MrJennings

In our last week of term we finished off some key pieces of work before our holidays.

We looked at the results of our experiment investigating the conditions that seeds need to germinate, finding that seeds which had no air or no water or no warmth failed to germinate. Seeds germinated whether they had soil or not and whether they were left in the light or the dark.

We completed our automata project. A few of us had to finish the automata themselves then joined the others in filming their automata and producing a PowerPoint presentation about the construction of these. Everyone also completed a presentation drawing of their products and filled in an evaluation sheet identifying the strengths and weaknesses of their designs.

Finally we were rescued from the Desert Island. We had to think of ways that we could try to signal to anyone who might be looking for us and, after being given information about the time of day and weather conditions when there was an opportunity for rescue, we had to decided what course of action to take and then we were told whether we had been spotted. Most of us were rescued at the first or second attempt.

We completed our Record of Achievement sheets and portfolio for Year 5 and made a game based on the Grandpa Chatterji story.

Best wishes to everyone for a good holiday - see you again on 4th September.

This has been a week of special events and activities at school.

On Tuesday, the Year 2s (who will be coming to our school in September) came for the morning. We took our Buddy Groups around the school and read them the Mr. Men stories that we had written earlier in the year. Later that day, the children all had a session with their teacher for next year.

Wednesday was the day of our school music concert. In addition to our school choirs, our orchestra and ukulele club played as did solo and group instrumentalists on the violin, flute and piano. We performed to the whole school in the morning and to parents and friends in the evening.

We had our Team Sports Afternoon on Thursday. After postponing this due to a very poor weather forecast in late June, we were lucky to have a fine day with some sun. The children (in teams of eleven, each including a mix of Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 pupils) had a go at eighteen different activities and the combined scores from these events gave bronze, silver and gold winning teams.

Today our school hosted the Carlton Academy Family of Schools Music Festival. The event was attended by teachers and children from Carlton Academy, Porchester Junior School, Carlton Central Juniors and Infants, Haddon Primary, Carlton Digby Special School as well as Westdale Juniors and Infants. It was great to hear and see the different performances from other schools and to join together in an item that we had all prepared.

In between all this, we spent more time on our automata, did some maths on number sequences and further work on film adaptation of The Wind in the Willows.

In English this week we have begun to think about the way film makers re-tell classic stories. Using The Wind in the Willows as our classic novel, we have read the start of the book together and watched the start of a film version. We tracked the dialogue through the opening and thought about how, in addition to the actors' lines and actions, the film director conveys the story to the viewer. Our maths has been about fractions, decimals and percentages.

We had a special day on Tuesday when we went to Carlton Academy for an Arts' Day. We did four different arts activities (some drama, some painting, some music and some dance) all connected with the Olympic theme.

In addition to spending more time on our technology project (the mechanisms for our automata are almost all complete) we also did some more of our history research and finished decorating our clay pots with the designs we had created in the style of ceramicist, Bodil Manz.

This has been another short week, with Monday being an INSET day for the teachers.

We have made progress with our automata, making and fitting the main axle for the cams, drilling the cams and making the cam follower guides. Next week we expect to be able to put the main components together on the frame.

In English, we have worked on converting a short story (one of Aesop's fables) into a play-script - including cast list, scene description, stages directions and actor's lines. We have also spent some time reading a sequel to Grandpa Chatterji called Grandpa Chatterji's Third Eye. Our maths has been concerned with percentages of numbers and shapes.


In addition to French and PE sessions, we did some more music - this time, we worked in groups to create "Chinese-style" music (based on the pentatonic scale) using tuned and untuned metal percussion instruments.