CSI Fingerprinting
It’s the science day of curriculum week today and we’ve been learning about fingerprinting. We’ve learned that all fingerprints are different and that fingerprints have arches, loops or whirls.
Amazing inventions!
There were some fantastic creative homeworks this week. Children were asked to invent something which would make our lives easier. Below are five of the homeworks the children particularly liked this week. A special mention should also go to Ahmed, Jennifer and Ravinder, who produce some amazingly creative digital homeworks.
Brandon’s invention to solve the problem of annoying siblings:
Linda’s brain bending invention:
Sam’s genius spaghetti fork:
Jaskirat’s very useful ipad case and stationery box:
Molly’s maid:
Time to learn your times tables
Practising times tables at home is really important. Knowing times tables facts really helps your child to feel confident in Maths, and enables them to make progress in areas such as calculating, fractions… even shape work can involve times tables – when we think about angles, for example.
The National Curriculum sets out expectations for times tables knowledge:
- Year 2: recall and use multiplication and division facts for the 2, 5 and 10 multiplication tables, including recognising odd and even numbers
- Year 3: recall and use multiplication and division facts for the 3, 4 and 8 multiplication tables
- Year 4: recall multiplication and division facts for multiplication tables up to 12 × 12
If your child is in Year 5 or 6, they need to know all the tables facts so they can start thinking about prime numbers, factors etc. Knowing the tables facts (including division) means having rapid recall – being able to say the answer within about five seconds, not counting through the times tables to work it out.
Each week, your child is asked to learn a particular times table. We might also work on a pair of tables which are related, such as x4s and x8.
Please make sure your child practises as home: in the car, in the bath, on the way to school, straight after school as a matter of routine. Your child needs to know that something like this involves effort and there aren’t any easy solutions!
It’s really helpful to test them two or three times during the week to make sure their ‘score’ improves, and also try to build in some multiplication and division games and references:
- play ‘tables ping-pong‘, where you and your child counts through a times tables forwards and backwards, alternating the counting: 0, 4,8, 12, 16, 20…
- look out for arrays, where you see a grid of something: eggs in a carton is a simple 2 x 3 or 3 x 2 array, and there are arrays on your mobile phone (to log on to mobile phones, you might see a 3 x 3 array – a square number), on buildings (the window panes of a block of flats are useful for larger numbers), tiles in your bathroom, chocolate and other food products…
- download an app to practise on a phone or tablet (there are loads of free ones)
- talk about when you use times tables knowledge
Dance!
This week is our last week dancing with Mr Lynch. He’s worked us really hard over the last six weeks; working on our technique and our fitness. This week, we’ve mostly been practising and refining our Time Travel routine.
Contraption Designs
This week’s homeworks are great! We’ve got loads of ideas to help us continue to build our contraption. Many of them are ideas we could use and a few are a bit more fantastical which we may struggle to execute. Here are a few highlights chosen by the children:
Forces homeworks!
Here are a couple of sets of fantastic forces homeworks the class have done this half-term:
These were all great but I did have a favourite: Ethan’s very scientific idea of getting his hamster to test the friction of different surfaces by getting him to walk across them. “His legs were splayed” was a comment I particularly liked about Rex’s difficulty walking across laminate flooring!
These homeworks are examples of our Forces in Action homework.
School council elections
Our current school councillors held their final meeting recently as we prepare to elect our new school council.
Children from every class, including Reception, are encouraged to prepare a speech to present to their class as part of the election process. Our whole school homework before the election date will give children the chance to plan their speech.
Thank you to our existing school council who have been involved with many decisions and discussions throughout the year. Most recently they have selected books for our library and pupil prizes as rewards in class.
Our class assembly
Thanks to all who attended our per-historic class assembly this week, which tied in with our history learning as part of the Time Travel topic.
Here are a few comments:
- “Very informative. I was impressed that the children all knew their lines without needing a script.”
- “Very interesting and entertaining as usual.”
- “Very educational and very funny. I learnt a think or two. Well done!”
- “Great cavemen! Lots of information.”
BREAKING NEWS: Y5 pupil signs Tykes contract!
Rumours have been surfacing for days but I can now officially confirm that a Year 5 pupil from Moortown Primary School has signed a contract with Barnsley FC Academy! Reportedly, Joe Hart has said that he is already worried about his position as England goalkeeper. MORE TO FOLLOW.
Dance!
This half-term, we’re learning to dance in our PE lessons with Mr Lynch.
We’ll be learning about creative dance, making our own routines which express out personalities.
