​Just over half way through half term 5 already, time really flies when you are having fun. Most of our learning has been supported through creative activities; to inspire our writing we completed drama tasks, retelling stories using Pie Corbett actions. In Maths our unit of learning is ‘Properties of shapes’ , we have been learning the names of the different sized angles and how to use a protractor to measure their size. Did you know that the angles inside a square always add up to 360 degrees? Can you use this information to explain the angles of a triangle?

​Foundation lessons (History, Geography, Music …) are this term led by the theme of WW1, we have been finding out about the causes that led to the outbreak of the Great War, the pupils thought it was interesting to research Britain in the early 1900’s; as it turns out the British Empire was once the most powerful force across the globe. In addition to the geographical changes that happened as a consequence of the war, we looked how it influenced people’s lives at home and the front line. Furthermore, we used some creative skills and design to fashion clothing from newspapers to highlight the ‘make do and mend’ mind set of families during the war. As a year group, we have many more exciting activities planned. 

​In maths lessons across school we have been continuing to follow the White Rose Maths Schemes of Learning available for you to see here: https://whiterosemaths.com/resources/primary-resources/primary-sols/  
 
These Schemes of Learning help you to see the progress children are expected to make as they learn key skills in different units of learning. The schemes also show you where key skills are repeated from previous years to help cover gaps in learning which will have occurred during their disrupted education since March 23rd 2020. 
 
There is also a really useful section on the web site which contains guidance for parents: 
https://whiterosemaths.com/for-parents/  
 
Y6 are working through their unit on angles. They have revised types of angles and learnt how to use a protractor to measure angles (a key skill missed during lockdown in Y5). They have also worked through finding missing angles on a straight line and missing angles around a point. Next week they are moving on to learn about angles in a triangle and quadrilateral. 
 
Y5 are working on angles, this week they have been identifying different types of angles – acute, obtuse, right angles and a straight line. Pupils have practised measuring angles and are beginning to draw angles. 
 
Y4 are working to improve their knowledge and understanding of time and learning how to work through reasoning and problem solving questions. ​

Y3 have been learning about time as well as Y4, they have been learning to read to the nearest 5 minutes, about am and pm, measuring time in seconds and how time is read using a 24 hour clock.
 
Y2 have been learning about position and direction in geometry. They have been describing the position of places and objects on a grid using the words: left, right, above, below, in between, forwards and backwards. They have also learnt to correctly use the mathematical language for turns, describing turns using the language ‘full turn’, ‘half turn’, ‘quarter turn’, ‘three-quarter turn’, ‘clockwise’ and ‘anticlockwise’.
 
Y1 have been working on multiplication and division – here are some of the types of questions they have been working on

In reception this week we have been reading “Sharing a shell” by Julia Donaldson. We thought about the moral of the story- that no one wanted to share with the crab so we then discussed as a class how we would all benefit from sharing in class. Will said “we would all be happy”, Gracie said “it’s good to be kind to everyone”.
We made shells from salt dough and decorated them using glitter and sequins, we turned a paper plate into a crab with pincers and we were even able to read tricky words in sea themed jelly bags.


In maths this week we have been looking at subtraction, we have used a number line to count back to find the answer, we used multilink to take away a given number and then count how many we had left. We are getting good at writing a number sentence now.

This week, in Reception, we have been exploring ocean plastic pollution. Our literacy work has been based on the story, Somebody Swallowed Stanley which introduced the children to the issues and effects of plastics in our oceans. We discussed the 3 R’s to help us remember how we can prevent this: reduce (the amount of plastic we use), reuse (plastic items we already have) and recycle (plastic instead of throwing it in the regular bin). We looked at the recycling symbol on different packaging so we could tell which items we could recycle.

During our topic session, we learned to sort recyclable items by material (paper, plastic and metal), created models using junk materials, made our own filters to purify water, and played, ‘Can you spot the litter in the park?’ online and ‘collected’ all the litter. Help us apply these new eco-friendly skills at home.
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In maths, we worked very hard on addition. We recapped the symbol that represents addition and the equals sign. Through the week, we practised addition up to 20 using number lines.