10 October 2014
This week, our homeworks are Practice Makes Perfect and Creative and are due in on Wednesday 15 October.
PMP: I can interpret data in charts
Children have been learning about how to interpret data in charts. They have a sheet in their book with a chart (either a bar chart or line chart) and they have to answer some questions about the information in the charts.
As always, please encourage children to find me before Wednesday if they need further help.
Creative: I can design a coat of arms.
As part of our Big Topic on our Class Novel, we’re planning on doing some printing of coats of arms. Children have been asked to design their own coat of arms and been reminded of what they are historically and what it might mean for them now: symbols and pictures which represent who they are as a person.
Here are some real life examples:
Some can get very ornate, but I’m not looking for anything this detailed because we won’t be able to print them…
10 October 2014
This week’s homework is talk time.
Is it fair that some art is worth so much money when charities need money to help people?
The children are familiar with a few paintings by famous artists eg Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci. It will be interesting to investigate how much a painting like this is worth and then discuss whether this is fair when charities like St Gemma’s need funds to help look after people who are very ill. There is no right answer and everyone has different opinions – the children need to hear differing viewpoints so they can form their own opinions.
We will discuss this homework on Thursday 16 October as we’ll be at the Sculpture Park on Wednesday.
10 October 2014
This week’s homework is Creative and is due on Thursday 16 October.
I can be an artist.
As we’ve been looking at so many pieces of art and tried a few ideas out in class, it’s now time to see what we can do ourselves. Create any piece of art you want. Take real care with your work as it would be great to include this homework in our gallery event at the end of the topic. Don’t forget, there are all sorts of types of art. Choose the one you like best or one you’ve never tried before…
- painting
- sketching
- pastel/chalk
- sculpture
- ICT
- photography
…and many more. I’m really looking forward to what you come up with.
03 October 2014
Our homeworks this week are Creative and Practice Makes Perfect and are due in on Wednesday 01 October.
The Practice Makes Perfect homework builds on our measures learning in class about length. Children have a sheet in their homework book which asks them to solve some length problems.
The Creative homework is again related to our Fighting Fantasy class novel: I can create a fantasy item advert.
We will be writing promotions for the next few weeks in our English lessons. Children have to create an item which they might find in the class novel. This could be a weapon like a sword, cross-bow, axe, bow and arrow; a defensive item like armour, a shield or a helmet; a potion or spell which uses particular ingredients to perform a magical power; or it could be something else entirely! The choice is yours!
03 October 2014
This week’s homework is creative homework. It needs to be handed in by Wednesday 08 October.
We’ve been very lucky to ‘jump into’ many paintings with Katie over the past few weeks – her grandma is magical and can somehow make paintings come to life.
Which painting would you like to jump into? What would happen when you were inside the painting?
Be as creative as you like! Chat about ideas with your child: Could the homework be in the form of a poster, a letter, a comic strip, some writing, a PowerPoint…? Could it use photos, drawings, fold-out ‘extras’ on the page…?
I would like to jump into this painting:
What would I find? Who would I meet? What might change in the picture? Would I want to stay?
03 October 2014
This week’s homework is Practice Makes Perfect and is due on Wednesday 08 October.
I can write a report.
In English, we have written a report on Vincent Van Gogh. It will now be great practice for your child to write their own report at home on a subject they know a lot about and we all know a lot about Moortown Primary School.
26 September 2014
Our homeworks this week are Talk Time and Practice Makes Perfect and are due in on Wednesday 01 October.
The Practice Makes Perfect homework builds on our grammar learning in class about main clauses and subordinate clauses. Hopefully, the sheet in the homework books will explain this but if you have any questions, please ask.
The Talk Time homework is related to our class novel. You have to put yourself in the mindset of our main character who is about to start his quest: What three items would you take with you on your quest in the Citadel of Chaos and why?
Children should talk to you and other family members and friends about the subject and must give reasons why their items would be important. On Wednesday, we’ll then have a discussion about which items the children think would be most useful. When discussing their reasons, children should be encouraged to use connectives when making their points:
|
time |
adding (see also some time links) |
problem (or ‘opposing’) |
reason + result |
explaining |
| Firstly, / First of all, / Secondly,Next,After that,
Finally, Meanwhile, Then, / Just then, Suddenly, Later,
|
Also,In addition, / Additionally,Furthermore,
Moreover, As well as this, Besides, Another point is … Not only that, To make matters worse, |
However*,In spite of this,On the other hand,
Yet, Nevertheless, Contrary to this, In contrast, Despite this, Despite followed by thing: Despite the fact that…, Despite feeling tired, |
As a result,Consequently,As a consequence,
Therefore Due to this, Because of this, This results in… The reason for this is… |
For example,In other words,That is to say,
By this, I mean… The explanation for this is… |
*’However’ is often seen mid-sentence (sometimes correctly eg It won’t work however hard we try; sometimes incorrectly (although debate continues on this point) eg It rained all day however we still had fun); we have decided to teach as a connective add-in only ie not as a conjunction.
26 September 2014
This week’s homework is Practice makes perfect and is due on Wednesday 01 October.
I can use a number line for addition.
Your child has been practising addition in class for the last two weeks. They have work that is suited to their learning in their homework books which will allow them to practise the skills they have developed and offers the suggestion of learning that will challenge them.
Practice Makes Perfect
This is similar to what you might consider traditional homework: it may be a worksheet or a writing task (such as Y5’s current homework: I can write instructions). Practice Makes Perfect is useful homework when something has been taught in school but needs consolidation. The work should be fairly straightforward for the child as there should be no need for new learning, so just some encouragement from you is needed. However, it would be a great time to get your child to teach you – they should be able to explain the key points or processes! We use this type of homework less often because usually the best practice is where a teacher can keep feeding back and presenting new challenges when they see it as appropriate. Teachers mark these activities in line with our marking policy.
As always, please ask if you’ve any questions or concerns.
26 September 2014
This week’s homework is practice makes perfect. It needs to be handed in by Wednesday 01 October.
It is really important that the children know their number bonds to 10 – this means that they need to know the pairs of numbers that make 10. For example…
7 + 3 = 10 so 3 + 7 = 10
And if they know the addition facts, they’ll know subtraction facts, too…
10 – 7 = 3 and 10 – 3 = 7
The homework this week is looking at calculations that make 10 – if your child can recall these facts quickly then it helps with more complicated calculations as they progress.
(Thank you for the great discussions that seem to have happened about Katie – it’s an exciting topic!)
19 September 2014
This week’s homework is talk time homework. Your child needs to be ready to talk about this homework on Wednesday 24 September.
What did Katie do?
There should be lots to talk about this week after our exciting day with Splats. Here are some questions you might want to ask:
- Who is Katie?
- What happened when she went to the art gallery with Grandma?
- Who did she meet in the paintings?
- Which painting would you like to go inside?
- Did anything in the paintings change?
As this is talk time homework, we do not expect lots of written work from the children. There is a slight change in expectations this year – please make a few brief notes showing what was discussed. Older children are expected to write their own notes but this is something that we can develop during the year.
We are looking forward to hearing all about your discussions.