Two Week Update!

An update on the last two weeks in Birch Class!

In English last week, we finished out biographies. We had some great pieces about Rosa Parks, Elizabeth Blackwell and Garrincha and the adversity they overcame to be successful. Well done to the Year Fives for that! This week, in between a reading test, we started looking at 'The Day the Crayons Quit' by Drew Daywalt. We will be writing humorous arguments in the format of a series of letters. We ended the week by discussing personification and everyone wrote a diary entry from the point of view of one of the crayons in the story based on their personalities from the letters. There has been some excellent work produced! Here's an extract from the one we wrote as a class from the point of view of Purple Crayon, who had complaints about being used to colour outside of the lines(!) and we established was a very tidy and also very vain crayon:

"Dear Diary,
I am SICK of being used this way!
As you know, I am a very tidy crayon and Duncan - who is my human - is an untidy colour-er. It is a disgrace that he disrespects me this way. Today, Duncan was colouring in his 'Magic and Dragons' colouring book and he was using me to colour a jaw-dropped dragon. It would have been gorgeous with my outstanding colour if he'd just stayed inside the lines!"

In maths, we finished off our fractions unit last week. Most of this week was spent doing our maths assessments but we have now started our topic on decimals and percentages and have just finished recapping their previous knowledge, understanding thousandths and rounding decimals to the nearest whole number and nearest tenth. The children had to brush up on their rounding skills from the autumn term for this one!

One highlight from the last two weeks was a visit from Sophie from South-West Water who told us all about how water is collected and filtered and also about sewage and waste. The children made water pledges like taking a quicker shower, buying less fast-fashion clothes and turning the tap off while brushing your teeth. Year 5 and 6 together applied their knowledge of the water cycle to the information that Sophie provided and had a great time! Find some pictures below:

This week has been quite an interesting series of events. As you may know, the Year 5s and 6s were in separate bubbles due to a spike in COVID cases so lessons this week have been a little bit different. History and French were taught from their separate classrooms via video call. The children in both classes should be commended for their hard work and engagement despite the internet cuts that we were faced with. We did manage to have a few lessons together with science being taught in the hall and outside as we simulated the actions greenhouses gases and global warming. In PE, the children practiced their balance and reflex skills before we played games of throw tennis to apply their skills.

Fortunately, due to COVID cases going down, both classes were able to come together for an art lesson this afternoon where they finished off their version of Van Gogh sunflowers before rounding the week off with a celebration assembly where both classes were awarded a Challenge Champion certificate for their hard work in tricky times and singing some of the songs we've been learning as a school.

I hope everyone gets a chance to go out and enjoy the sunshine this week (I know I will!) and I certainly hope that all mothers and special carers get extra care and pampering on Mothering Sunday. You deserve it!

​Have a nice weekend everyone and see you next week!