Welcome to Mr. Madher's Mad Hatters!
In Maths, we've started exploring division in more detail, practising the 'chunking' method. It's essential that children are fluent with their times tables knowledge to be able to do this well, so we've continued practising those too. Encourage your child to log in to Times Table Rock Stars at home - they can't get enough of it at school!
We're coming to the end of our Talk for Writing explanation text unit in English. Children have learned a model text called 'Why Dragons Are Extinct.' They're now using the writers' tricks we've studied to create their own explanation texts. Ask your child to tell you what happened to the dragons and see if they can orally rehearse the text to you.
In Science, we've been learning about electricity. We discussed protons, neutrons and electrons then got stuck into building our own simple circuits and testing the conductivity of different materials.
Our Incredible India topic work is culminating with a couple of exciting Design & Technology projects. We've practised sewing skills to create an embroidered bookmark and we've been looking at cooking a curry too. Thank you to all of the wonderful parent helpers who have joined in.
This half term we've been exploring fractions and bar modelling in Maths. We've also recently started collecting data and representing it in bar charts.
In English, we've been innnovating The Magician's Shop. This is a fantasy setting story so we've been focusing on describing the settings using a variety of writers' tricks.
In P.E. Mrs. Gallimore has been teaching us how to make our own gymnastic sequences and some of us have started basketball practise with the Derby Trailblazers.
We've done a little bit of Indian art, looking at animals. We've also been learning all about the festival of Diwali.
In R.E. we've studied the Islamic pilgrimage of Hajj and the Sikh pilgrimage of Yatra. We're about to begin learning our 'Understanding Christianity' unit on The Gospel.
In English, we've moved on to stories from fantasy settings. Our poems are almost ready to go on display. The children have been fantastic at orally rehearsing!
In Maths, we've been learning a new method: expanded column subtraction. We've also done some work on telling the time and measuring lengths too. Please encourage your child to practise these skills at home.
We're now assessing who will be coming swimming after half term and who will take part in our Derby Trailblazers basketball programme. Mrs. Gallimore has been helping us to build our fitness and stamina in P.E. lessons in school too.
We're learning about 'being me in my world' in PSHE lessons and we've also spent a lot of time working with children who we wouldn't normally choose to work with, doing teamwork activities and building stronger, more respectful relationships with the people in our classroom. - Still some more work needed here!
We've learned about St. Bernadette in R.E. and the story of why people visit Lourdes in France to go on pilgrimage. - We'll soon be moving on to studying the Islamic pilgrimage of Hajj.
We were thinking about the 'circle of life' and food chains in Science. We had a little burst of art too - looking at creating our own henna designs. We're also going to be thinking about animals that are indigenous to India.
Parents of children in my class can find more regular updates on what we're up to on our Class Dojo Class Story.