Willow Week Beginning 4th July 2022

We had a great time on the river on Tuesday. The weather was perfect, the views were extraordinary and the children were fabulous. We all improved our oar skills over the day, some more than others, as we learnt very quickly how to steer and stop the boats from heading into the river bank. Going through the lock was a first for many of the children, they loved experiencing the change in water level and learning about the lock gate mechanism. All signs of nerves were gone very quickly, some even showed off their amazing sense of balance by walking along the 'catwalk' (the platform between the seats) After a picnic on the river bank, the afternoon comprised of a trip up the river in the opposite direction and progressed to steering when standing up. There was lots of splashing, lots of giggles and some great team work on show. All in all a fabulous experience.

On Thursday we were back in the classroom after a great sports day! We focused on coordinates in our Maths lesson and enjoyed playing a game of battleships to recap the X and Y axis as well as how to record coordinates. Some of us even went on to look at grids with four quadrants. We then plotted shapes onto a grid to apply our knowledge of coordinates and have begun translating shapes using practical equipment which helped us to describe the movements between two shapes.

In our English lessons we have been writing instructions based on the Twits with a focus on imperative verbs and fronted adverbials to ensure that our instructions were clear and precise. We worked hard to build in all of the key features and enjoyed watching the wormy spaghetti video to gather ideas for our instructions.

In Topic, we have been learning about why coral reefs are so important, both to animals and humans by completing a diamond nine activity. This involved lots of discussion as to why the coral is so important in so many different ways such as bringing in tourism to an area, protecting the coastline from erosion and providing a habitat to the varied wildlife which call it home. 

It has certainly been a very busy week but we have enjoyed some new experiences like the bell boating and also having the chance to apply our learning and skills during sports day which has been great fun!