One Week Down...

What a week!

In English, Birch Class have been studying some female scientists to help inspire their biography writing. We've looked at Lise Meitner the physicist who discovered nuclear fission (but never got the credit!) and Ada Lovelace, who invented the first computer program and even actress from Hollywood's Golden age, Hedy Lamarr (did you know she developed the frequency-hopping spread spectrum that prevented signal jamming and was used in the Cuban Missile Crisis? And she did it with the help of a piano player!). This week we looked at what made an inspirational person worth writing about and considered the adversities that these women had to overcome. We also explored why glossaries are important and considered the different potential structures that they could use. Most students have picked who they're going to write about but if they haven't, students need to decide by Monday as we will be writing our first draft as we go along!

In maths, we are continuing our unit on fractions. This week specifically, we did a recap of what we learned before the half term, explored number sequences that include fractions, compared and ordered fractions by size and today we were adding and subtracting fractions that shared a common denominator! Next week, we'll be looking for at adding and subtracting fractions that don't share a common denominator. Exciting stuff!

In geography, we have started our population topic. We have explored population density and distribution. Basically, we explored where people live in the world and also in the UK. Using our prior knowledge, we were able to figure out why certain places may not have had as many people. For example, the climate might have an impact or the type of place it is (cities, towns, villages, etc.). See if your child can remember the population density of Devon!

Our new science topic, sustainability, had us looking at the properties of different materials and towards the end of the lesson, we discussed how some materials take a long time to decompose, especially when put into a landfill site. This leads us onto next weeks lesson about the 3 'R's - reduce, reuse, recycle. Throughout the half term, we will be exploring how we can meet the needs of today while making sure the needs of future generations can be met!

In RE, we are thinking about why Jesus was so important to Christians. This week, we explored how God has taken different forms through the Holy Trinity and why Jesus being an incarnate of God was so significant.