MrJennings

We are continuing our work on story writing, but this week are using a different scenario as our starting point. We have read a story called Beads in the Hollow which is a ghost story and looked at how the author showed the characters' feelings. We listed phrases which we could use in our own writing to show a character's fear, happiness or sadness. Today we looked at part of another story, Too frightening for me, and wrote the next section to develop the characters and build the tension.

In maths we have practiced simplifying fractions and changing fractions to give a set of different fractions a common denominator. We also worked on identifying equivalent fractions and sequencing fractions with different denominators.

We had a demonstration in science in which a saucepan of salty water was heated to evaporate the water. The steam was condensed onto a metal tray and the drips collected. We found that the water that had condensed did not taste salty and learned that it is only the water that evaporates not the salt.

In geography, we wrote up some notes to record the results of the traffic and pedestrian survey we did last week.

This afternoon we had our usual Tuesday French and handwriting sessions and our PE lesson with the YMCA.

Today we had our usual Friday maths and English groups this morning. In assembly we found out that our class had won the attendance cup for this week. We weren't surprised because everyone had been there all week.

This afternoon we did our tables test, sorted out this week's homework and then did art. Our task this week fitted in with last term's art theme - People in Action. Today we did printing. We used foam rubber shapes to print figures. We used four pieces: a head piece, a body piece, a leg piece and an arm piece. Because the pieces were made of foam rubber, we could bend the arms and legs as we printed from them in order to suggest movement. Finished pieces of art showed a series of people moving or a single figure shown at different stages of a movement such as kicking a ball or doing a somersault.

In English we have begun writing a new version of the story we have been studying. Our version will have a different ending and resolution and be written from the point of view of different characters. On Tuesday we wrote the opening, making sure we established the characters - who they were and trying to show their personalities - and today we wrote the "build-up" - trying to create tension and build suspense.

We have continued using calculators in problem solving in maths. Today we concentrated on investigating the dimensions of different garden ponds based on the size of the paving slabs that had been laid around them.

We planned and carried out a series of experiments in science to investigate factors which might effect the speed with which salt dissolves. We looked at temperature of the water, speed of stirring and frequency of stirring.

In history we looked at a range of reminiscences of people who had been evacuated during the war and then, imagining we were evacuees in those days, wrote a letter home to tell our mums what had happened to us and how we felt.

We continued our calculator-based work in maths. Using word problems, we recorded the calculation that we thought would answer the question, then used the calculator to do the computation.

In English we looked again at the short story we read yesterday. Today we studied how the author had developed the character through the story and then tried to look at how the author had created suspense and tension.

This afternoon we had our weekly French, handwriting and YMCA PE sessions.

We learned about some of the things you have to consider when using calculators in maths today. We found that a calculator sometimes produces errors and that you have to think carefully as you interpret the calculator's display. Then we used the calculators to help us answer questions, making sure that we recorded the calculations we did.

In English, we have begun a unit of work on fiction writing. Today we read a short story and discussed some of its features. Then we looked at the vocabulary used by the author - classifying words and listing good examples from throughout the story.

Our other major piece of work today was the start of our Geography topic. There is a suggestion that we should have a new pedestrian entrance to our school. We discussed the reasons for this and thought about the advantages and disadvantages of the suggestion and who would be affected if the plan went ahead. Then we did a data collection exercise, tallying the use of the existing gate by both pedestrians and vehicles.

We concentrated on estimating and checking calculations in our maths lesson on Thursday, then we did an old SATs reading test. We also thought about ambiguous sentences in English and have tried writing some sentences which are amusing because of their ambiguity. We did football skills and played small team games in PE to finish off our day on Thursday.

Today we had our weekly Friday English and maths groups. This afternoon we did our tables test and then thought about how Hindu people show ideas about their beliefs in their art. We looked at pictures of their gods and then created our own pictures, trying to use the correct symbolism.

While Mr Jennings was at a conference about digital imaging and digital video editing, the class did some more work on tackling problems involving calculations in maths and in English there was a poem to study. This was a humorous poem in which the author explored some of the peculiar ways in which different sounds can be spelt in English.

This afternoon, we investigated what happens when different materials are mixed with water and then we did some history work. We have already found out a lot about evacuation during World War II and now we looked at a document circulated to every household in Nottingham. This helped us discover whether people from Nottingham were evacuated (some were) and whether, if we had been living in our present homes in 1939, we would have been evacuated ourselves.

We have been doing some work on "building paragraphs" in English, using Ricky Gervaise's Flanimals creations as a stimulus. On Monday we wrote paragraphs beginning with a generalisation and followed by supporting sentences. Today, our paragraphs compared two Flanimals, identifying a range of similarities before highlighting a key difference between them.

In maths we have continued our work on multiplication and division, concentrating more on written methods this week. We have also been thinking about, and using, terms like multiple and factor.

Our history work has continued our unit on evacuation. We learned some new word-processing skills (how to create and position text boxes) to help us annotate World War II posters encouraging families to allow their children to be evacuated to (or remain) in the "safer" country areas.

This afternoon we had our weekly PE session with the YMCA and our French and handwriting sessions.

Today we had our special Friday English and maths groups in the morning. In the afternoon we had our weekly tables test and then did some Design Technology. We used isometric paper to create drawings of the shelters we had designed and then we tested them to see how much weight the shelters would support. We weighed each one before piling on weights until they collapsed. This became something of a problem because, although none of the shelters weighed more that 170 g, the least successful supported more than 20 kg - we ended up using boxes of photocopying paper to provide the weight! The strongest structure - created from only 55 g of card and artstraws - supported 50 kg. We stopped there and didn't dare build our tower of weights any higher!

We spent some time in the computer room typing up and editing the different poems we have be writing over the past week. Having made our little portfolios, today we made some notes about the different features of the various poetic forms we have studied.

In maths we have continued our mental maths work on multiplying and dividing, practicing the strategies we have learned. We have also done some written division calculations, thinking about the meaning of the "remainder" and writing the quotient as a remainder or as a fraction.

We completed some of our history work about the evacuation at the beginning of World War 2 by thinking about what happened to the evacuees on the day they were evacuated and the things that they had to take with them.

Today we also did PE and some science work revising work on how insoluble materials of different sizes can be retrieved from water.

Today in our poetry work we looked at Clerihews - again spending time reading examples, thinking about the form and then writing examples of our own.

In maths we did some more practice multiplying and dividing numbers (including decimals) by 10, 100 or 1000. Then we used skill as part of a strategy to multiply numbers by 5, 50 or 500. We did this first by multiplying by 10, 100 or 1000 (as appropriate) and then halving.

This afternoon we had our weekly French and handwriting sessions, then had our PE lesson with YMCA.

We have continued our work on different forms of poetry by thinking about Limericks today. We read a range of examples to help us analyse the form and then wrote examples of our own.

Some more time was spent thinking about World War 2 evacuees in history. To begin with, we listed questions that we would like to have answered about the evacuation. Then we watched extracts from a video and used text and picture resources to begin answering these.

In maths we concentrated on "four rules" sums - building fluency - and concentrated on examples including numbers with one or two decimal places.

We finished the day with some more technology time, completing our shelters ready for testing their strength - probably later this week.

We wrote some more poetry today. We used thesauruses (or thesauri!) to find synonyms of words we wanted to use and, in each line of our poems we used two words, closely similar in meaning, showing our understanding of the one with the most extreme or intense meaning. We did a little more on negative numbers in maths today before thinking about multiplying numbers (including decimal numbers) by 10, 100 or 1000.

We completed our "mystery suitcase" task this afternoon by recording the conclusions that we were able to draw from each piece of evidence that we found in the case. We finished the day with PE which included some throwing skills work and small team games.

We began our new term by thinking about some different forms of poetry in our English lesson. We discussed two poems, noting them, rhyme pattern and some literary techniques then we used one of the poems as a model for writing.

In maths we looked at negative numbers, thinking about these in the context of temperature and using number-lines to help us solve problems.

This afternoon we had a special "mystery" to solve. We had a mystery suitcase which we gradually unpacked - looking at the items inside it to solve the problem of who must have owned the suitcase. Although many of the clues were ambiguous by themselves, we gradually built up a picture of the owner who, it turned out, was a World War II evacuee.