Monday 12th January

Wow! What a busy first week we had back. The children really enjoyed their trip to the theatre to see Robin hood. The behaviour of the school was fantastic and we were complimented by the staff. Thank you to the people who came with us.

SWIMMING

We have been informed this week that swimming won't start till later in February You should have received a letter last week with all the new dates.

HOMEWORK

Homework will begin this week. The children need to put every spelling in a sentence unless told otherwise by the teacher. From time to time in the future we may vary this homework with other speaking tasks and extended activities that last a few weeks. Numeracy homework will be given out by the numeracy teacher.

This week Monday will be a little different as we are not having a normal day but:

A MANTLE OF THE EXPERT DAY

The title of the day is land tax. The children will be making an island, making a map, meeting the owner of the island, facing a problem over crop production and harvest in the village. They have to come up with solutions and debate different opinions.

There will be:

drama
discussions
debates
mime
map making
Listen out for the children telling you all about their exciting day!

LITERACY

In Literacy this week we are continuing to read Grandpa Chatterji. We looked in detail at the character of Grandpa Chatterji last week and the children did very well backing up their character ideas with evidence from the text. This week the children will now be starting to make links from the story with their own lives, as well as finding and collecting information about India. There will be lots of opportunities for discussion and 'getting into role' - we will be hot-seating the different characters from the story to see if we can understand them better.

As well as this keep building up your Spelling Bank. The site below is brilliant for learning your Weekly Spellings. Simply type in your word list and off you go:

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/assets/resources/flash.php?&file=looksay2

Also try -

http://www.harcourtschool.com/menus/auto/18/49.html - how far can you go?

http://www.fekids.com/kln/games/whomp/whomp.html - become the King of Monsters in this boggle style game - how many words can you find?

http://tutpup.com/ - don't forget that tutpup has a spelling section!

NUMERACY

Our Tables Award will be starting up again this week and I know from checking my group last week that unless you keep practising your times tables they do disappear. Here are our old favourites to get you back into the swing:

http://tutpup.com/

http://www.wmnet.org.uk/wmnet/custom/files_uploaded/uploaded_resources/851/Hitthebuttonv7.swf

http://www.oswego.org/ocsd-web/games/Ghostblasters1/gbcd.html - can you hit the right ghosts? Remember a multiple is just the times table you want to practice.

And something new to challenge you:

http://www.learnyourtables.co.uk/

Mrs Harding's group will be carrying on with decimals this week. We will be writing decimals as fractions and vice versa, we will be adding and subtracting decimals too. By the end of the week the children:


COULD be able to change decimals into fractions and be able to add and subtract decimals.
SHOULD be able to write a decimal as a fraction and write a fraction as a decimal.
SHOULD be able to order a set of decimals.
MUST be able to recognise place value and tell you what the tenths, hundredths and thousandths are in a decimal number.

To find out more please see:

http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/fracto.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/numbers/fractiondecimalpercentage/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/numbers/fractiondecimalpercentage/decimals/introductiontodecimals/

http://www.coolmath.com/decimals/index.html

http://www.mathsisfun.com/decimals-menu.html

Miss Robinson's group got off to a flying start with their FRACTION work last week. It was great to see everyone on GREEN with their understanding. This week we are moving onto the 'trickier' side of fractions - calculating amounts of numbers. It would be a great help if you practise halving numbers at home too. We will also be making sure we can recognise whether a fraction is greater or less than a whole, and greater or less than a half. This is getting ready to work with improper fractions later on in the year.

By the end of the week the children

MUST be able to find half of a whole number.

MUST be able to recognise a fraction as bigger or less than 1 (whole).

SHOULD be able to calculate one third, one quarter, one fifth, one sixth, etc of a number.

SHOULD be able to recognise a fraction as bigger or less than a half.

COULD be able to find any fraction amount of a number, e.g. 3/5 of 25, 2/3 of 9 etc.

Check out the links below:

http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/fractotron.html

http://www.mathsyear2000.org/games/map-fractions/falling/

http://www.sums.co.uk/playground/n6a/playground.htm - hang the monkeys!

http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/games/fractions/ - and just for fun.

Mrs Bethell's Numeracy Group will be focusing on rapid recall of addition and subtraction of numbers under 20 - against the clock, to start off every lesson. The main focus of the week is measurment - length using mm, cm, m and km, and weight using g ang kg. You could help your child by encouraging them to use rulers, tape measures and scales around the house and estimating/guessing lenths and weights of objects around the home - then actually measuring those objects.

I must be able to use a ruler acurately to measure the length of an object in mm and cm.
I could read from a simple scale to find the weight of an object.
I could solve simple measurement word problems.

http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/numberbond.html - set to 20 or 100 if you are in year 4

http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/additiontest.html - practice addition

http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/subtractiontest.html - practice subtraction

http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/planetweight/planet.htm - compare your weight on earth with you weight on other planets

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/measures.htm#ReadingScales

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/measures.htm#ReadingScales

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/measures.htm#ReadingScales

SCIENCE

We have started a new topic on moving and growing. The children have had great fun trying to draw skeletons without any teaching! This week we will teach them more about the skeleton and they will have to construct a skeleton and put the bones together. To find out more about bones and the skeleton see:

By the end of the week:

Children could know the names of the bones of the body.
Children could be able to construct a skeleton.
Children should be able to put the major bones in the correct place.
Children must know that a skeleton is used for movement and support.

http://sv.berkeley.edu/showcase/pages/bones.html - can you put the skeleton together?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/podsmission/ - a simpler skeleton to work with.

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/revision/Science/living.htm#3

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/8_9/moving_growing.shtml

That is all about now for this week. Take care.

The three and four team.

xxx