Marble run fun!
As part of our Time Travel – Entertainment topic, we’re designing, making and selling some fabulous marble runs. Working in groups of three, we put our heads together to create a plan for how we could construct a marble run out of wood. We had to think about how we could keep it simple enough to make, but complicated enough to be fun to play.
When our designs were finished, we decided to make prototypes out of Lego. This meant that we could figure out where our ideas were too complicated and what sort of measures of wood we’d need to cut. We all found it really helpful to make these prototypes and now we’re prepared to get the saws out and create in wood!
03 February 2017
This week’s homework is Creative and will be looked at on Thursday 09 February.
I can see area and perimeter all around me.
We’ve been brushing up on our area and perimeter knowledge this week so where can we see it in the world around us? As a class, we thought about some ideas for things we could do for this homework:
- Take photos of items around the house and measure it to work out the area and the perimeter.
- Go out and about and measure a field or garden (perhaps in steps rather than metres) to calculate its area and perimeter.
- Plan decorating a house, draw its floor plan and calculate how much it’ll cost for the carpets.
- Create a floor plan of our bedrooms and measure everything inside to place it onto our plan, drawn to scale.
Of course, if you can think of something else, we’ll look forward to seeing that too.
02 February 2017
This week, the root words all have suffixes: er, ing or est. All the root words end in e. When adding the suffixes, you have to first drop the e from the root word.
Children could be tested on any of the words.
| time timer timing |
| bike biker biking |
| bake baker baking |
| drive driver driving |
| rude ruder rudest |
| wise wiser wisest |
| cute cuter cutest |
| nice nicer nicest |
03 February 2017
This week, in addition to our whole school homework, we have a Creative homework:
I can see fractions all around me.
In class, we’ve discussed several ways in which children may choose to respond. Here are a few examples:
- Show how fractions are used to serve out food at the dinner table
- Show fractions of amounts (of food, money etc)
- Explain how adults may use fractions in their jobs
- Explain/show how we use fractions in everyday life
- Create a short video about one aspect of the fractions work we’ve been doing in school and how it is relevant to real life.
03 February 2017
| Homophones
This week’s spellings are all homophones – words that sound the same but have different meanings. Children should practise spelling these words in preparation for a test on Friday 10 February. Words in bold are words that we commonly make mistakes with in our writing – and really shouldn’t. Words in italics are previous spellings that we still find tricky. |
| cereal – serial |
| profit – prophet |
| affect – effect |
| compliment – complement |
| shore – sure |
| root – route |
| weather – whether |
| grate – great |
| to – too – two |
| practise – practice |
03 February 2017
This week’s spellings focus on homophones. Here are lots and lots and lots of homophone pairs. In your book, pick out those which you think you find more difficult and create some trick and tips for you to remember which is which. Good practice would be to get someone to say them in a sentence for you to choose which to use, like we do in class.
On Friday 10 February, I will say ten sentences and you will have to choose which spelling to use.
Testing times
Forgive the pun… When we say ‘testing times’, we’re not talking about Trump or any other tricky ‘T’ word. Instead, we’re talking about the tests children in Year 2 (the end of Key Stage 1) and Year 6 (the end of Key Stage 2) will do in May.
For children in Year 6, the tests are in the week beginning 08 May. For children in Year 2, the tests – which we often call ‘special work’ – don’t need to be on specific days, but will be around the same time.
To help familiarise yourself with the tests, check out these videos:
Upcoming elections
Our current school councillors recently held their final meeting as we prepare to elect our new School Council.
This year’s election date is Thursday 09 February.
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 (03 February) 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.
They are welcome to stand again at the elections.
Reading for pleasure
In Year 4 we are promoting reading for pleasure. The children are given the opportunity to bring in books from home for themselves and others to enjoy.
In the classroom we have a wide variety of reading materials for the children to enjoy, such as newspapers, comics, atlases, dictionaries, thesauruses, historical, geographical, scientific, religious and many more.
The calm, relaxing atmosphere during these sessions shows that the children are engaging in reading and enjoying the variety of texts.
Group reading with an adult also happens during this time. Each group read and are questioned by the adult. Target pages are set weekly.
Here are a few snapshots of one of our sessions.
Even reading in a Tardis!
Class assembly
Don’t forget our class assembly is on Wednesday 01 February at 2.40pm.
See you there!