Week ending Friday 3rd February 2023

Good afternoon everyone,

We hope this blog finds you well, here is a brief round up of our week!

English
We have begun writing our first draft of our report about a day in a mountain environment.  The children have made a great start using some superb vocabulary in their expanded noun phrases and creating cohesion in their report with adverbials and good use of pronouns and synonyms.  We will be spending time to carefully proofread edit, improve and redraft our writing until it is the best we can make it! 

Science
Our science lesson this week was all about conductors and insulators.  We learnt what these are, the materials that are good conductors or insulators and everyday uses of them such as metal saucepans for cooking with plastic handles to stop us burning our hands.  We observed the difference between a metal spoon and a wooden spoon in a hot pan.  We carried out a class investigation into conductors and insulators.  We wanted to know in which bowl an ice cube would melt the quickest, metal or plastic.  The children made a prediction and considered the variables in a fair test.  Next we will be doing more investigating of conductors and insulators.

Maths
The children have continued learning about scale factor, ratio, similar shapes and solving problems involving ratio. They built on previous steps to enlarge shapes and describe enlargements, to explore similar shapes  (defined as shapes where corresponding sides are in the same proportion and the corresponding angles are equal, so if one shape is an enlargement of the other, the two shapes are similar) and the children used representations from earlier steps to help them see the multiplicative relationships between ratios. They recognised that when they multiply or divide from one amount to another, they do the same for the other value to keep the ratios equivalent. They were able to see that this method is similar to finding equivalent fractions.

Life Skills
We began thinking about the meaning of identity and prejudice this week.  We will be using our oracy skills next week to further discuss prejudice within a community.

History-Civil Rights in 1950s and 1960s America.
This week, the children's learning took them to Montgomery in Alabama, America, where we learnt about the reasons behind the famous Selma to Montgomery march. During this lesson, they learnt about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and how, even though this meant a change in the law, it actually proved that people's attitudes had not changed. They were horrified to learn about a 'literacy test' you had to pass to vote (to pass you could only get 1 question wrong) and how this lead to people trying to protest peacefully in Alabama. However, the peaceful protest ended up being named, 'bloody Sunday' due to the violence that occurred there as a result of police behaviour towards the activists and the world media. As a class they listened with intent and asked questions to deepen their understanding and explained their opinions and reasons very well.  

French
We undertook a listening activity this week that involved many of the skills we have learnt over the past year including, the French alphabet, counting, opinions on food and animals, nationalities, likes and dislikes and meal times. 

PE
Coach Edwards took the children for a gymnastic lesson where they worked in small groups to perform sequences using apparatus and a focus group at a time, worked with her to practise jumping from a high bench onto a crash mat. 

Art
This week the children focused on 'street art' and the different styles this can be represented as, such as graffiti, murals and guerrilla art. They looked at the similarities and difference between the different types, forming their own opinions and justifying their ideas. They created a '9 choice diamond' where they places statements about art in order of importance, according to their own opinions. This then led onto discussions about their next peace of art work.

The children have had a wonderful week, hard working, focused and very productive. We have both been so pleased with everyone's attitude to learning. . Well done Sycamore class.