YEAR 3
A shorter, but no less busy a week in Year 3 this week.
In English we have been completing out biographies work and students understanding the role of proper nouns in sentences and identifying a proper noun for each letter of the alphabet. The students have been very creative with this task.
In Maths we have identified mental strategies for solving addition problems and identifying time on analogue clocks.
Science has been of particular interest this week as we have undertaken and investigation into forces and how different materials influence the strength of the push or momentum on a rolling object.
On Wednesday many of our class went to skiing. For some it was their first time on skis while for others it was about improving or consolidating their own skills. All the students who went had a great day and behaviour was excellent.
For those students who stayed at school, we completed a bridge building engineering challenging by which students used wooden skewers, sticking gum to build a bridge to specific dimension designed to hold a certain weight. Students learned about the strength of different shapes and how modern architects use different shapes when building new bridges.
YEAR 4
Year 4 has had a great week and continue to work hard in class
This week in English we finished out whole class read of the story ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’. The children greatly enjoyed reading and discussing story themes, events and character roles and changes.
In Maths this week we learnt how to work out the perimeter of regular and composite rectilinear shapes including how to observe the shape to calculate the length of missing sides.
In Topic and Science we carried out preassessments to find out what we already know about ‘Changes in Entertainment and Leisure’ and ‘Sound’ in preparation for our new units.
YEAR 5
Year 5 have had a short but as usual, a busy week, with our day trip to Kant skiing on Wednesday being the highlight of the week.
In English we successfully completed our class reader by writing up our own review of the book. The children managed to follow the structure for the book review perfectly and I have been delighted to read everyone’s own personal thoughts about the story and what it has meant to them. In addition to this, I have had the chance to also listen to everybody read and shifted various children onto a slightly higher level. I have also allocated two levels to a number of children to promote some challenge to their vocabulary acquisition.
Wednesday was a chilly but very beautiful day with clear blue skies for skiing. For a good number of Year 5 children this was their first time to practise skiing and on the whole, they did very well in a very short space of time. They should be proud of themselves and hopefully they will consider pursuing this skill further.
Meanwhile, we have finished off the week by approaching a creative writing task in small groups which so far looks promising with a concerted effort by everyone to use powerful adjectives and verbs. For Maths, we continue to develop our recall of timestable facts for use in short division. For Topic, we begin a new unit of work on Money and Trade and Finance.
YEAR 6
We have had an amazing week here in Year 6. It has been amazing to go skiing on Wednesday, many of us it was the first time we have been skiing. We had some falls, and struggles learning how to use new equipment, but we had many more laughs and a lot of great memories! Mr. Marsh has had us busy creating our own short fictional story in English, and in Art we made the most amazing Maslenitsa Dolls. We had a great time on Friday with a lot of activities and burning of the doll. It has been a great week in Year 6!
FRENCH
In Year 3 we still spoke about the topic of “My House”. we drew a simple house and we added the different elements to complete the house. We learnt how to say each element of a house : le toit, la cheminée, la porte etc: Then, we spoke about The three little pigs. They listened to the story and had to repeat carefully the sentences. After that, they had to write correctly the words according to the pictures of each element and character of the story.
In Year 4, we are still learning the preposition of place : how to say in French ‘on, under, in, next to”. It was very important to know this vocabulary, why? Because they participated to a treasure hunter. First, they had to find the first clue in the class room which gave them the second clue, which gave them the third clue etc etc. The last clue gave them the place where the chest was. After exploring the school, the students from Year 4 found the chest in their classroom.
MUSIC
Year 3 and Year 4 were also very good in singing. We played some music games that helped the students to concentrate and work as a team. Year 5 have been practicing on the keyboards ‘In the Hole of the Mounting King’. Year 6 have explored how to play on the keyboards with both hands. We spoke about Bass clef and bass line in music.
ART
We had had a very exciting week, ending on a high note with the Maslenitsa festival! During this festival we celebrate the end of Winter and also welcome Spring in a spectacular manner. The Russian staff all put in loads of work to make the day as special as possible for our students. Maslenitsa crafts during this week helped children to understand the rich Russian cultural traditions. During the Art lessons the students had the opportunity to make a lovely doll. The doll is a symbol of festival, so we made mini Maslenitsa dolls using simple materials to celebrate the spring festival farewell to Winter.
