Friday, October 23, 2015
19th to 23rd October 2015
In this last week before half-term, we have had short tests in reading and maths in addition to our usual areas of learning.
A main focus for this week was concluding our Art and Design project. Having investigated the work of Bodil Manz and Clarice Cliff, drawn some of their designs and created some designs in similar styles, we developed some designs for our cylindrical pots which combined elements of both Bodil Manz and Clarice Cliff. Today we reproduced these on our pots (using felt pens) on pain painted background done earlier in the week. We also wrote a short report about our project and what we had learned.
In English, unusually, we did a series of unrelated pieces of work. In addition to the test, we did some comprehension work, planned and wrote another concrete poem about Autumn (using a different pattern to that which we used a couple of weeks ago) and wrote a short story in preparation for our work next half term. Our maths built on ideas introduced and practised last week, including more on factors of numbers and calculations, including division.
As well as this, and our PE and science sessions, we finished our tourism unit in our geography topic by thinking about the effects of too many tourists in particularly attractive and vulnerable landscapes by considering how some of these might be alleviated.
We are now on our half-term holiday.
A main focus for this week was concluding our Art and Design project. Having investigated the work of Bodil Manz and Clarice Cliff, drawn some of their designs and created some designs in similar styles, we developed some designs for our cylindrical pots which combined elements of both Bodil Manz and Clarice Cliff. Today we reproduced these on our pots (using felt pens) on pain painted background done earlier in the week. We also wrote a short report about our project and what we had learned.
In English, unusually, we did a series of unrelated pieces of work. In addition to the test, we did some comprehension work, planned and wrote another concrete poem about Autumn (using a different pattern to that which we used a couple of weeks ago) and wrote a short story in preparation for our work next half term. Our maths built on ideas introduced and practised last week, including more on factors of numbers and calculations, including division.
As well as this, and our PE and science sessions, we finished our tourism unit in our geography topic by thinking about the effects of too many tourists in particularly attractive and vulnerable landscapes by considering how some of these might be alleviated.
We are now on our half-term holiday.
# posted by Mr Jennings : 7:00 pm
Friday, October 16, 2015
12th to 16th October 2015
In English this week we have done some comprehension work (on a Jacqueline Wilson text) and started a new fiction unit of learning. We have begun this with a focus on story settings, examining how authors develop settings in stories and how settings are much more than just the place(s) in which the plot is set. Having highlighted references to setting in a well-written text, we noticed that the author dripped in little details about the setting all through the short story rather than having a long passage of description in one particular place and how the author made the setting have an impact on the characters' behaviour and events. Next we re-wrote a passage of text changing the setting and noticing how we could make this impact on characters and action. Our maths this week has concentrated on mental arithmetic strategies and then moved on to learning about multiples and factors.
We have made good progress with our art topic on decorated pots this week by actually making the clay pots we will paint and doing further work creating prototype designs. We have also begun the next element of our Lake District topic in geography which concerns the tourist industry in the area. We used a newspaper report, graphs, charts and tables of information to answer questions about the popularity of the area and behaviour of holiday-makers and day-trippers.
In addition to this learning, we had PE, science and it was also our Parents' Evening week.
# posted by Mr Jennings : 8:16 pm
Friday, October 09, 2015
5th to 9th October
Preparing and presenting our contribution to our school Harvest Festival was an important part of our week. We focused on the importance of water in the harvest and in people's lives. We spoke about this and sang a series of short songs about different aspects of water highlighting its importance to everyone.
In English we have worked on adverbs - thinking about spelling patterns as well as their uses - and we have written concrete poems using adverbs in each line after completing our "Three Wishes" paragraphs. We have also typed-up and edited some of our best expanded noun phrases from our homework as well as class work for a classroom display. Our maths work has been about addition and subtraction - mainly (but not exclusively) written calculations - including large numbers (up to a million for those who are secure with easier sums) and "money" including decimals.
The mini-theme for our learning about the Lake District has been farming. We used different sources of information to find out about the different activities on a hill farm during the year after learning about the typical layout of farms in the region. We will complete this unit next week.
The ceramics artist, Clarice Cliff, was the subject of our art work on Thursday and Friday. We looked the palate of colours she used in the majority of her designs as well as the types if images she created before making up our own designs in this style and prototyping a design for a small vase.
We also did some more science in our Earth and Space topic and did some experimental work in our Forces unit. We thought about and investigated air resistance by dropping sheets of paper and making spinners.
In English we have worked on adverbs - thinking about spelling patterns as well as their uses - and we have written concrete poems using adverbs in each line after completing our "Three Wishes" paragraphs. We have also typed-up and edited some of our best expanded noun phrases from our homework as well as class work for a classroom display. Our maths work has been about addition and subtraction - mainly (but not exclusively) written calculations - including large numbers (up to a million for those who are secure with easier sums) and "money" including decimals.
The mini-theme for our learning about the Lake District has been farming. We used different sources of information to find out about the different activities on a hill farm during the year after learning about the typical layout of farms in the region. We will complete this unit next week.
The ceramics artist, Clarice Cliff, was the subject of our art work on Thursday and Friday. We looked the palate of colours she used in the majority of her designs as well as the types if images she created before making up our own designs in this style and prototyping a design for a small vase.
We also did some more science in our Earth and Space topic and did some experimental work in our Forces unit. We thought about and investigated air resistance by dropping sheets of paper and making spinners.
# posted by Mr Jennings : 10:43 pm
Thursday, October 01, 2015
28th September to 1st October
This week we have continued our English unit on writing well-structured and interesting paragraphs. We have written another paragraph about a major world river and then wrote a paragraph entitled "Three Wishes for Myself". In addition, on Monday, we did some comprehension work to help develop reading skills.
Our maths has had two learning strands. One of these has been to continue to develop our measurement skills (measuring in millimetres) and converting between metric measurements while the other has been further work on drawing and interpreting graphs (specifically bar line graphs).
As well as PE, science (and the special astronomical event for the moon this week fitted our topic well) and starting to prepare our year-group's item for the school harvest festival, we did the first of four majors units of our Lake District topic. This involved learning about the forestry industry in the Lake District and then using our skills to develop a planting plan and creating a series of questions that anyone wishing to plant a new forest might be asked by the planning authority.
Our maths has had two learning strands. One of these has been to continue to develop our measurement skills (measuring in millimetres) and converting between metric measurements while the other has been further work on drawing and interpreting graphs (specifically bar line graphs).
As well as PE, science (and the special astronomical event for the moon this week fitted our topic well) and starting to prepare our year-group's item for the school harvest festival, we did the first of four majors units of our Lake District topic. This involved learning about the forestry industry in the Lake District and then using our skills to develop a planting plan and creating a series of questions that anyone wishing to plant a new forest might be asked by the planning authority.
# posted by Mr Jennings : 5:46 pm
