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.

NEWS We hope everyone had an enjoyable half term.  It has been lovely to hear what the children have been up to over the holiday.  Mrs Smith’s tea party  Two children from every class in the school got to have tea with Mrs Smith on Friday afternoon.  All of the children made it a very special day for her.  Please enjoy any firework parties that you may be going to this weekend but remember to be careful and stay safe!

Literacy Maple Class have been creating firework poems to commemorate Bonfire Night and Diwali. Some of us did shape poems using onomatopoeia and calligrams while others wrote some fantastic acrostics.   Marysia                                                                   Tia Rosie                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Ellie                                                       Poplar class also did shape poems about fireworks Lime Class have been practising their Kung Fu punctuation! (Shi Ha)  HOMEWORK: Talk homework is about favourite seasons. Please remember to write the date and title in your green homework book and make plenty of notes to help with your writing next week! Please note the homework is due in on Monday.

Mathematics Mrs Prowle’s group have been exploring Tangrams and the way in which the shapes relate to each other in terms of their size. First we watched an animation about Tangrams (see the YouTube link below). Then, we had to place each shape on a number line according to its equivalent fractional value. For example if the square represented 1, the two small triangles would be ½ and the parallelogram would also be 1 as it can be made from the two small triangles.    We then moved on to more challenging examples and created more number lines. We had to think carefully about equivalent fractions and how to halve quarters and eighths. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5mc-dkYLfI Lots of shapes can be made from Tangrams. You could try making some at home! http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/tangrams http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/shapes/tangrams.html Mrs Williams and Mrs Gilder’s group have been exploring 3D shapes and the nets that are used to make them. Can you match the net and shape? http://www.sadlier-oxford.com/math/enrichment/gr4/EN0411b/EN0411b.htm As we were building our shapes, we discussed the name of the shape and the number of faces, vertices (corners) and edges. You could try printing your own shape at home and building it. What is the shapes name? What properties does it have? http://www.senteacher.org/worksheet/12/NetsPolyhedra.html Mrs Roche’s group have had fun constructing 3d shapes, firstly from playdough and straws and then out of card. We have discussed the number of faces and their shapes, vertices and edges. Homework: Mrs Prowle’s group: Solving further Tangram puzzles. Remember to write the date and WALT. Think carefully about how to construct your number line and make sure you use a ruler! Mrs Roche’s group: Test 4 in the exercise book

Lime’s Nurture Group Nurture group was brilliant! We got to take part in lots of activities. Sam We moved to different sections where we could play, act and eat a snack! Holly We were able to spend more time with our friends and we could play with different friends. Siobhan Nurture group was great because you were able to choose what we were able to do. Kiran The gloop was very gooey and amazing to feel. It kept getting stuck all over my hands when I touched it. Emily We had a good choice of activities and everyone was very well behaved and enthusiastic about it. Max

ART Maple Class used oil pastels and acrylic paint to create these effective firework scenes. First we covered a piece of paper with bright pastel colours and then we painted over the top with black acrylic. Once that had dried we scratched our designs into the paint to reveal the colour underneath using a paper clip, pencil or handle of a paintbrush.

SCIENCE Lime and Poplar classes each carried out an investigation into the quickest way to dry clothes.  We wet some material and then placed it in different places – outside, in front of a fan and near the radiator.  We found that the material in front of the fan dried the quickest.