MrJennings

On Thursday we thought about how authors create atmosphere in a story. We studied a paragraph in which a bright, joyful and carefree atmosphere is developed and looked at the ways this feeling was promoted. Then we re-wrote this paragraph together, removing everything which helped to give the piece the positive atmosphere. We finished by working individually to re-write the paragraph again, this time trying to create a threatening, creepy atmosphere. After that, we tried an old maths calculator test.

In the afternoon we did some technology, finishing off some work we have been doing creating stable structures. We finished making the products we had designed and then tested them using an adjustable slope.

Today, we had our usual Friday English and maths sessions. (In maths, we went through yesterday's calculator test.) This afternoon, after the necessary admin and homework distribution, we did some art, creating a colour wash background for a charcoal sketch.

Our week started off with a visit by a theatre group which presented a wonderful version of "The Nutcracker". This was essentially a one-man show, with the actor narrating the bulk of the story and also using puppets (very skilfully) to represent some of the toys in the story.

In English we have done a variety of activities this week. We have make notes about the different ways authors can develop tension, written paragraphs to develop suspense at the beginning of a story and answered some comprehension questions about a suspense story.

We have been tackling a variety of problems involving shapes (and patterns in sequences of shapes) in our maths lessons and, today, did some observation work in science as we made notes about everything we noticed as a candle burned and was extinguished. We started our new unit of work in music on Monday and learned more about hill farming in geography. We thought about the different sources of income that there might be for a farmer in a mountain region and then identified expenses that he or she would have to meet. We concluded by discussing farm diversification and drawing, on an outline picture of a farm, to show what we would do, if we owned the farm, to increase our income.

We tried an old SATs reading test yesterday in English and then did some shape work in maths, thinking about diagonals of shapes and explaining patterns in the results we found in our investigations. We developed our cricket skills in PE, beginning to learn the techniques of over-arm bowling and we have also written up the results and conclusions of our science experiments that we carried out in Wednesday.

Today, we had our usual Friday English and maths sessions and we finished our week with some art. We tried a sketching technique to draw trees and then tried to create a composition set against a pastel sunset background.

We have begun a new area of focus in English as we have turned again to story writing. For the next couple of weeks or so we will be thinking about suspense stories. We have read a couple of stories in which the authors have used suspense to draw the reader in and, today, we wrote a "build-up" paragraph to come near the start of a story to "build-up" the tension. In maths we have been thinking more about multiplication and division and have developed this towards work on square numbers, factors and prime numbers.

We have done some more work on our geography project, finding out about another important industry of many mountain regions - hill farming. We discussed the common layout of hill farms and have begun charting the main activities of a sheep farmer through the year, especially in connection with the use of low-land and high-land parts of the farm.

This afternoon we had a science practical afternoon. We worked in groups to plan and then carry out experiments designed to investigate factors which might affect how quickly salt dissolves in water.

We have continued with our unit on writing newspaper reports this week. We have thought about the organisation of complete reports and the way journalists include quotes from commentators and people who have been involved in the "story".

In maths we are doing some quick mental arithmetic to start off our lessons and have then been solving maths problems (including "missing number" problems) using the calculator and "trial and improvement" methods.

We had our Tuesday French, PSHCE and PE sessions as usual and in ICT good progress was made in putting our notes into PowerPoint presentations as part of our geography topic on mountains. Our main science unit for this term is about materials which covers ideas about dissolving and reversible and irreversible reactions. We have started by doing some revision on the properties of materials and classified materials as man-made or natural and as solid, liquid or gas.

We have begun the new term with a different focus on our English writing work. We are thinking more about the purpose of our writing and the skill of planning an effective, well organised piece of work. Following our descriptive writing at the end of last term, we are building on this to write a letter asking for help in identifying a flanimal that we (allegedly) found at school.

Our maths this week is concerned with calculations and fractions. We have been checking up on addition and subtraction of decimal numbers and mental multiplication (with sums like 42 x 6). Today we also did some written division calculations based on problems involving fractions.

In geography we have begun collecting information (from the internet) about our chosen mountain ranges in preparation for producing a PowerPoint presentation about this in ICT and we have also had our French, PSHCE and PE sessions today.