27 March 2020: Home learning
Good morning and happy Friday!
How are your plants growing, Year 3? I’d love to see how well you’re taking care of them. Feel free to send me a picture of you with your Indeed Big Grow pot for our class news. Remember that, as well as other things, plants need the right level of sun and water to grow (don’t over-water them!). If yours isn’t growing just yet, don’t worry they may just be growing their roots in their soil. Be patient -your plant also needs time!
Reading
Review
How do your RIC answers compare to mine?
R. The children were shocked that Uncle Quentin had sold the old box. Find and copy the word that shows their shock. ‘horror’
I. Why would the man from London pay such a high price for an old box? Because he probably knows that there may be something inside the box that tells him where to find the treasure on the island. Or, he’s suspicious
C. Explain what the statement, below, means:
‘Well this fellow collects curious things like that and he gave me a very good price for it’
It means that the man from London collects interesting/unusual things and paid uncle Quentin a lot of money for it.
Today’s learning
Today, you have a longer comprehension. Challenge yourself by having 30-40 minutes on this. Don’t rush. Make sure to go back and check your answers!
This is about chapter 10 (you can read it online here). Find the part where Uncle Quentin tells the children that Kirrin Island will be sold. You can also listen to it on audiobook on thislink. Chapter 10 starts from 2:15:00.
- (R) How does George react to the news?
- (R) How does Uncle Quentin react to George?
- (C) George didn’t use the best persuasive language to make Uncle Quentin change his mind! Present an argument to Uncle Quentin to persuade him to change his mind about selling the island. The challenge is: you can’t mention the map or the hidden ingots!
Write down a list of 4 reasons why the island shouldn’t be sold. e.g. Because it might harm the rabbits living there.
4. (R) True or false:
- -Uncle Quentin gave the island to the men from London.
- Uncle Quentin bought the island from the men from London.
- The men from London bought the island for over a hundred pounds.
- The men have man have shown they want to buy the island but haven’t bought it yet.
5. (R) What does ‘ingots’ mean or hint at in the story?
6. In the text, Aunt Fanny says: “George dear, I did mean you to have them to play on, when I thought they couldn’t possibly be worth anything,” said her mother, looking distressed. “But now things are different. Your father has been offered quite a good sum, far more than we ever thought of getting- and we really can’t afford to turn it down.”
Why does George’s mother look distressed?
- (I) Write a thought, as Aunt Fanny, showing what she’s thinking while saying this to George.
- (C) Which sentence best summarises chapter 10? Write the letter down.
A. Uncle Quentin gets an amazing offer for Kirrin Island but the children aren’t sure about it.
B. Uncle Quentin gets an amazing offer for the old box but the children don’t want him to sell it.
C. Uncle Quentin gets an offer for Kirrin Island and the children are slightly worried their secret has been discovered.
D. Uncle Quentin gets an offer for Kirrin Island and the children are incredibly worried their secret has been discovered.
The Famous Five – Five on a Treasure Island by Enid Blyton (chapter 10)
Spellings
Ask an adult (or older sibling) at home to test you on the words you’ve practised all week.
Or, if your adults are busy, fill in the gaps on these words. No sneaky peeking!
ha_ _ _n_ _s
lon _ l _ n _ _ _
tho _ _ _ _f_ _ly
p _ _ nl _ _s
col _ _ _ful
hu _ _ _ ng
wr_ _ _ ing
drip_ _ _
cla _ _ _ _
fun _ _ _ _ t
h _ _ _ e _ t
hop _ _ _ _
wis _ _ _ _
Maths
Today’s learning
Today, we focus on money. Remember – there’s 100 pence in one pound. Also remember, In Year Three we write pounds and pence like this:
4 pounds and 77 p. Not like this: £4.77p.
Warm up your Maths muscles with some money related games:
- Coin recognition and counting amounts – link here. Select ‘counting’ and ‘any 6 coins’.
- Ordering money – link here. Click ‘money’ and ‘mixed £ and p’.
Next, I want you to practise working out how much change you would get if you bought items. Have a go at the task, below.
Want a challenge?
Set up your own toy shop and add labels for (realistic) prices for each item. Make sure this is in pounds and pence. Then, choose your pocket money amount and work out what is the maximium number of items you could buy without going over your spending limit. Then, create your own rules for a game where you’re working out change in pounds and pence.
Times tables
It’s time for your Friday test! Get someone at home to read these questions out and test you on your x2s, x5s and x10s.
- 10 x 10 =
- 20 ÷ 2 =
- 15 ÷ 5 =
- 4 x 5 =
- 30 ÷ 10 =
- 12 x 2 =
- 8 x 5 =
- 4 x 2 =
- 18 ÷ 2 =
- 90 ÷ 10 =
Email me how you did. I’m sure you’ve smashed it, Year Three!
Science
Revisit
Mark your Writing from yesterday.
Today’s learning
Use the words and temperatures in the box to fill the gaps in the sentences. Put a tick next to the ones you’ve used so you don’t use them twice!
Optional challenge – ask your adult at home before you do this challenge.
Make some ice cubes and create a tower as tall as possible. Discuss what makes building the tower tricky and why?
Happy weekend, everybody!
I can’t believe it’s already the weekend! A whole week of home learning is ticked off – well done you! Here’s a list of ideas of things to do over the weekend. Remember to always be helpful, positive and kind to one another, just like you are in class. : )
- Think about how you could earn a Blue Peter badge – link here.
- Read for at least 20 minutes a day.
- Start your very own reading challenge:
4. Take part in a daily doodle challenge:
5. Investigate what household materiel makes the best parachute for your favourite toy. The challenge is to keep the toy in the air for as long as possible. (link here).
Have a great weekend. Stay safe, happy and healthy. From Miss C and Maggie (woof!).
26 March 2020: Home learning – Maths
Hi everyone!
After a bit of technical difficulties with the maths section of today’s learning tasks, here it is!
25 March 2020: answers
Y5 Maths – LO: subtraction
- 4,648 – 2,347 = 2,301
- 45,536 – 8,426 = 37,110
- 29,456 – 8,896 = 20,560
- 37,506 – 22,819 = 14687
- 83065 – 45927= 37,1338
26 March
***Yoga Space are running a free kids yoga this morning at 10.30am. You need to register 1 hour before the class starts to take part. ***
Thank you for all the photos of your home learning work so far. It’s been great to hear and see how you have been getting on and we are proud of all your enthusiasm. We are particularly impressed with how neat and well presented your learning is. Keep this up! It is important to take pride in your work. Have a look at the class news page to see some examples.
Physical activity: As well as your daily exercise outside your house, why not try one of the many activity videos on imovement. There are different ones each day.
Mindfulness activity: Today, take some time to lie down in a quiet place and listen to some relaxing music with your eyes closed. A chance to refocus before restarting your learning.
We’ve had another Lexia achievement with Penelope getting her next Lexia level yesterday. Well done! Where possible, the aim is to reach Level 9 by the end of Year 2.
Here are your home learning tasks for today.
Task 1 reading
Firstly, try to keep reading a variety of texts while you are learning at home. We recommend 20 minutes of reading every day.
1.Reread the fluency text all about polar bears. You should be able to read it a bit more fluently today now it is more familiar.
2.Use the text to answer the questions below.
Polar bears
Polar bears are the planet’s biggest land-based carnivores – although they actually spend most of their lives around water and ice (their Latin name means ‘sea bear’). So they’re at particular risk from global warming, which is melting the Arctic sea ice they depend on.
Polar bears generally live and hunt alone, though they can be quite social too. They mainly eat seals – using their remarkable sense of smell they can detect a seal in the water beneath a metre of compacted snow, and from almost a kilometre away.
Adults are strong swimmers – they can swim for several hours to get from one piece of ice to another. Their thick white coat and a layer of fat keep them warm and camouflaged in their harsh Arctic environment.
1. Are the following statements true or false?
Polar bears eat plants. TRUE or FALSE
Polar bears are good at swimming. TRUE or FALSE
Polar bears often eat seals. TRUE or FALSE
Polar bears can’t smell very well. TRUE or FALSE
2.Find and copy a word from the text that means
usually ___________
amazing __________
can’t be seen ________
firmly pressed together ___________
3.How do the polar bears keep warm in the cold Arctic environment?
Challenge: Can you think of your own question about the text?
Task 2 maths
Here are your answers from yesterday’s learning. How did you do?
1 curved side – circle
3 vertices – triangle
4 straight sides – rectangle
4 straight sides of equal length – square
5 sides – pentagon
6 vertices – hexagon
8 sides – octagon
For the challenge question, we would encourage the children to check the number of sides on a shape by marking each side with a line as they count.
Before you start today’s activity, count in 2s, 5s and 10s (upto 24, 60 and 120). You could even teach someone how we use the cross crawl action when we count.
Today, we will be focusing on times tables. Remember in Year 2 we want you to try and learn your ten, five and two times tables (in that order).
1. Spend 10 minutes on Times Tables Rock Stars. Based on our checks in class, you have been set the times table that you need to practise. Please email (carolinetaylor@spherefederation.org) if you need help with logging in.
2.Complete the following number sentences. Remember to skip count on your fingers to help you.
3. Put the number sentences in order from from the lowest total to the highest total.
2 x 10 = __
6 x 5 = __
__ = 5 x 2
10 x 10 = __
0 x 5 = __
__ = 12 x 2
9 x 5 = __
1 x 2 = __
Challenge: Choose three of the above times table facts and write down the other facts you know using this information. For example, if you know that 4 x 10 = 40, you also know that 10 x 4 = 40, 40 ÷ 10 = 4 and 40 ÷ 4 = 10.
Task 3 Living and Learning
Our statement for this week is:
1. Tell someone what proud means.
2.Tell someone what showing off means.
2. Imagine someone has got first prize in a talent competition. Draw a picture of them (with two speech bubbles) telling a friend what has happened.
3. Use one speech bubble to show what they might say to their friend if they were feeling proud and in the other what they would say if they were showing off.
Challenge: What might you do if someone was showing off about something?
Finally, we’ve spotted lots of rainbows in windows as we’ve been out for our daily walk. Have you spotted any? Have you got one in your window? We’d love to see it!
26 March 2020: Home learning
Morning, guys!
Hope you’re doing well and you’ve managed to get some fresh air, be helpful in some way and have a smile on your face more than a couple of times! As with yesterday, Y5/6 maths will be separate and the rest is together. Stick around ’til the end of the post for today’s bonus task! (Crowd says “ooooooh”!)
As always, email me if you have any questions or want to let me know how you’re getting on – it’s been great hearing from you guys and you’ve been keeping me going in my old age!
Miss Wilson
Y6 Maths – LO: negative numbers
Your learning today is all about negative numbers. If it helps, draw a number line from -20 to 20. Using the number line, or just your brain, answer these questions.
- 6 – 10
- 15 – 20
- -3 + 8
- -9 + 22
- What is 6 less than 4?
- What is 5 more than -2?
- What is the difference between 3 and -5?
- What is the difference between -10 and 10?
- The temperature in Leeds is 6°C. Sheffield’s temperature is 4°C colder. Glasgow is 8°C colder than Sheffield. What’s the temperature in Glasgow?
- In a building, the basement is at level -3. The office is 16 levels above the basement. What level is the office on?
- Write a story that goes with Q1-4.
Challenge
Miss Kennedy says, “If I start at 27 and count backwards in 3s, I will say -12.”
Miss Wilson says, “If I start at 86 and count back in 6s, I will say -12.”
Who do you agree with? Explain why/why not.



Y5&6 – Reading – LO: RIC
Your learning today is a RIC.
Read the extract of the text and then answer the questions below. We will give you the correct answers tomorrow.
Retrieval question:
According to the text, what was Skuli not holding? (1 mark)
Interpret question:
Look at extract 2. How do you know Gunnar’s father’s and Skuli’s relationship is not a positive one? Explain two ways, giving evidence from the text to support your answer. (3 marks)
Choice question:
Look at extract 1. Find and copy one group of words that shows us that Gunnar does not like Skuli. (1 mark)
Challenge
Create your own RIC for someone at home to complete – you could have as many questions as you like.
Y5&6 – Writing – LO: setting description
Following yesterday’s character description, your task today is to write a setting description. This should be no longer than one paragraph.
For your setting description, you need to think about:
- Where is your character?
- What can they see?
- Are they going somewhere?
- Describe the setting using effective vocabulary e.g. fierce thunder, roaring wind, golden sand
Here is an example of a setting description.
The seas were rough for the first few days. Gigantic waves swept over the ship’s walls but the Vikings continued to row. Lightning bolts pierced holes on deck but the Vikings continued to row. Days and nights of torturous storms bombarded the vessel but the Vikings continued to row. With a compass in one hand, and wheel in the other, Ragnar stood fiercely and laughed in the face of the unforgiving conditions and stared out across the inky abyss, his once piercingly blue eyes now reflecting the grey, ominous sky above him. It rumbled, a deep, laughing rumble, taunting him. Domineering the landscape ahead of him was a spiky, crown-like mountain range jutting out of the land which was his target. Ragnar saw it as a sign from the Gods, that his journey would bring him fame, fortune and power. His confident mindset, however, didn’t last long.
R2s
- expanded noun phrases
- relative clauses
- figurative language: similes, metaphors, personification
- powerful vocabulary
- varied sentence openers
- varies sentences lengths
Challenge
Rewrite your description and change its tone. For example, a dark, gloomy description becomes a happy and cheerful one:
With a compass in one hand, and wheel in the other, Ragnar stood fiercely and laughed in the face of the unforgiving conditions and stared out across the inky abyss, his once piercingly blue eyes now reflecting the grey, ominous sky above him…
becomes…
With a compass in one hand, and wheel in the other, Ragnar stood proudly and breathed in the air of these triumphant conditions and gazed out across the smooth, calm sea, his piercingly blue eyes reflecting the sapphire sky above him.
Bonus Task!
Yesterday, we asked you to reach out to someone from school! Following on from that, today’s bonus task is to reach out to someone in your family, be it a grandparent, aunt/uncle or cousin. Just because we have to stay in our own homes, it doesn’t mean that we can’t still connect with our families! I heard about a boy that FaceTimed his grandma for 30 minutes every day and read his book to her! He was practising his reading and his grandma absolutely loved the company. So why not give it a go and make someone’s day?
26 March 2020: Home learning
Good morning, everybody!
I’m missing seeing you all so I’m really appreciating the emails that I’m receiving. It has been wonderful to see some of the great learning that has been going on at home – I’m really proud of everyone!
Thank you to those who sent their questions for grandad. I’ve written a list of them and will be asking him when I speak to him later – look out for his answers! 🙂
Remember, if you need help with anything school related, don’t hesitate to email me at benparker@spherefederation.org.
Onto today’s task…
Writing
Below, is a list of tricky words that you need to be able to spell by the end of Year 1.
my
his
one
friend
they
were
Your task is to learn (or remind yourself) how to spell them and then put them into sentences. Here’s the fun bit… I want you to write the words into silly sentences.
E.g.
My pet lion wanted soup for his lunch.
Can you write at least 5 sentences?
Challenge:
Can you use all of the words in one sentence?
E.g.
One day, I made my lion and his friend soup for lunch because they were hungry.
Remember, not all words have to be spelt correctly. Make sure you spell the words from the list correctly and use your phonic knowledge to segment words you’re unsure how to spell.
Maths
I’ve written some number fact calculations below – some are true and some are false.
6 + 2 = 8
2 + 7 = 8
3 + 5 = 8
1 + 7 = 9
4 + 6 = 11
1 + 5 = 6
8 + 1 = 8
3 + 0 = 4
2 + 8 = 10
5 + 2 = 7
Your task is to make a list of true calculations and a list of false calculations.
E.g.
Challenge: Can you make the false calculations into true calculations?
Reading
Here are some questions using Phase 3 phonemes.
Can a duck quack?
Can a boat sail?
Is all hair fair?
Is the moon far off?
Is it dark at night?
Is a thick book thin?
Can we get wool from a sheep?
Will six cows fit in a car?
Will all shops sell nails?
Can a chicken sit on a chair?
Are the teeth of sharks sharp?
Can you hear bees buzzing now?
Your task is to read them independently and then decide if the answer is yes or no. Make two signs, ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and then hold them up when answering the questions.
Challenge: Create your own yes/no questions using the words below:
mountain
fear
pair
cure
If you want more support with phonics, log onto phonics play using the link, https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/.
There are some great games to play on there – I love playing, ‘Buried Treasure’.
Good luck and keep smiling.
Mr Parker
26 March 2020: Home learning
Reading – Day 3 Answers
- 2cm x 2cm
- plastic tubs
- frame
- drawing
- repeating
- glue
- The show pictures of history and scenes from everyday life using small tiles.
- A repeating pattern is a pattern that repeats – using similar colours or shapes (not a great question)
- Scenes from history and everyday life / animals
- So that you can keep each colour separate so they don’t get mixed up.
- Because they looked nice / to show they could afford decorative things
- So that you know where to put the tiles / to make sure your mosaic is neat
Reading – Day 4
Today, our reading is about Boudicca’s final battle: The Battle of Watling Street. Read the text carefully and answer the following questions.
- Before the start of the battle, why would Boudicca have been confident of winning?
- What slowed down the Celts movement towards the Romans?
- Why has the author included a diagram on page 24?
- What stopped the Celts from getting away from the Romans?
- What does the word rebellion mean? Use a dictionary or the internet to find out if you’re not sure.
- Whereabouts in England did the Battle of Watling Street happen?
Challenge:
Create a glossary of about five key words from the text which children may not know the meaning of?
Maths answers Day 3
- 779
- 678
- 989
- 582
- 693
- 937
- 946
- 834
- 456+342=798
- 245+731=976
- 535+238=773
Maths
Writing
26 March 2020: Home learning
Good morning, friends! Another beautiful day and lots of opportunities to learn something new today. If you’ve got some more free time after your home learning, why not ask an adult or older sibling to help/show you:
- How how to tie your shoelaces.
- Do some cooking or baking (help make tea for your family at home).
- Play a board game. My favorite is Monopoly (but I keep running out of money!).
- Design a quiz based on what you’ve learnt in Computing/History/Maths this year and have everyone at home compete in a head-to-head challenge tonight. You decide the forfeit!
Reading
Review
Have an adult at home check that the words you replaced have the same meaning. Keep challenging yourself to use these words when you speak to your family at home.
Today’s learning
Today, we have a RIC. Remember – R= retrieve I=inference C= choice
The Famous Five
R. The children were shocked that Uncle Quentin had sold the old box. Find and copy the word that shows their shock.
I. Why would the man from London pay such a high price for an old box?
C. Explain what the statement, below, means:
‘Well this fellow collects curious things like that and he gave me a very good price for it’
Spellings
Practise your spellings today by using the ‘spelling jumps’ method.
happiness / loneliness / thoughtfully / painless / colourful / humming / wrapping / dripped / clapped / funniest / hottest / hopeful / wishful
Maths
Revisit
Check your answers from yesterday with a calculator and tell an adult how you did.
Today’s learning
Flex those Maths muscles of yours and warm up by either:
- Play ‘Think of a number’.Think of a number between 0-100 and get someone at home have to guess what it is They can ask questions like ‘is it less than 20?’ (yes/no questions).
- Play ‘which operation is missing’ here.
Today’s learning is fractions.
- Play ‘match the fractions’ here.
- Play ‘fraction wall’ here. Make sure it’s selected to ‘fractions’ with a denominator of up to 12 (at least) and then ‘scatter’. Your job is to rebuild the fraction wall. Then answer the following questions:
- How many thirds are equal to three sixths (3/6 or three out of six)?
- What other fractions are equal to four tenths (4/10 or four out of ten)?
- What fractions are equal to six twelfths (6/12 or six out of twelve)? Find all the possibilities.
- What fractions are equal to three eights (3/8 or three out of eight)? Find all the possibilities.
- Use the fraction wall to help you order these fractions in ascending (smallest to largest) order using >. Remember to use the fraction wall when it’s ‘tidy’ to help you to do this.
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
6 8 12 3 2 11 5 7 4 1 9
Writing
Challenge
Show off that you can use coordinating and subordinating conjunctions by using some in a sentence or creating a short story which uses some.
25 March: Home Learning
Reading – Day 2 Answers
- three
- woman
- Romans
- nodded
- flee to the mountains
- hurled
- Boudicca
- gold
- They had travelled a long way / they were tired / they wanted a rest
- To keep her daughters safe
- She was angry / he was questioning her
- They were worried about their mum / they were worried about the battle with the Romans / they were scared of their mum’s anger
Reading
Maths – day 2 – answers
Maths
15 minutes Times Table Rockstars
Addition Arithmetic
1. 452+327=
2. 253+425=
3. 405+584=
4. 258+324=
5. 437+256=
6. 652+285=
7. 792+154=
8. 478+356=
Challenge 1
Challenge 2
Write an addition word problem.
For example:
On Monday, a baker makes 345 bread rolls and 563 cakes. How many products does he make altogether?
Day 3 History
In history lessons this half-term, we have answered all of the following questions.
- When did the Romans successfully invade Britain?
- Who was the emperor during the first successful invasion?
- Why did the Romans invade Britain?
- Was Boudicca a Roman or a Celt?
- What was the name of Boudicca’s tribe?
- How did Boudicca die?
First of all, I’d like your child to answer the questions. If there are any questions they don’t remember the answer to, they can use the internet to find them. A couple of links below:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zqtf34j
http://www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/Romans.html
Next, they should show off some of the knowledge they’ve learnt in the topic in a poster. This could be some of the answers to the questions above or other things they’ve learnt. Email some pictures of the posters you create and I’ll post them on Class News!
25 March
Hope you are all set for today’s activities. You maybe starting to have some kind of routine or timetable now and as with the normal school day, remember to include plenty of brain breaks.
Physical activity: Joe Wicks’ live PE lesson is proving popular in our house – hope you are managing to join in too. It’s a great start to the day! Today, why not also try one of the many videos on GoNoodle. I know a particular class favourite is Banana, Banana, Meatball.
Mindfulness activity: Cosmic Kids Yoga have a variety of yoga, mindfulness and relaxation videos to follow online. Let us know which ones you’d recommend to a friend.
Well done to Leon who achieved his next Lexia level yesterday. Just 10/15 minutes a day can help your child to progress in their Lexia learning.
Here are your home learning tasks for today.
Task 1 reading
Reread the fluency text about polar bears from Monday. Today, read it aloud and take account of the punctuation in the text – a short pause for a comma and a longer pause where there is a full stop.
Hopefully you enjoyed the Pobble365 image from yesterday. There are no wrong answers for the questions that were set but it is always good if you can explain your answers by giving reasons based on the text/image. For example, maybe they had got the plane from a museum because it looks old.
Today, we have a poetry text including some of our spelling words this week.
1.Read the poem aloud.
2.Read it again in a different voice. For example, an excited voice or a tired voice.
3.Copy out the words in the poem that follow the ey pattern like your spellings.
4.Think of other words that follow the ey pattern (Spellzone can provide some more if you get a bit stuck).
Challenge: Try and add a third verse following the pattern of the poem and including some ‘ey’ words.
Task 2 maths
Here are your answers from yesterday’s learning. How did you do?
Before you start today’s activity, write out, in digits and words, the numbers from 0 to 20.
Today, we will finish our learning on 2D shapes with a sorting exercise.
1. Using the shapes listed in the word bank, sort them into the correct box.
2.Attempt to draw the shapes too.
Challenge: Complete the question below.
Task 3 Toys now and then
Imagine you have lost one of your toys (go and get it so you have it in front of you).
1.Write a description in sentences to help people find your toy.
2.Think about what adjectives you could include to give more description.
3. Include a picture of your toy too.
Challenge: Look at the adjectives you have used. Can you think of what is the opposite of these adjectives?
Finally, it would be great to see some of your home learning if you want to type it in an email (carolinetaylor@spherefederation.org and jackiefreeman@spherefederation.org) or send it as a photo. Keep working hard, everyone. You’re doing great!