17 June 2016
This week’s Practice Makes Perfect homework is due on Wednesday 23 June.
To experiment with vocabulary for effect.
We’ve been practising using a thesaurus in order to expand our vocabulary this week, making sure that we check the meaning of words and that we know how to use them in a sentence.
I’m asking the children to find ten new words that they wouldn’t normally use in their writing but are more ambitious choices for them to remember in the future. For each word, they need to be able to explain what it means (this could be verbal rather than written down) and they need to have written it into a sentence.
As an extra challenge, see if you can find all ten words and their meanings without using the internet. It is an undeniably useful resource, but how else can we learn new things?
17 June 2016
This week’s creative homework is due on Wednesday 23 June.
I can show what I know about the EU referendum.
We’ve learnt lots about the EU referendum this week resulting in some fabulous debates. There were convincing arguments for both the vote remain and the vote leave campaigns. In any way they wish, children should show what they know about the EU and the upcoming referendum. They may choose to express an opinion on which way they feel people should vote, or they may wish to remain neutral and offer both sides of the argument.
Here are some ideas to get you going but, as usual, I’m sure the children will have much better ideas of their own:
- Create a campaign leaflet to go through people’s letter boxes informing them of the debate.
- Write a speech convincing the class to vote one way or another.
- Create a voting booth that the class can cast their votes to.
- Generate a quiz which tests our knowledge on the EU referendum.
I look forward to seeing what you come up with!
10 June 2016
This week’s whole school homework is creative and is due Wednesday 15 June:
Why does money matter?
In our recent Money Matters themed week, we considered spending, donating, saving and getting money. Take a look through the news section and class news pages to remind you about the week.
Your child is required to show their understanding of money in a creative way. Ideas could include:
- a game
- a poem
- a song
- a quiz
- a letter
- a comic strip
- a script
10 June 2016
This week’s Talk Time homework is due on Monday 13 June to be used during an Relationships and Sex Education lesson.
Identify somebody who you would consider to be a role model. Bring in a picture and be prepared to discuss who they are and why they’re your role model.
We’ll be talking about ourselves and how our emotions change during puberty. Identifying a role model is part of making sure we maintain a positive image of ourselves, thinking about how we can use our role model to do this.
Summer Half Term
In line with our Homework Policy, there are no homework tasks or spellings to learn next week because it’s the Summer half-term holiday. Of course, there are plenty of ways to help your child continue learning: get reading, go places, talk lots!
Have a happy and healthy holiday.
20 May 2016
This week’s Practice Makes Perfect homework is due on Wednesday 25 May.
To be able to use semi-colons in a list.
For many of Year 5, this is a new skill that we’re trying to become more confident with. The children have been given a sentence with a three part list in it. They should expand each part of the list adding description which may need extra commas (particularly if they’re using two adjectives). When re-writing their list with this extra detail, they’ll then need to use semi-colons to separate the parts in the list instead of commas and commas would just make the list confusing.
When I went out for tea, I had starters, mains and desserts.
When I went out for tea, I had delicious, puffy dough balls smothered in garlic butter; sumptuous steak which had been fabulously cooked and had crispy chips on the side; and a mouth-watering, rich chocolate pudding that oozed gooey caramel as you stuck your fork in it – yum!
I want the children to have a go at changing their lists so that they need semi-colons. Think about adding adjectives and using relative pronouns (which, that, when, who), ‘ing words and ‘ed words to add detail after the noun as well as before.
20 May 2016
This week’s whole school homework is creative and is due Wednesday 25 May:
I understand rights and responsibilities.
This half term, our SEAL theme has been Rights and Responsibilities. We’ve been learning that if we have rights, we also have responsibilities. Children have been considering the following rights and responsibilities.
- I have the right to learn and I have the responsibility for my own learning.
- I have the right to play and I have the responsibility to play fairly.
- I have the right to express an opinion and I have the responsibility to respect the opinions of others.
- I have the right to be safe and I have the responsibility to make safe choices.
- I have the right to be healthy and I have the responsibility to make healthy choices.
Your child is required to show their understanding of rights and responsibilities in a creative way. Ideas could include:
- a story
- a poem
- a song
- a poster
- a letter
- a comic strip
- a script
13 May 2016
The homework this week is talk time and is due in on Wednesday 18 May.
I can find out about toys from the past.
Talk to your children about the toys and games you played when you were a child. If possible, they could talk to grandparents as well. How have toys changed? Are there any toys, or variations, that children still use today?
13 May 2016
The homework for this week is talk time and is due in on Wednesday 18 May.
I can tell someone my address.
In SEAL, we have been learning about safety in the home. We have looked at pictures of rooms in the home and spotted hazards and potential dangers. We discussed how we can be responsible for making our home safer, for example, picking up toys so nobody trips over them. We know what to do in an emergency in our home and know that we can call 999 to contact the police, fire brigade and ambulance in a real emergency. Hopefully, no children will ever need to call the emergency services, but if they do, it is useful (or essential if calling from a mobile) to know their address.
The children know that their address is private information and that they should never tell anyone their address unless in an emergency.
13 May 2016
This week’s homework is creative and is due 18 May 2016.
I can research my favourite musician.
In English, we’ve been learning how to write biographies with a focus on musicians. In class, we have used Elvis Presley, Louis Armstrong and The Beatles as inspiration for our writing but next week we’ll choose our own musicians. To do this effectively, your child needs to research facts about their favourite musician (or group) and present them in a creative way. This could be a poster, a mind map, a quiz or a PowerPoint presentation.
Your child may include:
- when their musician was born
- where their musician was born
- where their musician grew up
- how their musician got into music
- what instruments their musician learnt as a child
- how they became famous