Weekly News - Week Beginning 13th November 2017

Oooh the anticipation! We're ready(ish) for our assembly this afternoon and can't wait for you to see what we've been doing this term. Kenneth Brannagh has nothing on us!
As well as preparing for our assembly, in Maths we have started work on written multiplication. We have flown through the grid method and many of us are moving onto expanded column method later this week. Do let us know if you would like to see what these methods look like.
As it is anti-bullying week, we will be doing some activities around this on Friday.
Don't forget that it is Children In Need this week which means that we are having a cake sale today and tomorrow at breaktime and the children can wear spots tomorrow for a donation of £1.

Weekly News - Week Beginning 6th November 2017

What a dramatic week we have had in Giraffe Class! We don't want to give too much away ahead of our assembly next Thursday afternoon, but - prepare yourselves!
To continue our Romans topic, we have been mapping and building Roman roads using sand, gravel and large stones. 

In Maths we have been looking at different multiplication skills in order to prepare for written multiplication methods next week.  The children have really enjoyed using concrete resources to do this. We are continuing to learn our song for the Christmas Fayre.

Just a few reminders:
1. At parents' evening, we gave out logins for Bug Club - this is a fantastic reading resource, so do please make use of it!
2. While you do not have to complete a topic home learning task every week, spellings are still to be handed in on a weekly basis. Please make sure these are handed in on a Monday so that they can be marked and new homework set on a Tuesday. 

Next week, look out for a new home learning task which is linked to the school's new focus on Reading for Pleasure. In case you want to get started, here it is!

Find your favourite picture book that you enjoyed being read to you when you were younger.  Read this to someone at home, making sure that you bring the book alive for your audience.  Write a short book review of the book telling us the name and author of your book of choice and why you loved it when you were younger (and still do!).

Weekly News - Week Beginning 30th October 2017

Welcome back to a new half term!  We started this week with an amazing launch day of our new topic - Romans! We had a visit from the archaeologist Mr Gister who brought Roman artefacts for us to investigate.  The children worked in pairs to discover what the items were, what they were used for and who used them.  

We have also started to look at the spread of the Roman Empire over time and completed an comprehension activity about the invasion of Britain.  On Tuesday afternoon we worked in groups in competition to find as many facts as possible about our mysterious Roman figure (Julius Caesar).  This turned out to be a very exciting session! Our winning team was Colby, Henry, Jude and Daniel with 21 points - well done!

In PE, we have started to work on our dance for this half term.  We will be building up our skills to become a perfect Roman army! In Maths we have been learning about and using Roman Numerals and preparing ourselves for our work in the next few weeks on multiplication. In English, we are already loving working with William Shakespeare's play 'Julius Caesar'.  We hope you can make it to our Year group assembly to see some of the drama that we are doing with it!
Just to clarify regarding homework, we did not send any spelling work home this week as we have been doing some spelling assessments.  For the topic homework, it is expected that the children will complete at least four tasks over the half term, including two Maths tasks (please feel free to do more!).

Video of Our Indian Dancing

Hinduism and all things soft!

Over the last few days, we have enjoyed learning about Hinduism. We acted out the story of Rama and Sita and even had visitor in to teach us some Indian Dancing! As a whole class reward, we relaxed on comfy beanbags and cushions as we did our work on Wednesday morning.

Weekly News - Week Beginning 16th October 2017

We started the week as detectives and explorers!  We explored the Forest School area for minibeasts as part of our Science, finding some newts and several millipedes.  In Maths we had to solve a place value mystery to find the thief of the chocolate.  We have also been measuring the lengths of different animals - some of them are huge!
Towards the end of the week, we have been looking at Hinduism, especially Diwali as it is celebrated this Thursday 19th October.  We loved taking part in an Indian dancing session on Wednesday afternoon, learning some new Bangra moves and putting them into a dance.  We are finishing the week by studying Hindu Deities and Rangoli patterns.
Thank you to all the parents who joined us for parents' evening this week.  If you haven't had a chance to come and meet with us, please contact the office and we can make an appointment after half term.
Have a lovely well earned rest, we haven't even set homework!

Weekly News - Week Beginning 9th October 2017

We have had a wonderful week with lots of great work being done. Thank you so much to everyone that joined us at the Reading Café on Monday. We had an amazing time, sharing stories and making peg animals with our grownups.  In English this week, we have been writing information texts about giraffes. Subtraction has been our focus in Maths, starting with using a number line and some of us moving on to column methods too. We finished our African sunset pictures in Art and they look spectacular!

Next week, we will be doing some outdoor work on Monday and Tuesday for Maths and Science, so please make sure the children have coats.

We are looking forward to seeing you at Parents’ Evening.

Reading Cafe - "lovely start to the week!"

We had a fantastic time at our Reading Cafe yesterday morning! It was wonderful to share stories and make peg zebras and giraffes with our adults.