Newsletter- week ending 1st May
Dear parents/carers,
This week in English we have been looking at two books by Neil Gaiman, “The Wolves in the Walls” and “The Day I swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish”. The children have compared the two books, finding similar things which give us an insight into Neil Gaiman’s style as an author. Next, we talked about our reading preferences and wrote a short book review of one of Neil Gaiman’s books. Next week we will be looking at the features of letters, including formal and informal writing. We will then be writing a letter to a real author, asking questions. We tried this last year and many children received replies!
In maths this week we have looked at problem solving through estimation and trial and improvement. We’ve also briefly touched on solving one and two step word problems. I’d like to spend more time next week looking at word problems, as this seems to be an area which many children are finding difficult. We’re going to look at ways of establishing which operation we need to use, and then how to actually solve the problem.
The trip to the Botanic Gardens this week was a great success. Thank you very much to the lovely mums who gave up their time to come with us, it was much appreciated. The children were incredibly well behaved and we learnt a great deal about plants and habitats. We also did brilliantly with the Waste Free Lunch Challenge, making less than 5g of waste. I shall put some photos of some of the plants that we looked at up on the blog soon.
My year 3 children will be swimming next week, but my year 2 children won’t as we need to spend some time doing some extra writing. The year 2s will be swimming as usual the week after (the 13th).
Congratulations to Harry and Rhian who won my paper cube competition. Elliot and Martha were highly commended, as their cubes were very close in size too.
This week I’ve sent out instructions for the next homework project, due in just before half term. The children should now have an idea of the sort of habitat that they would like to make. Please make sure that your child talks to me if they have any questions or need any resources, I do have some sand and gravel, and might be able to help with other things too.
Enjoy the bank holiday weekend!
Mrs B
Three things to ask your child this week:
1 What was your favourite thing about our trip to the Botanic Gardens?
2 What did you like best about the Neil Gaiman books that you read this week?
3 How do we make good estimates?
Mrs Barker and Class 3 in the Abingdon Herald
Have a look at this article in the Abingdon Herald.
Uncategorized | Comment (0)Newsletter- week ending 24th April
Dear parents/carers,
I hope that you had a lovely Easter break. The children have returned to school rested and ready to work hard this summer term.
In English this week we have looked at information texts as an introduction to our Australia topic. In pairs, the children have researched an aspect of Australia (from wombats to clothing) and created their own information book about it. They’ve done a wonderful job, including titles, subtitles, introductory sentences, photos and captions. I was really pleased that they avoided using any story language and wrote in a very factual tone. Next week we will be starting a new topic looking at an author and their work, as well as giving our recommendations and book reviews.
In maths this week he have looked at partitioning- that’s splitting larger numbers up into more manageable chunks. We’ve also briefly looked at rounding and estimating. Next week we will be looking at solving number problems, using some nifty IWB software which we have just purchased.
I have sent out some homework sheets this week- I know this isn’t my usual modus operandi, but I had some aspects of both maths and English that I wanted to check. The year 2 children have three pieces of homework- one short piece of writing about a character, a quick maths paper (to be done on their own please) and a maths challenge. I’ve told the children that if they can’t do any of the questions on the maths paper to skip them. Year 3 children also have the maths challenge, as well as a sheet about rounding, because I just wanted to check that they are all secure with this. The maths challenge is to create the biggest cube possible from one piece of A4 paper. I’ve given the children the cube problem as I am looking to run a maths club over the rest of the year, which will be investigating problems like this, and I’m looking for some likely candidates! Please feel free to give your child a hand with this if they need it. As always, if there are any problems please let me know. All of the maths homework is due in next Friday, the 1st of May.
I will be setting the next homework project early next week, based around our science topic about habitats. More information will be available soon!
Please don’t forget that we are going on our class trip to the University of Oxford Botanic Gardens next Wednesday. There will be no swimming that day so I will be doing outdoor PE a couple of times that week to make up for it. Please make sure that your children have PE kits in school.
Mrs B
Three things to ask your child this week:
1 What sort of things do you find in information books that you don’t find in story books?
2 How can you identify the trees on the school field?
3 What do you already know about Australia? What would you like to know?
Mrs Barker on the radio
It was very exciting being interviewed live on the BBC Oxford breakfast show on Monday morning. If you weren’t able to tune in, here is a link to an MP3 of my interview. Be warned, it’s nearly 8MB so it’s quite a large file to download.
Uncategorized | Comment (0)Please tune in…
to BBC Radio Oxford on Monday morning at about 10 past 9. I will be interviewed about being a regional finalist in the BECTA Next Generation teaching awards!
Uncategorized | Comment (0)Newsletter- week ending 3rd April
Dear parents/carers,
This week in English we have continued with our grammar and writing work based around Myst. After looking at extended noun phrases last week, we’ve looked this week at identifying and improving the verbs in our work. The children have picked a lot of this up very quickly indeed, and I think that this is partly due to the rich, immersive visual and aural aspects of the game. The children have also completed some completely independent writing, so that I can see whether this teaching has been effective in improving their descriptive writing and sentence structure. After Easter we’ll be looking at information texts, and creating our own class information text as an introduction to our work on Australia.
In maths this week we’ve turned multiplication on its head and studied division. We’ve looked at halving/diving by 2, quartering/dividing by 4 and dividing by 3 (I always want to call this “thirding” but I’m sure that’s not right!). The children have also been playing an interactive computer game to test their knowledge of multiples. We’re doing very well with 2, 5 and 10, but 3 and 4 are proving to be a little more challenging!
In science this week we have been looking at science information texts, and looking at how information texts are different from stories and fiction. The children have also carried out a shadow experiment, to see how shadows change during the day. Unfortunately our shadow experiment was run over by the council’s mower!
As part of our work on Mars roamers and ICT, we have been looking at some simple programming, using either the roamer or LOGO. The children have enjoyed programming the turtle to create spirograph type patterns. This is the link to the online version of LOGO that we have been using:
http://www.mathsnet.net/logo/turtlelogo/index.html
Try something like repeat 100 [fd 101 rt 101] for starters!
Next term our topic will be Australia. We’ll be linking this in with our work on habitats in science, as well as looking at the culture and geography of Australia. I’m very interested in the different habitats in Australia, and how they support a range of plant and animal species. A friend of mine is a photographer in Tasmania, involved in the fight to protect the ancient rainforest there, so I’m hoping that his photographs will help to explain to the children how destructive we can be.
I hope that you all have a fantastic Easter break with your children!
Mrs B
Three things to ask your child this week:
1 How can you tell which word in a sentence is a verb?
2 What’s you favourite method for division, and why?
3 What happens to shadows during the day? Why do you think that?
Mars Projects
The children have done a fantastic job this term on our “Mission to Mars” projects. Based around an idea for a suite of lessons developed by NASA, we have looked at our community, decided what is important to us and found out what life would be like on Mars. The children have also planned and built their own Mars bases, which have taken into account the atmospheric and weather conditions on Mars. In the final part of the project the children have created these PowerPoint presentations to share their projects with you. I gave the children about 5 minutes in front of the interactive whiteboard showing them very briefly what PowerPoint could do, and then the rest was up to them. I was surprised at how readily they took to PowerPoint, but it just shows how children’s ICT skills are progressing at a startling rate. The children have worked very independently on the presentations and the project in general.
WARNING: Some of these files are rather large, despite being compressed! Fern, Harriet, Martha and Isabella’s project is over 10MB, and Toby, Jack and Harry’s is over 8MB. This shouldn’t be a problem on a broadband connection, but if you’re on dial-up please be prepared for the file to take a while to download. The rest of the projects are 3MB or less.
Click here to download the presentation by Claudia, Naomi, Amelia and Elizabeth.
Click here to download the presentation by Emily, Lexi, Caitlin and Evie.
Click here to download the presentation by Fern, Harriet, Martha and Isabella.
Click here to download the presentation by Rhian, Katy, Ella and Andi.
Click here to download the presentation by Rhys, Elliot, Joe S and Joe B.
Click here to download the presentation by Toby, Jack and Harry.
Click here to download the presentation by William, Matthew, Mark and Bradley.
ICT | Comment (0)Newsletter- week ending 27th March
Dear parents/carers,
In English this week we have begun our work on sentence structure, using Myst as inspiration. The children have been looking at starting with a basic sentence (e.g. The cat sat on the mat.) and have extended the sentences through noun phrases to make them more interesting and exciting (The fat, ginger, lazy cat sat on the comfortable blue mat.) The results so far have been very impressive, with the children really thinking about their use of vocabulary and the effect is has on a reader. Next week we will be continuing with this work, but this time concentrating on adjectives.
In maths we’ve been using our mental and written maths skills to practise multiplying 2 digit (and sometimes 3 digit) numbers by 2, 3 and 4. I suggest that you ask the children to teach you how to play the game that we’ve been using for this- it’s very simple to learn and has endless possibilities for mental maths fun. Next week we’ll be doing a similar sort of week, but this time looking at division instead. We’ll be looking at halving to “undo” doubling, as well as division as repeated subtraction, and other ways of sharing and grouping.
Our topic work is coming along very well, and will shortly be ready to share with you all on our blog. The children have proved to be absolute whizzes with PowerPoint, and are putting together some presentations about what we have been doing since January about our mission to Mars. Next week we will also be pulling together our “Earth and Beyond” science work ready for the end of term.
I’d like to say a big “Thank you!” to everyone who gave their time to either e-mail or talk to the Teaching Awards judges. It was a really lovely opportunity to share some of the work that we have been doing, and I think it went well. I’ll find out the results at a posh dinner in June, so fingers crossed!
Mrs B
Three things to ask your child this week:
1 How can you make a sentence with extra sprinkles?
2 What’s you favourite method for written multiplication, and why?
3 What has been your favourite part of the class 3 space project?
Space Display
To finish off our work on our Space topic (including our “Earth and Beyond” science work) we have created a display, showcasing what we have learnt. The children have drawn representations of the planets, as well as written short factual pieces about them. They have also decided where they would like to go if they were an astronaut. Surprisingly, no-one wanted to visit a black hole! The children have also done the most beautiful pastel art work on the planets, which we have put up as a border around the room. Here are a couple of photos to show you what we’ve done.
Coming soon: We’ll be sharing our brilliant Mars space projects with you.
Classroom | Comment (0)Newsletter- week ending 20th March
Dear parents/carers,
In our English lessons this week we have finished off our work on instructions. The children came up with their own list of important features for instructional texts, such as a title, bossy language and clear diagrams. The children have then made sure that their work has all of these required features. Some children haven’t quite finished their instructions, so I have sent them home as a little bit of extra homework, as I didn’t want them to rush to finish in the lesson today. Next week we will be starting our work on Myst and storywriting, which will be very exciting. We’ll be continuing with this project until the end of term.
In maths this week the children have been looking at direction, including looking at ordanance survey maps and Google Maps. The children have also created their own pirate treasure maps, and challenge other people to find the place where X marks the spot! Next week we’re going to be looking at multiplication, particularly doubling and multiplying by 4 (doubling twice). We’ll be playing some maths based games which will challenge your child’s mental multiplication skills. We’ll also be looking at jotted and other methods (100 squares, number lines) which can support our mental multiplication.
In science this week we had great fun out on the back field recreating our very own solar system. The children all thought that we had summer when the Earth was nearest to the Sun- I’ll let them tell you why that’s not the case (hint- it’s to do with tilt). Next week we’re going to be looking at the how the position of the sun changes during the day. I’m hoping that this sunny weather holds out as it will be perfect for our experiment!
We have a slight issue at the moment with our guitar lessons. They were taking place on a Wednesday morning, but my class are now swimming at that time. The teacher has been unable to find a school willing to swap with us so that he can come at a different time. I will be jumping up and down rather loudly about this next week in an effort to get the problem resolved.
It has been wonderful to talk to you all at the parent/teacher meetings over the past couple of weeks. I’ve been delighted to hear how much your children enjoy being in my class- it really makes my job worthwhile. As I mentioned during the interviews, please do feel free to pop in and talk to me if any problems arise.
Mrs B
Three things to ask your child this week:
1 Why do we have seasons? What causes them?
2 What makes a good set of written instructions?
3 Which way is north on a map? How can you tell?
