Parents’ Evenings

It was lovely to meet all of you on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. We hope you enjoyed looking at the children’s work in their classrooms as well as all of the displays.

Maths

Following our assessments we spent our lessons this week looking at our mistakes and thinking about how to correct them. Lots of us realised how important it is to read the question carefully!

Lime class have been outside measuring leaves and creating bar charts. 

Literacy

On Wednesday we ‘celebrated’ Back to the Future day’ by watching a short clip from the film where the characters arrive on 21^st October 2015. We looked at the things they predicted we would have by now and compared them with reality. Then we wrote about what we thought life might be like in another 30 years and drew some of the fashions that might exist.

Topic

We have been learning about the Egyptian gods and created factfiles about them to make an encyclopaedia. Maple class also painted and wrote about the five table group gods for our class display.

Have a wonderful half term! 

This week's highlight was our fabulous Roald Dahl day on Thursday.  The children all looked amazing in their costumes; we had Willy Wonkas, Fantastic Mr Foxes, Matildas, Georges, Violet Beauregards, a couple of Enormous Crocodiles, some Mike Teavees, a Roly Poly bird, a Trunchbull and many, many more!
Everyone had a great day visiting the Giant's Cave to make dream jars, Pelly's Room to try out some Revolting Recipes for Plushnuggets, Nishnobblers and Blue Bubblers and, in Wonka's World, we invented our own new sweets! 
Even the kitchen joined in creating some amazing desserts and decorating the dining room with a Roald Dahl theme.
A huge thank you to all the parents who came to help and entered into the spirit of things; we couldn't have done it without you!

    

  

  

Lime Maths – Adding to 100, subtracting 2-digit numbers.

The base 10 manipulatives really helped to work out what to add to a 2-digit number to make 100. We used our bonds to 10 to work out the ones we needed and had to take this into account when we were working out the tens.

We then moved on to subtracting.  We used the bean string and number lines to help us work out the difference.

Lime maths is set on mymaths this week.

Maple Maths - Bar graphs

We surveyed everyone in the class to find out what their favourite animals are and then used the data to draw bar graphs. We had  to remember to label the axes, choose an appropriate scale and to draw the bars accurately. 

Homework this week is to collect data about word length in our reading books and use it to create a bar graph.

English

It was a 'Big Write' week and the children were set the task of using a variety of different sentence openers to describe a sea monster. After lots of games and discussion about using '-ly' and '-ing' openers to make writing more interesting, the teachers were looking for these in the descriptions.

Here are some examples of our writing!

'Cautiously the sea monster waited in the murky waters.  Deep in the depths, the sea monster slowly and silently swam towards the divers'. Alice, Lime

'In the distance lurks a petrifying, terrifying, gruesome sea monster.' Bertie, Maple

'Silently I swam through the dark depths of the ocean...' Oliver S, Maple

'Menacingly, it swam hungrily across the reef with stupendous, razor-sharp teeth.' Christopher, Maple

French

Lime have been busy practising for their French themed sharing assembly. We have worked hard on our accents, conversation skills and have really enjoyed singing ‘Alouette’. Do you know what the song is about? Find out here: http://www.frenchlearner.com/songs/alouette/

RE

We continued our learning about Rangoli patterns this week and had great fun making some out of coloured salt on paper plates. Look out for them hanging in our classrooms when you come to visit next week for Parents' Evening!

Another extremely busy and enjoyable week in LKS2:

National Poetry Day

Thursday 8^th October was National Poetry Day and LKS2 marked it by sharing some of the poetry we have been writing over the last few weeks in Brambles.  Some of us read one of our own poems while others read out examples that they’d found in books and we all had a go at reciting one of the poems that were sent home a few weeks ago.  All of us were impressed by the loud, clear voices and the confidence shown by the children when reciting their poetry, particularly the longer ones such as ‘Please, Mrs Butler.’

Adam from Maple Class wrote and performed a very topical limerick which we all loved:

Yesterday England fans cried,
As their hopes in the rugby cup died.
The Aussies and Wales
Took the wind from their sails
Now they must go back home and hide.

Well done Adam!

Maths

Maple  – Perimeter and bar charts

Poplar – Mental maths strategies for addition and subtraction

Lime – Bar Charts

English

This week everyone in the phase have begun to look at the new topic – letters. We have been reading and discussing Dear Mrs La Rue – letters from Obedience School by Mark Teague. The children are thoroughly enjoying the book and drawing information from the letters about the different characters.

Science

Maple learned about the anatomy of the eye and the function of the different parts. We were amazed to discover that the image is actually upside down when it is focused on the retina but the brain turns it the right way up again…all at the speed of light!

Topic

We are continuing our topic of the Ancient Egyptians and the children have begun to look at the life of a slave. We have been discussing the conditions the men would have had to work under when building the pyramids. This will be continued next week.

Art

Our art focus this week has been the Christmas Card project. These are now finished – look out for them in the children’s bags on Monday. Order forms will need to be returned by Friday 16^th October.

Oakwood’s foxy friend

It has been lovely to see our resident fox enjoying the early morning Autumnal sunshine on the field. Here are a couple of photos that Mrs Prowle took yesterday before school began. 

Lime Maths - Measures

This week we have been learning how to measure accurately and how to compare the length of different items. Some of us used cm blocks to help other, others measured to the nearest cm using a ruler and some measured to the nearest mm!

Have a look around your house, estimate and measure some items you find. How close are your estimates?

Homework this week is set on mymaths but you may also enjoy these interactive games to practise your measuring skills:

http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/maths/measures/index.htm

http://www.funbrain.com/measure/

Maple Maths - Measures

This week we have also been learning how to measure accurately and how to compare the length of different items. Y3 used cm blocks to help other, others measured to the nearest cm using a ruler and some measured to the nearest mm!

Y4 and some of the Y3 children challenged ourselves to measure in m, cm and mm using metre sticks and long tape measures.  Some of us went in to the hall to find larger objects to measure and then wrote the measurements in different ways such as 1m 36cm = 1.36m = 136cm = 1360mm!

Homework this week is to find objects around the house to estimate and measure. Please complete the homework on the sheet and stick it in your book.

Spelling - sub

We have been investigating words that begin with  ‘sub’. We had some interesting discussions about what some of the more unfamiliar words on our word wall mean. Can you find any other words that begin with ‘sub’? Can you find these words in a dictionary to work out their meaning?

French

We have continued to practise our vocabulary:

les bras = arms

le nez = nose

la tête = head

les jambes = legs

les yeux = eyes

la bouche = mouth

Can you remember the pronunciation and the actions?

We also recapped on the following words and read a story about a ‘bonhomme de neige’. Can you remember what happenend to the main character in the end ?

English

During The Big Write this week we studied punctuation. Can you read a paragraph from your reading book, adding in the sounds and actions we learnt?

Full Stop - Throw a short, right-handed punch at the air in front of you. Make the noise, Ha!

Comma - With your right arm bent so that your hand is in front of your face, make a short twisting motion at the wrist to signify the comma shape. Make the noise, Shi!

Semi-colon - Do the full-stop punch, then the comma shape directly underneath it. Make the noises, Ha! Shi!

Colon – Follow the full-stop punch immediately with one directly beneath it. Make the noises, Ha! Ha!

Question mark – Separate the curly bit into three cutting movements with the hand: one horizontal left to right, one curved around, and one vertical coming from the bottom of the curved one. Then at the bottom of the shape you have just drawn in the air, bung in a full-stop punch. Make the noises, Shi! Shi! Shi! Ha!

Explanation mark - A long vertical slash, from top to bottom, followed by a full stop. Make the noises, Shiiiiii! Ha!

We also looked at how to organise ideas on the same topic into paragraphs.

The children really respond well to the atmosphere of The Big Write.  The music, darkness and candles provide a very creative atmosphere. Following our first drafts, they used the ‘Purple Polishing Pens’ to improve and edit their work before publishing their improvements into a final draft.

Apart from our great Big Write session, we have also been learning about and writing our own limericks. These are great fun and we have thoroughly enjoyed playing with our ideas!

RE – Hinduism

Our learning in RE has moved onto Diwali. We looked at how and why Hindu’s celebrate the ‘festival of light’. We particularly looked at how the lotus flower is used to inspire Rangoli patterns.  We began to design our own Rangoli patterns and will be using coloured salt to bring these designs to life in the next couple of weeks.

History – Ancient Egypt

We have continued to look at the seasons of the river Nile and the activities that the Ancient Egyptians took part in during each season.

Science

We have learned more about mirrors this week by testing how they reflect different things.  We were interested to see that our hands looked very similar in the mirror but any writing was back to front! We thought about why the word ‘AMBULANCE’ is written backwards on the bonnet and had a really interesting discussion about why our reflections are the right way up on the back of a spoon but upside down on the top.

Try writing the alphabet on a piece of paper and then look at it in the mirror. Which letters look the same and which look different?

Art

We have now finished our Quentin Blake style pictures and we’re really pleased with the results! This week we have been using what we have learned to begin our designs for the annual Christmas card project. We will be sending these home very soon for you to order if you wish.