Friday, January 30, 2015
26th - 30th January
In English this week, we have worked to conclude our unit on report writing, making notes about the middle and lower course of rivers from video and text books and then drafting paragraphs about these. In addition, we continued our series of comprehension activities, thinking more about scanning for information and interpreting questions carefully. At the end of the week we started a new unit of work by looking at the poem The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes.
It was test week for us in maths but, in addition, we did some further work on data handling before activities on shape involving reflection, rotation and translation.
One of our main activities this week was planning and carrying out an investigation into factors which may affect the speed of dissolving. We designed fair tests, making sure that we identified many factors that should be controlled, and then carried out the tests. We conducted experiments to find out whether these things affected the speed of dissolving: the amount of salt; the temperature of the water, the amount of stirring and the amount of shaking.
In art, we learned about the kinds of paintings created by Australian Aboriginal peoples, thinking about their stick paintings, the palette of colours used and the symbolic patterns and shapes used in some of those paintings.
It was test week for us in maths but, in addition, we did some further work on data handling before activities on shape involving reflection, rotation and translation.
One of our main activities this week was planning and carrying out an investigation into factors which may affect the speed of dissolving. We designed fair tests, making sure that we identified many factors that should be controlled, and then carried out the tests. We conducted experiments to find out whether these things affected the speed of dissolving: the amount of salt; the temperature of the water, the amount of stirring and the amount of shaking.
In art, we learned about the kinds of paintings created by Australian Aboriginal peoples, thinking about their stick paintings, the palette of colours used and the symbolic patterns and shapes used in some of those paintings.
# posted by Mr Jennings : 6:54 pm
Friday, January 23, 2015
19th - 23rd January
In addition to continuing our report writing about the life of a river in geography, we have written an explanation outlining how a waterfall is formed and develops. We have also all started new group reading books and, at the start of the week, did some comprehension work to help develop our reading skills by thinking about how to find main ideas and supporting evidence in text.
Our maths learning focussed on statistics this week. We thought about bar charts, bar line graphs and line graphs, both presenting data using these graphs and interpreting information from graphs to help us answer questions.
In science, we discussed the three forms of matter, thinking about our own understanding and a scientist's definition of solid, liquid and gas before turning our thoughts to mixtures and how these may be separated.
We had several opportunities to read together our class novel, The turbulent term of Tyke Tyler by Gene Kemp and finished the week by creating symbols using dot patterns in art.
Our maths learning focussed on statistics this week. We thought about bar charts, bar line graphs and line graphs, both presenting data using these graphs and interpreting information from graphs to help us answer questions.
In science, we discussed the three forms of matter, thinking about our own understanding and a scientist's definition of solid, liquid and gas before turning our thoughts to mixtures and how these may be separated.
We had several opportunities to read together our class novel, The turbulent term of Tyke Tyler by Gene Kemp and finished the week by creating symbols using dot patterns in art.
# posted by Mr Jennings : 7:38 pm
Friday, January 16, 2015
12th - 16th January
In maths, we began the week continuing with work to develop our understanding of decimals, thinking about thousandths by ordering numbers, using place value and relating these decimals to fraction equivalents. We spent the last three days focussing on maths problems. After reading each problem, we made an estimate, decided whether to use a mental or written (column method) process to find the answer, recorded an explanation for our choice before computing the answer and showing our working.
We have written further explanation paragraphs in English and also tried to apply some of our understanding of explanations in our geography topic when we have been writing a report about rivers (river sources and the upper course of a river) which have included some elements of explanation.
This week, in addition to our PE and Spanish lessons, we have also started some programming work on the computer and begun our new art topic in which we experimented with making images by using different kinds of marks with pencil or felt pen.
# posted by Mr Jennings : 6:42 pm
Saturday, January 10, 2015
5th - 9th Jan
In our first week of term we have begun a number of new areas of learning.
In English, we are learning to write good explanations. We have read and annotated a text which is a good example of explanation writing, thinking about the way the text is organised and the language features it includes and uses. We have then concentrated on writing good sentences using connectives, especially the causal and logical connectives which are commonly found, alongside sequence connectives in explanations. Yesterday, we wrote simple explanation texts to say why cleaning your shoes is a good idea (and we contrasted this writing with instructions for cleaning shoes that we created just before Christmas).
In maths, our focus this week has been on place value (in decimal numbers) in which we were ordering and comparing numbers, doubling and halving decimals, including starting to deal with numbers to three decimal places.
Last term, in geography and English, we learned and wrote about some major rivers of the world. This half-term we are thinking about the physical geography of rivers and linking this to some of our science work about "states of matter". This week, we started this by learning about some of the features of rivers and then by developing our understanding of the water cycle and water in our environment.
In English, we are learning to write good explanations. We have read and annotated a text which is a good example of explanation writing, thinking about the way the text is organised and the language features it includes and uses. We have then concentrated on writing good sentences using connectives, especially the causal and logical connectives which are commonly found, alongside sequence connectives in explanations. Yesterday, we wrote simple explanation texts to say why cleaning your shoes is a good idea (and we contrasted this writing with instructions for cleaning shoes that we created just before Christmas).
In maths, our focus this week has been on place value (in decimal numbers) in which we were ordering and comparing numbers, doubling and halving decimals, including starting to deal with numbers to three decimal places.
Last term, in geography and English, we learned and wrote about some major rivers of the world. This half-term we are thinking about the physical geography of rivers and linking this to some of our science work about "states of matter". This week, we started this by learning about some of the features of rivers and then by developing our understanding of the water cycle and water in our environment.
# posted by Mr Jennings : 9:00 am
