Our new
Topic replacing Dinosaurs is “Shake It”, which has a strong science focus on solids, liquids and gases.
On
Thursday we started the new unit by role playing how different molecules act
within solids, liquids and gases. Role playing can make it easier to understand
scientific processes. In groups the children pretended to be tightly packed
molecules inside an ice cube. When the ice started to melt the molecules
suddenly had more freedom to move around. The children acted out different
situations of water freezing and melting, being inside a bottle as water than
spilt on the ground and being inside a kettle and bubbling away as steam.
We viewed the BBC bitesize
website to help with understanding this aspect. We enjoyed the introduction and
answered the quiz.
Maths
We partitioned
numbers and looked at rounding numbers to the closest tens and hundreds. In the
next few weeks we will really be focussing hard on improving the children’s
times table knowledge. You will hear more about this soon. The games we played
this week are listed below and available on our class Kidblog page;
We also
looked at the New Year and new calendar. The children noticed, worked out and answered
questions about days and dates on the calendar. The children designed their own
personal calendar too.
Literacy
We moved
onto our Myths and Quests literacy Unit [topic]. We began by discussing
the differences and similarities between myths, legends and tales ( which
includes traditional stories and fairy tales).
The children
answered some reading comprehension questions about the Legend of King Arthur
and they went on to write descriptions of Merlin the magician. We prepared for Big
Write by designing a potion and listing words to describe it.
Other
We were
able to work on the laptops this week. The children go on the class ‘kidblog’
to access all our favourite web sites including MyMaths and Bug club and we
went on new sites covering our topics.
Clubs
Restart Monday 20th January. Please visit the web site or ask
at our Reception desk for more details.
Parents
evening
There is an opportunity for you to meet to discuss the report sent out
before the holidays – please see me if you want an appointment. Thank you for
your support.
And an
unexpected farewell… to Mr. Richard Smith… we were saddened to know that he will
not be returning to our school this term; our best wishes and grateful thanks
to him for all his work and enthusiasm with the children.
And…. Zoe
is here. A very welcome to Zoe and her family from England. Zoe has settled very
quickly and the children have been extremely friendly and helpful – thank you
boys and girls.
Happy
weekend to you all.
Glenda
Hughes
