MrJennings

We have been spending some time on craft and other activities related to Christmas.

We made Christmas cards, including some stars created by using thread to make "string pictures" representing stars and also drawing our own pictures.

We tried solving some word and maths puzzles with a Christmas theme (and made some of our own) and, today, we watched a video in the morning and to end the day we had our final carol service in which the Years 5 and 6 presented their service to Years 3 and 4.

We have now broken up for our Christmas holidays.

School opens again on Wednesday 3rd January.

Wednesday was our concert day. In the afternoon, we rehearsed at St. James' Parish Church and the performance took place there at 7 pm that evening. The carol service was very good and there was an excellent attendance - standing room only for the congregation/audience.

On Thursday we had a science day. We did some work thinking about planning experiments and then we planned and carried out two experiments. One was the second of two experiments on shadows: this time we were investigating the effect of moving the position of the light source on the size of a shadow. In the afternoon, the scenario for our investigation was that a company wished to know what kind of material would make the best reflector for putting "flashes" on a cycle helmet. After planning this experiment we used different materials, torches and light meters to find the best reflector.

On Friday, we thought about opaque, transparent and translucent materials and then completed a review test of the work we had done this term on Light and how we see. We spent the rest of the day on a piece of art work in preparation for making a calender. (We are making a 3d picture.)

In English we reviewed some homework that we had done in relation to our work on story structure. We analysed the development of the story, discussing which parts are opening, build-up, climax, resolution and ending. Then we identified places where the author had included ideas that she was going to use later when creating the resolution and ending of the story.

In maths, we finished looking at a past SATs paper we had done and, today, we began a unit of work about negative numbers.

We have complete part of the write-up of our science experiment that we did last Friday and did some RE work, studying three different paintings of the Annunciation. We have also had a full run-through of our Carol Service and had our usual Tuesday French, handwriting and PE sessions.

In English we have continued studying poetry. Yesterday we looked at a Grace Nichols poem about the sun which uses personification, and today we did a comprehension exercise based on a poem in a past SATs paper.

In maths we have been doing some mathematics problems presented in words and have also continued our follow-up to last week's maths test.

We had PE on Thursday and also did an experiment in science to help us understand how shadows are formed and how their size changes when the distance between the light, object and the screen is varied.

This afternoon we had a practice for our carol service next week and then we did some more of our RE topic on symbolism and faith in the arts.

We have spent a couple of days thinking about sequences in maths based on patterns of shapes. We have extended and extrapolated these sequences and tried to describe some of these by working out a formula for them.

In English we have completed our "Air Raid Shelters" report. We spent some time researching information about Morrison Shelters, wrote a paragraph about these and then wrote up the complete report (including downloaded pictures).

We have had our French, handwriting and PE sessions and also spent some time practising for our Christmas concert - both the singing and our readings.

Yesterday we continued our work on non-chronological reports by writing about different types of air raid precautions during World War 2. The focus here was on writing a complete report with a good introduction and clear paragraphs (with sub-headings to help the reader navigate the text). In maths we did an old SATs paper. We did PE - another session of "bench-ball" - and then thought about how light reflects off mirrors.

Today we had our usual Friday English and Maths groups and, this afternoon, we did some more technology. We began by examining corrugated cardboard, finding that, despite its strength, it is actually made of paper. Then we made a strong sheet using two pieces of thick paper sandwiching art straws.