Christmas! All three classes have started their Christmas preparations, adorning their classrooms with paper chains and other decorations. It’s all looking very festive and we’re all excited about the craft activities and other events that will be happening next week.

News This week the school has been participating in the international ‘Hour of Code’ project.  The children have enjoyed learning how to code simple programs on the computers so that characters move and interact in particular ways. Here are some of Maple Class using the ‘Tynker’ program. They had to use repeat commands to move monsters and make them jump over obstacles to collect sweets!

Literacy All three classes have been using our knowledge about information texts and rainforest animals to create posters or leaflets.  We thought carefully about titles, subtitles, captions and interesting paragraphs using facts written in the present tense as well as labelled diagrams. The leaflets came out really well and we’re all very proud of our work! We also wrote about some original ideas for re-using old newspaper for our talk homework this week. The ideas ranged from using it as pet-bedding or starting a fire to creative activities such as papier maché model making or drawing cartoon features on the photographs! Useful Websites: Homework: The Christmas 201 word story challenge. Can you write a great story about an elf in 201 words or less?

Mathematics In Mrs Prowle’s group, we investigated the probability of rolling a 6 on a six-sided die.  Most of us thought that we were less likely to roll a 6 as it always seems really difficult when we need to do it in a board game! We worked in pairs to roll the die thirty times and recorded our results first in a frequency table and then as a bar graph.  Looking at everyone’s results we found that there was an even chance of throwing all the numbers although the individual bar graphs sometimes showed that one number was more common than another. In Mrs Roche’s group we have been practising drawing accurate bar graphs and then interpreting them. We carried out surveys on favourite colours and ways the children came to school, recorded them first on a tally chart and then worked out the frequency before we plotted our graphs. In Mrs Williams and Mrs Gilder’s group have been practising measuring.  We have measured items such as our shoes, and have started looking at capacity.  Homework: Mrs Prowle’s group – the next page from your Schofield & Simms book Mrs Roche’s group – the next page (test 7) from your Schofield & Simms book Mrs Williams and Mrs Gilder’s group – measure the length, width or height of different items around the house.

Science / Topic We had great fun, learning about the complicated food chains in the rainforest and found out that they all join together to make huge food webs. To help us understand, we made a giant web in the classroom linking all of the plants and animals together with wool.  It was amazing to see how many links there were. We also discussed how the energy flows from the sun at the beginning of each chain through all of the plants and animals until it is recycled at the end of the food chain by bacteria, fungi and insects.

News Lime’s KS2 Assembly Lime class worked hard on getting ready for our first KS2 Assembly. We worked in our groups preparing resources, actions and information. The groups were as follows: Introducing: Sophie S, Sophie B, Niamh Singers (entrance music): Georgie, Carolina Gymnastics: Imogen, Hannah, Issy, Ruby H, Ruby L, Siobhan and Nancy LEGO Friends: Holly, Emily, Juliette and Sienna Gaming: Bailey, Christopher, Freddie S, Freddie Y, Max, Oliver K, Oliver C, Jimi, Edward and Sam Rainforest: Joshua, Joel, Kiran and Adam Piano (exit music): Oliver C We hope to be able to share the video with you soon! ‘The assembly was such a success because we all knew what we were doing and we spoke clearly.’ Issy ‘We all knew our words because we had practised in class.’ Joshua ‘The assembly went very well and we all tried our very best to make it a success.’ Holly ‘We all tried very hard not to fiddle with our words so that everyone could be heard.’ Oliver C

Literacy In Maple, Lime and Poplar have been thinking hard about the usefulness of paragraphs in fiction and non-fiction writing. We learned about using them to group information together and had a go at producing our own piece of writing using paragraphs and interesting words to link our sentences within them. We have also been planning some information texts about Rainforest animals. Useful Websites: Homework: Talk Homework. Please have a conversation about the topic and make plenty of notes to help with your writing on Monday!

Mathematics In Mrs Prowle’s group, we have been continuing our work on data handling. We looked at the graphs we drew last week and discussed ways to improve them including making sure the scale on the y-axis was accurate and had equal intervals. We also used the Numicon to complete an investigation to see whether we could cover all of the numbers on a 100 square just by using different combinations of 3 and 5. In Mrs Williams and Mrs Gilder’s group we have been using our knowledge of timetables to generate related facts. If we know that 3 x 4 = 12, we can use of multiplying by 10 to generate more multiplication sentences. Eg 30 x 4 = 120, 3 x 40 = 120   Some of us also extended our learning by recording some inverse facts. Eg 120 ÷ 4 = 30, 120 ÷ 40 = 3 Generate some of your own sets of multiplication sentences. You could use a dice to generate your numbers. In Mrs Roche’s group we have been looking at data handling. We started this week looking at tally charts, frequency charts and pictograms. Homework for Mrs Roche’s group will now be given out on a Wednesday to be returned on Tuesdays. This week the children have been asked to complete test 6 in the Schofield book, if in the past they had gone ahead with the tests they have been given a different work sheet to do this week. Please only do the Test given, complete it in pencil and write down the time taken. If they have been helped in anyway please indicate this. Homework: Mrs Prowle’s group – creating a frequency table and bar graph. Please do this homework neatly in your yellow books. Mrs Gilder’s and Mrs William’s group – practise multiplying using known facts.

Science This week, Maple Class and Poplar investigated the water cycle. We made a model of the earth’s surface using a clear mixing bowl, some warm water, cling film and ice and watched as the water vapour cooled, condensed and fell back into the bowl, just like rain! We made some great posters to demonstrate what we had learned but some of us found it a bit tricky to use the words evaporation and condensation accurately.

Art We have been learning about Henri Rousseau who painted a lot of rainforest scenes.  We were amazed to find out he had never been to the rainforest because his pictures are so detailed and lifelike!

Topic In Maple and Poplar Class we combined Topic with Literacy to research and make notes on more information about the Rainforests and the animals that live in them.

Music We have been learning, along-side Mrs Williams, what a pentatonic scale is.  We enjoyed singing some songs which use pentatonic scales.

NEWS! Maple Class enjoyed their pebble treat on Thursday afternoon, having filled their jar. Everyone snuggled up in their onesies and pyjamas with teddies, cushions and blankets to watch the Scooby Doo movie.  The children enjoyed popcorn and squash as an extra treat. Amazonian cooking! LKS2 had a really exciting day of South American cooking on Friday. The children were split into groups and had a go at preparing a traditional Brazilian salad, Carioca (Cheese on toast with banana!), Pesque de Quinoa (a quinoa porridge with mozzarella) and Alfajores (vanilla sandwich biscuits with a caramel filling). Everyone learned how to use knives safely and thoroughly enjoyed tasting the fruits of their labours! I think we were all surprised by how nice the Carioca was!  After lunch we had a visiting speaker whose family come from South America. She told us lots more about the rainforest and showed us some beautiful pictures of her time there. Look out for some photos from our fantastic, busy day!

Literacy Lime and Maple Class have been writing some diary entries imagining we are on an expedition to the rainforest, using a lovely book called ‘Journey into the Rainforest’ as our inspiration. We talked about imagery and reminded ourselves of the work we did before half term on using our senses to describe before creating these pieces of writing: “I stood at the top of the stairs, listening to the beautiful bird-song. Cheeky monkeys called out for their friends and dangerous mosquitoes annoyingly buzzed around me.”                                            Jamie & Keenan “…everyone was looking at a young Jaguar weaving itself through the chocolate coloured trunks of the trees.”                                       Hannah “As the plane landed, everyone waited at the windows. The pilot slid open the door, then whoosh! A blast of hot air entered the cramped cabin.”                                                                                                         Lucy “As the door opened and I stepped down onto the dusty ground, all my feelings of nervousness and exhaustion left me as I gazed on the beautiful green forest before my eyes,”                                          Iona “I stood still as a statue and thought, ‘do I really want to go on that overcrowded old speedboat?’ Then the captain interrupted my thoughts by saying, ‘this is your transport to the jetty’.”                                 Dom Homework: Y3 – practise identifying, grouping and using nouns Y4 – practise using personal pronouns accurately

Mathematics In Mrs Prowle’s group, we have been creating and interpreting the information on bar graphs. Having counted the numbers of different vowels in passages of text from the Rainforest book we have been using in Literacy, we created graphs using the data and wrote questions about them. Can you think of any questions we could ask about our data? In Mrs Williams and Mrs Gilder’s group we have continued our work on multiplication and have been using the grid method to solve 2 digit x 1 digit multiplication problems. We partitioned the 2 digit number into its tens and ones and then multiplied each part. We then recombined the two answers to find the product. Some of the children used the same method to multiply 3 digit numbers by a 1 digit number. The children then applied their skills to solving multiplication word problems. Useful Website: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/maths/ma12pape/game/ma12pape-game-written-multiplication/multiplication.swf Homework: Mrs Prowle’s group – the next page in your Schofield & Simms book Mrs Gilder and Mrs Williams group - practise the grid method for multiplication.

Science This week we continued our learning about boiling and evaporation. We studied the difference between steam and water vapour before investigating condensation. We were surprised to learn that there is water vapour all around us in the atmosphere and that this causes the condensation we see on the outside of cold drinks cans or on bowls of ice cream. Can you explain why condensation forms on some surfaces?

Topic Maple Class have been learning more about the different layers of the rainforest. Did you know that the majority of the creatures that live in these areas can be found in the canopy and never come down to the forest floor?

Lime’s Nurture Group Our focus this week was on friendship. In circle time we asked a friend to come and sit next to us and gave an example of how that friend had made us feel happy. We also talked about how we can be friendly to others who we may not be close friends with. We worked as a team to create our own spider’s web. Look at the photograph of the finished web. Can you see all of the connections between us?

Assemblies Lime have been preparing for the KS2 assembly we will be leading next week.  We have a variety of presentations to share with the juniors, including the rainforest, gymnastics, gaming and Lego friends. The audience will be greeted by some singing and will leave the assembly by some piano playing! We are really looking forward to sharing our presentations.

NEWS Well done to Maple Class this week for their sharing assembly and Swing-by Café. I’m sure you’ll agree that the children have thoroughly enjoyed learning about rainforests and did a great job of demonstrating what they have found out! Many thanks to all the parents who came to our Café and made it such a success; helping us to raise a fantastic £37.60 profit The children have decided to use the money to buy an acre of rainforest in Ecuador and adopt an animal (although we are yet to decide what that will be!). What a great idea Maple!

Literacy We have continued to use a lovely book about rainforests this week in our literacy. The children have been searching for information and writing some really creative diary entries as if they were explorers visiting the forest. Homework: Talk Homework about a trip into space. Who would you take with you and what ten items would you want to have in your luggage? Remember, make notes in your green books about the conversations you have so that you have plenty of information to use in your writing session on Monday.

Mathematics In Mrs Prowle’s group, we used our knowledge of partitioning to help us double and halve three digit numbers. We found halving the odd numbers quite tricky at times. In Mrs Roche’s group we have been practising our subtraction. Finding the difference between two numbers. We have taken the smaller number and counted on to the next round number and then up to the larger number in tens. Homework is to complete Test 5 in the Schofield and Sims book, if you finish that within half an hour please practise your tables. Don’t forget to write the time in for how long the test took. Did you do it independently? In Mrs Williams and Mrs Gilder’s group we used our knowledge of arrays to solve multiplication problems.  You could continue practising your multiplication tables using this activity: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/maths/ma13time/game/ma13tabl-game-tables-grid-find/timestables_2.swf

Topic – Rainforests Lime class explored the four layers of a rainforest. We made up a phrase ‘Elephants Can’t Understand Fractions’ to help us remember the order Emergent, Canopy, Understory, Forest Floor. We used the laptops to research a different layer. These websites were really informative: http://mrsgebauer.com/rainforestweb/WebQuest.htm http://www.srl.caltech.edu/personnel/krubal/rainforest/Edit560s6/www/whlayers.html Why not have a look at home and explore more about the rainforest layers. Mrs Gilder would love to hear your findings! Poplar Class too were researching which animals live in the rainforest and which layer they live in. They discovered all kinds of animals which they had never previously heard of. Maple class were working hard on their assembly about the rainforest and enjoyed learning some fantastic songs to reinforce their learning about the layers and the problems facing rainforests all over the world. We particularly enjoyed learning and singing this song: http://freesongsforkids.com/videos/rain-forest-song

Lime – Nurture Group This week we discussed our feelings and what makes us feel good and what makes us feel bad. Some of us have some good ideas of how to help ourselves when we feel bad. Our class target for the week is to take care of someone who is feeling sad. We have lots of examples of this happening throughout the week which is great!

Science Maple and Poplar class had great fun learning about boiling and evaporation this week. We watched water boiling in a clear kettle and were amazed how violent the bubbling gets. We found out that once the water reaches its boiling point of 100˚C it won’t get any hotter and that different liquids have different boiling points. Did you know that even iron will boil and become a gas if it is heated enough? The temperature needs to reach 0ver 2400˚C for that to happen though!

NEWS   On Tuesday the whole school gathered at 10.40 for a special Remembrance assembly lead by Maple Class culminating in a two minutes’ silence at 11am. All of the children listened beautifully to the presentation about World War I and the reasons for wearing poppies and then showed great respect for the silence. Well done everyone!    Well done to Poplar Class for a very interesting and important assembly about staying safe online. There were lots of really good messages there to help everyone think carefully about the information they publish about themselves.   Today we have been getting into the spirit of Children in Need by dressing up as heroes. Some of the children chose to be famous superheroes while others used their creativity to make up their own characters. Everyone looked fantastic and each class voted to find their best costume. Here are the LKS2 heroes: Lime winner: Hannah    Maple, with their winner, Olivia   Nurture Group This week, Lime explored changes in Nurture Group. We thought about the changes we have experienced and how these changes make us feel. We enjoyed some vegetable snacks with dips and some of us tried things we have never tried before!     LITERACY   Maple Class wrote up their talk homework about their favourite seasons. There was a real mix but I think most enjoyed Winter because of Christmas or Summer because they can get outside and play! Here are some extracts:   “Spring is lovely with its amazing weather. It starts of quite cold with frost and fog but near the end of Spring, because it’s nearly Summer, it gets really warm.”   Olivia   “I especially like Winter because it’s nice and cosy and you can snuggle up with your family in front of the red, burning flames.”     Charlotte   “My favourite part is kicking the leaves and enjoying the rustling sound hit my ears.”    Megan   “The blankets of white frost look good when they are spread across the ground.”    Sam   “As the leaves get as cold as ice they get crunchier and crunchier. I crack through them step by step.”    Ben     We have also been preparing and practising hard for our two assemblies next week and learning about the different types of noun.   Could you say which type of noun (abstract, proper, common or collective) these words are? -      Edinburgh -      flock -      coat -      excitement   Lime class: Our talk homework on seasons provided us with lots of ideas on which season is our favourite. We worked hard to extend our sentences by adding detail. We also developed our writing organisation, grouping similar ideas together.   We have started looking at a lovely book called ‘Journey into the rainforest’.  It is non-fiction and we are learning to identify the features of information texts so that we can write our own. Poplar Class: Our favourite season was definitely autumn. The children love the crunching of the leaves and the warm fires. They also enjoy the fireworks and children in need ceremonies.   Homework: Maple – homework this week is to learn the two songs for our sharing assembly. Some children have also chosen to create their own superhero to fit our Children in Need theme this year.   Lime and Poplar – Create your own superhero MATHEMATICS   Mrs Prowle’s group: This week we have been thinking in more detail about the more complex properties of polygons including their symmetry, which sides are parallel or perpendicular and the relationships between their angles. On Friday we did maths in our classes and completed some fun Pudsey maths to coincide with Children in Need.   Mrs Gilder and Mrs Williams's group have been exploring multiplication. We used the numicon to show that it doesn't matter what order your multiplication is, the answer is the same! We also explored how multiplication can be represented using arrays.  Have a go at this game to consolidate your learning: http://www.snappymaths.com/multiplication/earlymult/interactive/arrays/arraysframe.htm   Homework: Mrs Prowle’s group: The next page in your Schofield & Simms book please.   Mrs Roche’s group: Looking at the net of a prism. Worksheet and instructions in your folders. SCIENCE Maple class were challenged by the manager of a football team to work out the best way to get the team’s kit dry between matches on Saturday and Sunday without using a tumble dryer as this shrank the shorts! We thought carefully about different ways to dry things and devised an investigation to test which one would be most useful. We thought that it would be difficult to depend on hanging the kit outside as the football season happens when the weather isn’t great. We also discussed the practicalities of hanging at least 11 sets of kit over radiators! In the end we decided to try and replicate the conditions inside for hanging clothes out on a line. Using 3 pieces of the same material that were the same size with the same amount of water added to them to ensure it was a fair test, we placed each in a different part of the room. One was by the closed window, one in the middle of the room and we hung one next to a fan to replicate the wind. We found that the material being blown by the fan dried much quicker than the other two so we decided that would be the best method for the manager to dry his kit and wrote him an email to explain. RE Lime class discussed how Muhammad (pbuh) would have felt at different points in his life.  We also had a go at memorising parts of his life story and retelling it as a class.