Maple Class Blog – Easter 2024 Well what a dramatic start to the Easter holiday! I hope that no-one had planned a long walk or at least that you took an inflatable dinghy with you. English We are working towards a fairytale retelling based on Carol Ann Duffy’s – The Princess’ Blankets. As a warm up, the children have used Kit Wright’s poem – The Magic Box to create some truly wonderful noun phrases to describe items that will be put in ‘the box’ which will become ‘a blanket’. How could our princess not be warmed by these images?... ‘The haunting hoot of an owl on a crisp winter’s night.’ ‘The skip of a little girl picking blackberries’. ‘A sip of molten gold from a glowing rainbow’. ‘The trickly of sand as it counts away time.’ Wonderful work, year 6! Please also see below a spelling list for the Easter hols. These are all words that will be useful in our story writing after the break. variety especially muscle persuade curiosity guarantee suggest Definite/definitely immediately appreciate temperature determined rhythm recommend desperate necessary recognise sacrifice Maths. Times tables will always be something to keep practising. How about trying these fun BBC videos which tackle your times tables in an active way and get you moving – a bit of silly but very useful fun which are definitely good for a rainy day. Super Movers: Times Tables Collection (bbc.co.uk) In Geography, we have been considering the effects of globalisation on our lives. The most recent focus has been on the fast fashion industry and how components of an item can come from many different countries. A challenge for the children is to choose a fashion item and try to find out all the different countries that could have contributed to its production - perhaps an annotated map could show this. After the holiday, we move back to History to consider 20th Century conflict – most especially world wars I and II. I have also pasted pictures of the first couple of completed Art pieces. We made wool collages of the princess’ blankets from our English story in a cubist style. Finally, can I say a huge ‘Well Done’ to everyone for your efforts on our Meldon walk. I have included a few pictures below. The support that you all gave to one another was fantastic to see and you were a credit to your families and one another. Have a super holiday, Best wishes, Mrs Armstrong
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Hello to all,
Best wishes from me for a super half term break. I'm hoping that many of you will be bamboozled by a magic trick that we have learnt in class in order to practise our instruction writing (it'll need 4 empty match boxes and an elastic band though). I'd love to hear back about how flamboyant the performance skills become! Year 6 have really been working hard and have written some super stories with a twist. To complement the spooky atmosphere of the stories, our art project has been 'perspective' and shading to create 3D impressions of gothic castles. I think that you'll agree that the example below really hits the mark. Please can you encourage the practising of the tricky spelling words over half term- we have to secure these by Easter. It has been a glorious day for a Woodland School session. Our nature area has transformed into a verdant glade. Today we learnt about campion leaves being used as a soap substitute - they will froth up apparently if you rub them like soap. We also learnt about the benefits of dandelions, every part of them being edible even if the leaves are a bit bitter. Perhaps you would like to try making some freshly ground coffee from the roots! Just dig them up, scrub them off, roast them in the oven or under the grill and then grind - delicious and your kitchen will smell wonderful.
Today's mystery animal was a stoat and we were able to feel a stoat pelt. Then, the scavenging task was to find bits and pieces to create images of animals. Can you see what they are? We have finished our information about highwaymen and shall be assembling our information pages next week. In Maths, we will be concentrating on using mathematical skills to solve problems and this past week, the children were given 12cm squares of paper as their only measuring tool to calculate the dimensions of their desks. The weaving is beginning to take shape. We are learning a few different techniques as we go and the blue/green colour palette is really rich. They're doing a good job. Have a super weekend (hopefully in the sunshine) Thank you to Mrs Ramoutar and Mrs Armstrong who did so much to prepare our children for their tests last week.
Thanks also to the parents and PTFA members who gave them such a lovely afternoon on Friday to congratulate them on their hard work and to celebrate passing that milestopne. Most of all, howeever, thank you to our pupils who showed the very best of themselves. Humour, resilience, focus... we couldn't ask for more.. 'Year 6, we could not be more proud of you!’
I’m sure that waves of relief are spreading out over Chagford as I write this and the year 6 children wend their ways home at the end of their SATs week. They were certainly challenged but each and every one of them approached the job in hand with great determination and level heads – in fact, they were so calm that most of the school didn’t even realise that there was anything going on. Well done all! This afternoon we all enjoyed a lovely party out in the sunshine. Enormous thanks to the PTFA, Chloe and James for organising a super barbecue and for Lucy and Charlotte for entertaining the children so beautifully for the afternoon. It was well worth waiting for the late lunch. Please see lots of photos below. Finally, Mrs Ramoutar and I would like to say a sincere ‘thank you’ for the lovely gifts and appreciation in assembly today – it really meant a lot. We hope that you all have a lovely weekend and look forward our Summer term projects. Despite a shortened week, we have achieved a lot.
The children have enjoyed producing their recruitment poster to tempt some of the gullible into joining a gang of pickpockets (I have said that this is not something that we would generally condone!). There were some lovely puns : Pick a new career in acquisitions/Pick us and pocket a top, London career. I think that they’ll have some applicants. The writing has not stopped there either as a challenge has been set to record as many positive and negative effects of globalisation on our lives as they can remember from our Geography unit. There may have been a small carrot dangled but the competition has been fierce to remember the most. In Maths, we have consolidated our learning regarding coordinates and reasoning about the vertices, perimeters and areas of shapes on coordinates grids. If you find anything where they can calculate areas and perimeters at home, that would be great to firm up learning. I have sent home the 4 star spelling mat and would appreciate if you could test your child through the list and circle insecure words. We can pick up common errors next week. This morning, we enjoyed a Woodland School session. The woods looked so different to when we last visited with water in the pond and the irises grown up. There were beautiful carpets of celandines and bluebells too. They were challenged with creating a natural map of the area. This afternoon, they have enjoyed an afternoon working with Lydia towards the school play and have been learning a rap – do ask for a performance. Thank you so much for your contributions of wool and fabric for our weaving project. I think that we probably have plenty now and I’m anticipating a lovely wall hanging that will grace the school for years to come. I am also planning a fun afternoon and picnic for the end of their SATs week but shall write more about that next week. Best wishes. Happy Easter everyone!
I have been a beaming teacher this week. The children have all made such fantastic progress and I couldn't be more proud of them. Please keep up daily reading and times tables practice during the holidays as well as a daily addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to keep the cogs turning. The year 6s had their final Easter service today and kept up tradition by insisting on wearing little Spring Chicken headbands to go with the song. They looked the part! Now for some advance warning of a couple of important dates: There will be a parent meeting regarding details of the France trip on Tuesday 2nd May in person at North Tawton Primary school from 5pm until 6pm. We do hope that as many of you as possible will be able to come along. The following week (after the coronation weekend), is the SATs week. The tests will take place from the Tuesday through to the Friday inclusive. These are statutory tests and have to be held all together at the same time so please do not make appointments for you child during this week. Other than that, it will be business as usual and they won't notice any difference to a normal school test week. I do hope that the rain stops at some point and that you are all able to get out into fresh air over the Easter break. Very best wishes. Dear all,
After a short school week, we have still managed to forge ahead with our learning. The start of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone has been a popular platform from which to study how personalities are built through speech and action and the children have really got into the swing of creating a strong sense of character. In Maths we have been working with ratio. If you are doing any baking over the next week, please ask your child to scale the recipe up or down for practice. Our next topic will be Pie Charts. However, it would be greatly appreciated if you could continue to practise a couple of multiplications and a couple of divisions each day and keep up with the times tables. In French, we have been learning to talk about what we like/don't like to eat or drink for breakfast. Vocabulary to learn includes the following: au petit dejeuner, je mange/bois du lait - some milk du pain - some bread (avec de la confiture) des tartines - some toast du cafe - some coffee du the - some tea du chocolat chaud - some hot chocolate des cereales du jus d'oranges Please can you make sure that the children bring their reading journals to school every day. We have some parent volunteers now who will be hearing the children read and will record reads in the journals. Have a lovely weekend everyone. Children, remember to spoil the mums in your life and Mums, remember to let yourselves be spoilt! Best wishes. What a busy week it has been.
We are very proud of our year 6s having completed their art project for the Trust’s Festival of Hope. Unfortunately, I have sent it off to the exhibition without taking any photos but we shall display it prominently in our school when it comes back. It certainly has strong visual impact, portraying the many positive impacts that we can have on our environment. (I took some picture though! - Ed) On Tuesday, all the children sang their hearts out for the recording of the Festival of Hope song too. We are really looking forward to the end results of both projects and to be able to see the results of the collaboration between all the Trust schools. Wednesday brought Chagford book day with it and the costumes were absolutely tremendous and thoroughly enjoyed by all. The Bookery brought a super selection of books which were enthusiastically delved into by the children and I’m looking forward to some reviews as they are read. In Maths, we have just about come to the end of our unit on Measures and shall be moving on to Ratio. In English, the focus of our next piece is the development of character in fiction. It would be really good to discuss how characters in your child’s reading book have had personality developed for them. You might also like to think about the characters of Harry, Dudley, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon in ‘Harry Potter’: what are their personalities like, what sort of body language do they have and how do they speak? Have a great weekend. |
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