Friday 18th March

Good afternoon everybody - Happy Friday!
 I can't believe we are at the end of another week already, they are flying by at the moment.
A big thank you to everyone who wore red today and donated to Comic Relief, it is such a worthy cause.
This week, we have been working hard in English on our unit based on information texts - Extreme Animals, this week, we have been imitating the text - it is jam packed full of facts about animals that can survive in extreme conditions and is written in an informal style, with humour.  We have worked hard in Maths, on our unit Multiplication and Division, this week we have focused on formal written methods for multiplying and dividing 4 digit numbers by 1 and 2 digit numbers.   In Science and Geography, we worked on what static electricity is and what the water cycle is and the different processes that water goes through during its time in the hydrological cycle.

On Monday, we enjoyed another fun-filled French session with Madame Jordan, thinking about pets and how to describe the animals that we keep at home as pets. 
 We finished the week off with double P.E. -  swimming on Thursday afternoon and today, Mrs Edwards (our Saints coach) carried out a session based on speed and stamina. In terms of activity, we have the third instalment of the Cross Country series on Monday at Sleakers Farm. our team of runners will attend with Mrs Ware - good luck team, you will be brilliant!   Our Friday afternoon was ended with our work on Vincent Van Gogh, the artist that we are working on during our latest art unit. We found out abou Van Gogh's life and produced some very artistic information pages in our sketch books. (See photos)  We then moved on to create our own version of Starry Night.

Finally, we finished the week, after assembly, sharing our home learning and as it is Comic Relief, jokes with our classmates. There were some crackers. my favourites being quite topical: Who is the Covid artist? Vincent van Cough!   What do fashion designers use to wash?  Coco Flannel!
 
Spellings are on Dojo for the groups, this week, it's the 6th and final column.  I have been impressed with how many people are reading every night, keep it up!  The Wider Curriculum home learning is on the website and on Dojo and the children have had a paper copy. This will be due in by Thursday 7th April, so there are 3 weeks to create some quality pieces of home learning, I have already had some superb pieces of Van Gogh inspired artwork, some Recommended Reads, super Jewish inspired cookery and a scientific Masterclass via video on Electrical Circuits.
 
  In terms of home learning, can I remind everybody that the expectation is that children read for at least 10 minutes at home every day, this can be magazines, newspapers, manuals, cookery books, as well as their reading books, as it is all reading. This is to promote reading for pleasure as there is nothing better than a good book. Remember, that you are your child’s greatest role model, so if they see you enjoying a good book, it really promotes good learning habits.  I will ask that reading is recorded in their new reading journals and that these come in every day so that I can monitor their reading.

  I would also like children to spend time working on their times tables, which are vital in so many areas of the Maths curriculum.   They can do this through Times Tables Rock Stars, I will send the passwords home again for this.  I have also posted a list of great websites to practise on.

Next week, we will have French on Monday, P.E. on Thursday (swimming) and Friday. We will start work on our new unit Fractions in Maths and continue work on our text Extreme Animals in English, spark life into our Science unit on Electrical Circuits and explore the features of Rivers in Geography.
 
Have a great weekend, spend quality time together, get out and about and enjoy reading together.
 
See you on Monday.
 
Mr F