News
Newsletter for the week ending 29th January
The end of another busy week in school and at home for us all. Well done everybody: children, parents and staff.
The #DevonVirtualGames has an exciting opportunity for all the family to get involved in a skipping challenge. If you don’t have a skipping rope at home, don’t worry we want to offer you an incentive to join the challenge. Click on the link below to receive a maximum of 2 free skipping ropes per family delivered direct to your door Skipping Challenge Rope Incentive Form. https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DVGSkippingRopes There will be a choice of a Gold, Silver or Bronze challenge that consist of different elements like Single Bounce, Double Bounce, Run, Slalom skip and Speed Skipping to complete in sequence. If you are not sure what these are, head over to #DevonVirtualGames Skipping Tutorials with Dan the skipping man. He makes it simple and super easy to follow. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc2o9VYIBVkWtI-2_QMdIZg/videos The challenge opens on Monday 1st February when you will then receive an email with the full challenge details and how to record your results on our quick and easy survey monkey link. Please join the conversations here on our Devon School Games Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/devonschoolgames
Please remain vigilant to potential scams relating to the current difficult Covid situation and to refrain from sharing personal or bank details if there is any doubt. One scam doing the involves parents being contacted and sked to provide details to be eligible for free school meals. Please only liaise with your school about such matters.
Please read on to find out what has been going on in and around the classes.
Wishing you all a wonderful weekend,
From Mr Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week Turtles and Dolphins have really enjoyed learning about Batman. We have made Bat Caves for our role play areas and created a telephone book of Superheroes that we can call to help us. We have painted pictures of Batman and created collages of him. We have found out about his strengths, how he saves people and what he does with the bad guys. We have looked at the items of clothing that he wears and labelled pictures of him. We have also learned about his arch rival The Joker. I think Miss Olliffe and I have learnt rather a lot from the children this week!
This week we have come to the end of our story writing sequence in writing. The children have written some exciting stories about Bernard the robot and how he managed to lose different parts of his body. Gladly they all have happy endings. In maths, we have been learning how to use our number facts to add and subtract. The children have also this week finished their model rockets and have painted them in a variety of funky colours. On Thursday the children went into the jungle in the afternoon and made magic wands. They must have been very powerful wands as they were able to turn me into a frog before home time!!
It’s been another great week for Lundy Puffins. In English, they have continued with their work on non-fiction book and have used the book ‘Chinese New Year’. They learned how to use ‘and’ in a sentence and have discovered how to identify what a sentence is and how to improve it. In Maths, they have continued to work on money this week and have begun to add amounts together and find change. Next week, they will begin a new block of work: multiplication. In preparation for this, it would be helpful if the children could practise counting at home in 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s. They learned a little bit more about the Great Fire of London and used their artistic skills to create a portrait of Samuel Pepys (ask them to tell you who he was!). On Monday, the children in school spent some time in the jungle making houses from the Great Fire of London with sticks, whilst the children at home had the opportunity to complete an outdoor scavenger hunt on their daily walk. There has been some really great work from the children in school and the children at home, so well done everyone!
Seahunter have worked hard at home and in school this week in all of their work. In English they have learnt all about when and where adverbial and written some great descriptive sentences, practising ready for story writing next week. They have also made some story plans that look amazing. We can’t wait to read the finished products next week. In maths they have completed their work with money this week, learning to add, subtract and calculate change. They have done and amazing job and should now be confident shoppers! Last Friday we enjoyed getting together as a class on Google Meet, sharing messages and dancing to Go Noodle routines together. We’re looking forward to dancing and a quiz this week. Finally, it has been good to see some of the amazing reading that has been happening at home and the amount of time so many children are spending on TT Rockstars learning those important facts. Keep it up Year 3, you’re doing amazingly!
Another excellent week of effort towards learning both in school and at home – well done everybody! HMS Echo have started learning how to calculate area in Maths. They have also completed their final invent writing for ‘Until I met Dudley’, and showed great creativity and use of punctuation. We have carried out further learning about sound in Science, and made paper straw panpipes in class. The children enjoyed testing out their instrument to see how they could change the volume/pitch!
Year 5 has been learning about fractions in maths. In particular, equivalent fractions and improper fractions. In literacy, they have been using the skills learnt so far to write their own Viking sagas – this has resulted in much more control when writing. In Science, they have been learning about reproductive cycles and have watched some fascinating videos of the life cycles of different animals – there have been some great diagrams and notes made. They also enjoyed watching the RSPB live lesson and will hopefully do a bit of bird spotting to help to collect data about which birds can be found. In computing, there have been some great vector drawings – a simple, yet effective way of building pictures using shapes. They have been trying to tell the time in french, have shared views on ‘The Cracked Pot’ for P4C and have also researched the Royal Opera House for music. They have also been thinking about their own reading and how important it is to find pleasure in reading – this has involved reading aloud to parents, pets, teddies or anyone else that would listen! In school we will take part in the Devon Cricket Schools challenge and hope that children at home will have a go too! It’s been brilliant to see how much everyone has been engaging in their work, be that at home or in school – well done!
In literacy we have started learning about Ernest Shackleton. He was an explorer. We wrote a letter to Ernest Shackleton to apply for a job on his ship, The Endurance, to Antarctica. There were lots of people to choose from that could be our character. We also got dogs that were named after dogs that were actually on the ship and we wrote a diary entry on how we packed to go to Antarctica. We have just found out about their journey to the Weddell Sea.
In science we have been learning about how scientific ideas change and have a scientific process. We did a quiz about how the scientific ideas change and there were 5 questions.We also started to learn about electricity and how Lewis Howard Latimer, Michael Faraday and Mildred Dresselhouse improved electricity and more, we also learnt about some of their life. We took part in the Big School Bird watch and counted birds outside. We were surprised at how many blackbirds were in the school grounds. In maths we are learning about percentages and how to change them into fractions and decimals. Our geography work focused on the physical features of Antarctica. Reporters: Millie and Sophia
