Good afternoon everyone,

We have now entered into our first few days of Lent. In class, we have been reflecting on the importance of the journey we are about to undertake. One that is filled with both sadness but also hope and joy. We have discussed how during Lent we must try to give more of ourselves to others, resist temptations from things that are not so good for us and try to bring ourselves closer to God through our thoughts, actions, words and prayers.

This Week…

In English we have finished off our quest stories. These have been a little tricky for us and it has been quite a challenge at times for us to develop and sustain our stamina for writing to produce a detailed piece of writing. However, we have worked hard to develop our skills and focus on the importance aspects of story writing.

If you would like to support your child’s writing at home, please feel free to set them tasks which they can write about, particularly creative stories. In class, we have been trying to focus upon our cohesion. To make our writing cohesive it needs to: make sense, be in a sensible order, use time phrases to signpost time moving forwards, stay in the right tense (past or present), use conjunctions to give more detail (because, when, if, then, that, but, or so).

As a class we are still struggling with cohesion and we have been trying not to use ‘so’ or ‘and then’ to start lots of our sentences because this won’t engage our reader.

In Maths we have finished our work on money by making pounds and pence amounts in different ways and using different combinations of coins. We then began looking at finding change. We learned that this is often a two or three-step process. First, we need to add up the total of our items, then we need to do a subtraction to find the amount left over. Finally we need to work out which coins/notes make that amount of money.

In Science, we have been researching different world habitats: deserts, rainforests and oceans. We collected information about what their conditions are like and also learned about some animals and plants that live there and why they are suited to that environment. Next week we will write our own non-chronological report about our habitat.

In Geography, we began our new topic by learning all about islands. We have identified them on maps and learned that they can be connected to other countries and are always part of a continent.

In RE, we learned all about Lent. We made our own lenten promises, thinking about what we can give, give up and pray for. We also learned about some of the symbols of the Lenten period and why they are used.

In Computing, we had a focus on using laptops. We have been learning the different parts and focusing on how to log in, navigate to a specific program and shut down. Next week, we will focus upon programming.

This week was World Book Day and although we didn’t dress up (yet!), we engaged in some exciting book-related activities, such as quizzes, book reviews and scavenger hunts. It was a great time!

Homework

This week’s homework is…

Spellings. Ready for a test in 2 weeks time.

Maths - addition and subtraction word problems.

English - Using conjunctions because, if and when.

Award Winners

This week’s award winners are…

Golden Award - Stephen - for trying really hard to develop his independence.

Writing Award - Luna - for listening carefully to feedback and adapting her writing for her quest story.

Maths Award - Callum - for fantastic money work.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mr Whetnall, Mrs Bowdell, Miss Collins and Mrs Gibbons