News World Book Day All three classes really entered in to the spirit of the day with some fantastic, creative and original costumes.  Throughout the day there were lots of reading based activities to enjoy. We had ‘Stop and Read’ sessions where everyone, including the teachers, stopped and read for 10 minutes. Each class also paired up with another class to share our favourite books and we all really enjoyed reading to each other. Here are the children of Maple Class in their great outfits! Hatfield House We had a fantastic trip to Hatfield House last week. Once we had learned a little more about life in Tudor times (which sounds very hard indeed!) we  were taken in to meet King Henry VIII’s minstrel, Thomas Tallis. He told us  all about life at court and taught us a song called Sumer is Icumen In to sing for the King. Then we met Catherine Parr who taught us how to bow and curtsey properly before sharing a portrait with us that she had commissioned for the King showing his children and favourite wife, Jane Seymour. Then, it was time  to go before Henry himself. Everyone looked very nervous before we were summoned in!  The King told us a bit more about his life and then sent us away so that he could have a private talk with his daughter Elizabeth.  The next stop  was to see the Yeoman and learn a bit more about being a soldier in Tudor times. He also told us about some of the horrible punishments that Tudors used…it sounded very gruesome.  Some of us were lucky enough to see Real Tennis being played as well. It looked very complicated but fascinating!  All  in all it was a great day and everyone learned something new!

Literacy As part of our topic work on the Tudors and to go with our literacy work on play-scripts, we have started learning about William Shakespeare. Each class is reading a child’s version of ‘The Tempest’ and there will be some follow up work based on this as well as some research about the man himself. Useful Websites: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/famouspeople/william_ shakespeare/ http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/playground http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/ebooks/the-tempest-kids/ Homework: Week 2 of the reading challenge linked homeworks please  (a detailed book review).

Mathematics In Mrs Prowle’s group, we have been learning how to divide 2 and 3 digit numbers using the chunking method. We have used base 10 apparatus to help us understand how to work out our ‘chunks’ and this website is a great way to practise! http://wwwk6.thinkcentral.com/content/hsp/math/hspmath/na/ common/itools_int_9780547584997_/basetenblocks.html On Friday, as part of book day, we used our division skills to work out how many pages we would have to read per day if we were given a time limit to read certain books! In Mrs Williams and Mrs Gilder’s group we have started working on fractions.  We looked at some bars of chocolate and found equivalent fractions.  Mrs Williams is very greedy.  Do you know how many quarters are equivalent to 1/2?  In Mrs Roche’s group we have been working on multiplication. On Monday we carried out an investigation using our 2 and 3 times tables and then our 4 and 5 times tables. Since then we have been using them in our work. Homework: No  formal homework this week but to practise the times tables

Science Maple Class moved on to our new topic about the digestive system.  To begin with we tried to put the different organs in the right place on a human outline. Then Mrs Prowle gave us some clues and explained a bit more about how the system works before we had another go!  By the end of the lesson we really understood all the different processes and were proud of ourselves for learning the proper medical names for all the different parts! Poplar class have also been testing string telephones to find out what is the most effective materials to use in them. We then started our new topic about the digestive system and had a look at the organs which are used to digest food. Lime Class looked at teeth.  We learnt the names and functions of the different types of teeth and we did an experiment with some eggs - we'll tell you the results next week!  We also looked at the amount of sugar in different drinks - we discovered that a bottle of milkshake has 46g of sugar!

The Emerald Crown Rehearsals got underway this week for our end of term production and it’s already looking good! Costume letters will be coming out soon along with the dates of the performances.  Please encourage your child to practise the songs and, if they have a speaking part, their words for that too.