23 Oak Week Beginning 15th May
With us having a full 5 days in school this week, (a bit of a novelty) we have made the most of it and crammed in lots of learning.
Our writing lessons this week have been very child led as everyone in Oak has chosen someone they admire to produce a biography of. We had a wide variety of subjects, both living and dead, ranging from St Andrew to Lewis Hamilton and The Rock to Camila Cabello. It was fascinating to find out who inspires us and who the children find interesting! After researching their renowned superstars, the children decided themselves what were the important facts and events in their lives that needed to form part of their writing. The children tried very hard to include as many of the 'new vocabulary' words identified at the beginning of the topic and also some of the Year 5 spellings. For each of these words they use and spell correctly in their writing, they will earn a housepoint - this could seriously boost the totals at the end of the half term next week.
In maths, we have been learning how to translate shapes from one part of a grid to another and to use our coordinates knowledge to describe their location. We have been developing our problem solving skills in this area too - much head scratching was done at first, but good progress was over the week.
We also learnt how we hear sounds in Science, and became very knowledgeable about the parts of our ear and the function each part played in us hearing different sounds. We labelled a diagram and ordered the processes which take place in order for sounds to reach our brains.
Our vector drawing skills are developing very well and we have been turning the drawing of one bird into another by modifying it. They started off by creating a penguin and had to then turn it into a parrot, using the zoom and alignment tools to help them focus in on the smaller details. They also had to learn how to layer shapes on top of each other by using the 'ordering' tool, sending them backwards or forwards depending on what was required. They did a fabulous job and got very creative with their designs.
Our artistic skills have been used in other lessons this week too. In Topic, we learnt all about the journey a river make to reach the sea, its three sections ; upper course, middle course and lower course. We examined photographs and noted the physical features that occur in each of the sections. The children then produced some very carefully drawn diagrams of this journey.
In art, we have been continuing to develop our skills recreating scenes by impressionist artist Monet. This week we used one of his waterlilies paintings to try to emulate his impression style. We divided the picture into 4 sections and in groups of 4 the children recreated the full picture - almost like a jigsaw! The results we very impressive and they worked hard to layer colours, not blend them, to create the desired effect.
On Friday, we had some special visitors who wanted to meet us, who had travelled all the way from Australia. One of our wonderful helpers who listens to readers had some house guests who wanted to tell the children all about the animals, climate and environmental issues affecting the habitats and biomes on the other side of the world. This linked in with what we had been studying in topic last term and gave us a link to the community too. Another example of the ways we expand our learning of the wider world and take our learning out of the classroom. Thank you to our visitors for presenting us all with an Australian memento, a mini Koala Bear!
One more week until we break, before then starting the final half term!! Please keep your eyes on your emails for lots of communications about transition to BHA, sporting events and other enrichment task. It's going to be a busy one!!
