News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 28th March
Another busy and productive week for us all that ends with the discos this evening. Seen you there..!
Dates for the diary:
- Family Bingo 12th April in Appledore Community Hall hosted by Appledore Pirates . For more information see here
- Sports Day Tuesday 17th June and reserve date is Tuesday 24th June
Wishing you all a good weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have learnt about the world ‘special’ and what this means. We have talked about who is special to us, what is special to us and where is special to us. We have made cards for the Mummies and Nannies that are special to us. Today we went to the Library to change our books.
This week in year 1 we had a fantastic video call with a teacher from the ‘Judaism for schools’. We heard about life in a Jewish home, important celebrations and the children asked some excellent questions to deepen their understanding. The children designed their own Kippah to represent what is special to them and then enjoyed some squash and sweet bread which is part of Shabbat traditions. In geography we looked at features of the seaside where the land meets the sea. We talked about the features we see around our local area ready for our trip next week.
Year 2 have had another great week. In English, they have been reading a book called ‘The Dragon Machine’. In Maths, they have been completing some end of term assessments before moving on to a new unit about fractions. In their Geography work, they compared houses in Appledore to houses in a village in India. Outdoor learning this week was making a healthy soup. We hope you enjoyed the trombone performance posted on Google Classroom. They have really enjoyed learning to make a sound with these tricky instruments and we have been very impressed with how well they have done. Thank you to Mrs Halloway for teaching them.
Having completed a detailed study of Diwali, year 3 looked at two other Hindu festivals, Holi and Navratilova. They made greetings cards full of information about these fabulous festivals. Year 4 compared church services for Good Friday and Lent. Year 5 played each other’s board games which explored the concept of Samsara- birth, death and rebirth. Year 6 considered how a Christian might respond to the sacrifice made by Jesus. In music years 3 and 4 prepared vocal tracks which they will hopefully “lay down” next week by recording into Yu studio. Years 5 and 6 continued mixing their tracks and will have an opportunity to record next term.
Year 3 have had a wonderful week! In Maths, we explored equivalent masses and then compared different masses. We also began to learn all about volume and capacity. In English, we used our plans to write our own quest story based on Arthur and the Golden Rope. We then challenged ourselves to edit our writing for corrections and improvements. In Science, we looked at a range of food packaging, and recorded the nutrients found in different foods. In Geography, we looked at lots of different satellite images and discussed what these can show us about environmental change over time. We then looked in more detail at a satellite image of the Amazon rainforest, and compared a rainforest to a plantation. In Computing, we learnt about how a computer network can be used to share information.
In year 4 this week, the children have finished fractions in Maths and will be moving onto learning about decimals, where we will look at tenths and hundredths and how this links to fractions. In Geography, the children looked at two case studies of earthquakes that happened in Chile and Haiti in 2010 and they compared them both. We looked at how the largest earthquakes don’t always cause the most destruction due to whether a country is rich or poor, what time of day it happened and the location of where the earthquake occurred. In PE, the children continued practising their sending and receiving skills in a variety of activities and they attempted to see whether they could beat their scores from last week. In Gymnastics, the children continued practising their jumps on a mat. In Science, the children completed some outdoor learning where they found different living things and had to classify them in different ways. They also completed a school survey to show how the environment is changing and whether this supports living things.
It’s been a busy week for year 5 making sure we can all the end of term assessments completed; great progress in both maths and reading. We have glazed our sculptures during the art sessions and these look amazing. In science we have looked at how the body changes at puberty, for both boys and girls, and then we looked at the changes other animals go through during adolescence. We learned more about the fishing industry on Heimaey and why people are staying on the island with an active volcano. We are looking forward to the musical event at Bideford College on Friday. This event will be part of the arts award that we will begin working on next term.
Year 6 have had fun writing their own version of ‘The Day the Crayons Quit’. They will publish them next week so look forward to seeing the finished versions. In Maths, it’s been all about shape and angles this week – it became more complicated as the week progressed and detective skills, working out what information the questions actually gave us, improved significantly. In PE, they had their first go at rounders and really enjoyed it. Now they have the basics of the game, hopefully many rounders will be scored. Revision is going well – we keep recapping skills. Keep going over your grammar terminology and those spelling patterns!
