly, deciding on its value & quality. Reading extensively & discussing personal reading with others.
Understanding & using a variety of ways to criticise constructively. Participating in small group debate. Writing diary entries.
Using different narrative techniques to engage and entertain the reader.
This may seem like a lot to get through but it is a revision unit and therefore it is a review of objectives we have already visited in this academic year.
Numeracy
Miss Wright's and Mr Slavin's groups will be reviewing mixed numbers and improper fractions.
Try these websites:-
http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mepres/book7/bk7i10/bk7_10i4.htm
http://www.visualfractions.com/MixtoFrCircle.html
http://www.themathpage.com/Arith/fractions.htm
http://www.mathplayground.com/fractions_mixed.html
http://www.aaamath.com/fra57c1-mixed2fractld.html
Mrs Morgan's and Mr Barker's groups will be using the exam papers we did before Christmas to decide which topics we need to review this week. We will go through them on Tuesday picking out what each individual child needs and set up work shops in the maths lessons for the rest of the week on the topics we need to do review.
This is a great time to start some revision yourself at home to get an idea of what you need to revise.
Try these websites:-
http://www.atschool.co.uk/subject/subject.asp?AreaSel=16
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/
http://www.coxhoe.durham.sch.uk/Curriculum/Numeracy.htm
www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/
Science
As this week is a short week we will be completing a short topic called more about dissolving.
This week we will be setting the children a challenge, to obtain some clear water from some dirty water eg 'collected' from a puddle which has clearly visible particles eg gravel in it and solids dissolved in it. Then asking them to give a step-by-step description of what they did so that another class or group could follow it.
Here I Am
This week in Here I Am we will start the new topic of Journeys. We will start by looking at the journey of the three wise men as they went to visit baby Jesus.
We will also link this to Spanish this week as Epiphany is a big celebration in Spain and we will use the laptops to research we traditions the Spanish culture follow at this time of year.
Have a look at these websites:-
http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0310500/epiphany.html
http://www.annieshomepage.com/epiphany.html
http://gospain.about.com/od/christmasinspain/f/three_kings_day.htm
Finally we would like to congratulate Mr and Mrs Narraway and Faith on the birth of their new baby girl, Ellen Rose over the Christmas holidays. We are extremely pleased for them and hope to see Mrs Narraway and Ellen Rose soon.
That's all for this week.
Year 5/6 Team.
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