Happy half term! It's hard to believe how quickly the last 7 weeks have flown by. We started the term in beautiful summer weather back in early September, now we're ending it amongst the autumn storms. Let's hope for some dry days over the next week, at least.

I want to say how pleased I am with the children's final writing piece of this half term. They have written a 'pitch' to the council to persuade them to build their monument to the Windrush generation. Throughout this unit of learning, the children have responded to the content with maturity and empathy, and their final writing shows us that. Well done all. 
In Maths this week, we we learning other methods for how to divide including using factor pairs and the method of long division. This can prove a bit tricky so I was pleased with the children's perseverance! We've got a small amount of the 'Four Operations' unit to finish after half term but then we'll be moving onto fractions.
We concluded our history unit on the Industrial Revolution with a lesson about how working conditions for children improved slightly with the introduction of the 1833 factory act. The class also imagined that they were an MP at the time and thought about what laws they would pass to protect children working in factories and mine. 
We finished off our science unit on physical and chemical reactions by learning about combustion and how this is represented with a word equation. 
In our indoor P.E. with me this week, the children performed routines involving solo, pair and group balances. I was rather impressed with the group balances in particular - have a look at the photos below! Great effort by all involved.
Finally, in Art, the children created their own mixed media pieces about how art can spread a message. They used techniques that we'd practised earlier in the unit to create their own designs.

That's it from me for now. Have a lovely half term and I look forward to seeing everyone back in school after the break.

Happy Friday!

Another busy week full of imagination in English, multiplying and dividing in Maths and investigating in science.

This week, we have continued using the book 'Windrush Child' to inspire our writing in English. We've written diary entries in character, used conjunctions in a piece of writing giving advice for children coming to England, and used relative clauses to add extra information when writing about things we are grateful for. In Maths, we've practised using the formal long multiplication method to multiply 2 digit numbers by 4 digit numbers, and refined our used of short division. In Science, we investigated how we can tell whether a chemical reaction has taken place. Some of the clues include smell, change in colour and fizzing. We conducted an investigation into this by mixing some vinegar with baking powder to observe what happened. History took a local focus and we thought about how Devon changed during the industrial revolution. In P.E., we worked on counter balances in pairs.

Next week is the last week of this half term. We will be learning how to do long division in Maths, writing a persuasive speech in English and completing our science and history units. 

Have a lovely weekend.

We've had a really lovely week this week in Sycamore Class! 

In English, we started our new unit of work based on the book 'Windrush Child'. We have learnt all about Generation Windrush and the experience of the people who moved to England for jobs following WW2. The children have been really empathetic and have written in role as someone moving from Jamaica to England, thinking about how they might have been feeling and the thoughts they might have had.
In Maths, we have had a busy week learning about factors, multiples, prime numbers, square and cube numbers! We move on next week to looking at the formal written methods for multiplication and division. 
We conducted 3 investigations in science this week to look at how to separate mixtures through sieving, filtering and evaporation. Our history lesson took us back to the times of the Victorian inventors and we learnt about some of the revolutionary inventions which changed life forever. In French, we are learning how to introduce ourselves and say where we live and where we would like to live. 

A highlight of this week was our workshop with the Devon Wildlife Trust. We were identifying mammals and learning how we could tell whether they have visited our gardens! 

Enjoy some photos from this workshop and some from Art today, where we used a Chiaroscuro technique to make words look 3D by using light and shadows.