On Tuesday afternoon, we were very lucky to have a taster session with some instructors from Tarka Tennis. The children had lots of fun playing games and attempting challenges with a tennis racket. There is information about another free taster session at the Tarka Tennis Centre at the end of the homework.
We have started our new English text ‘Tell Me a Dragon’ by Jackie Morris. In this sequence we will be learning to write expanded noun phrases using adventurous and imaginative word choices, use adverbials to start our sentences and practice using commas in a list of adjectives.
We listened to a classical piece of music, ‘Mars’ for ‘The Planets’ by Gustav Holst. The children drew how the music made them feel and considered how the dynamics (volume) and tempo (speed) changes throughout the music. They also thought about the instruments they could see and hear in the video and enjoyed drawing and labelling them.
The children worked hard on special cards and writing for Mother’s Day.
Barum class have enjoyed changing our English text How to Wash a Woolly Mammoth into How to Wash a Hairy Chimpanzee this week! They have generated some funny ideas for the new set of instructions, ready to write the new version next week.
In Design and Technology, we have been designing a moving toy. The children were very creative and thought about the materials and tools they would need to make their designs.
In music, the children listened to and appraised ‘Mars’ from the ‘Ten Planets’ by Gustav Holst. We thought about how the music made us feel and drew pictures, we then explored the different tempos and dynamics within the music and started to think about which instruments we could hear in the orchestra.
We have been learning to divide by sharing this week and have also been using our 2 times table facts to solve multiplication and division problems.
In Maths, we have been using arrays to solve multiplication problems and have started learning to solve division problems by grouping.
We learnt about imperative (or ‘bossy’) verbs in English. Instructions use imperative verbs at the start of an instruction. The children had a go at writing some additional information for our text How to Wash a Woolly Mammoth and some instructions of how to get the Woolly Mammoth into the bath, using imperative verbs to start their sentences.
Barum class enjoyed writing about St David’s Day and did some observational drawings of daffodils using oil pastels.
We have enjoyed lots of Tom Percival books this week. He is our focus author for this half term! The children loved sharing their potato characters and book character costumes with the class! They have done book reviews, a quiz with Tarka class and taken part in the book swap J Thank you for all the time and effort that went into the World Book Day home learning!
Our new focus Author for this half of term is ‘Tom Percival’. Each day we have been voting for which book we would like to hear and have enjoyed listening to the stories we have voted for so far.
This week in English, we have enjoyed reading our new text ‘How to Wash a Woolly Mammoth’ by Michelle Robinson and Kate Hindley. We are learning to write instructions, we have explored what elements are needed to write a good set of instructions, drawn a story map and acted it out with the actions and we have written sentences to add more information to some of the steps in the book.
In Maths, we have started our new unit on multiplication and division. This week we have worked on recognising and making equal groups and we have written repeated addition and multiplication sentences to represent the different equal groups.
The children have enjoyed learning about ‘Sir Tim Berners Lee’ and why he is a significant person in history. We have made fact sheets about him and talked about how his invention of the world wide web has influenced the toys we have today.
We have done lots of activities for Children’s Mental Health week. The children enjoyed listening to The Invisible String and thinking about the people they love. They drew a picture of themselves and the people they are connected to by the invisible string.
In English we have written fantastic character descriptions of Julia Donaldson characters using expanded noun phrases and using the subordinating conjunction ‘that’ to add more information.
We have practised counting in threes in maths and have finished our unit of collecting and presenting data.
This week Barum class received an email from Humpty Dumpty asking for some advice on which material would be the most comfortable and protective in case he falls off the wall again! We discussed what materials we could use, we then made predictions of which material would be the most protective, then carried out our investigation to find out which material was the most comfortable and protective.
The children loved being authors this week! We changed the story of The Dragon Machine and used the story map to write the new story, using verbs in the past tense and prepositional phrases.
In Maths we are practising counting in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s. We have learnt what data is, how to collect it using tally charts and then record our data findings onto a pictogram.
We have started learning about materials in Science. We discussed different types of materials: wood, glass, fabric, metal, paper, cardboard and plastic. We looked at lots of objects and classified them into the correct group. Some objects were made of more than one type of material. E.g. scissors are made of metal and plastic.
In history, we talked about the people and events in History that we have learnt about so far in KS1. We then ordered these key people and events onto a timeline, using our knowledge and observational skills.
We have enjoyed hearing all about what you found out from grandparents and people who were alive in the 60s. We also had a go at classifying different toys and games into 1960s and the present day. We compared the toys and games and discussed some overlap between toys from the 60s to now.
In English, we started our shared write creating a class story about a girl who builds a mermaid machine, based on our text ‘The Dragon Machine’.
Barum class re-capped what even and odd numbers are and carried out an investigation to identify any patterns when we add, two odd numbers together, two even numbers together and then add an odd and even number together. The children were surprised by the results!
Barum class have enjoyed reading our new text ‘The Dragon Machine’ by Helen Ward. We have discussed likes, dislikes, puzzles and patterns from the story and have written sentences about what the dragons are doing in the sweet shop, using verbs in the past tense.
We have continued our maths learning about shape. This week we have learnt what symmetry is and have explored different shapes to identify which ones have a vertical line of symmetry. We have also sorted shapes according to their properties using Venn diagrams.
Our History enquiry question is How do our favourite toys and games compare with those of the 1960s? The children loved learning about toys and games from this era and started to discuss similarities and differences to our favourite toys and games. We learnt a bit about birthdays and music in the 1960s. Tarka class enjoyed listening to Penny Lane by The Beatles and started to learn to sing Yellow Submarine in singing assembly with Mrs Hughes.