Year 4 Octopus morning and Year 3/4 Afternoon Class Blog

Week Two Home Learning

I am really enjoying receiving all of your home learning work. Not only that, but my favourite part is seeing all the pictures of you spending time with your families and having lots of fun! Here are some of the pictures I have received this week!

Week One Home Learning

I have been so impressed by the learning you have been doing from home, and all the pictures I have received. Please keep them coming - not just of your work, but of you having lots of fun with your family as well! Take a look at what Charlie has been up to so far this week below :) 

Week 25 (w/b 16/3/20)

This week in English, we have been focusing on different sentence types in order to add variety to our writing. We have looked at the sentence types below, and using them in our own writing to show the emotions of Wilbur as he begins to hear Charlotte's voice in the barn. We have been drafting and editing our own chapter for Charlotte's Web, which we published on Friday.

In maths,we have gone back to look at subtraction using written methods and applying this skill towards reasoning and problem solving. Octopus class have really impressed me with the improvement in their understanding of written methods, and being able to apply them to problem solving questions. Well done!

Week 24 (w/b 9/3/20)

In English this week we have been doing lots of magpie work on vocabulary in preparation for our published write next week where we are writing our own chapter! We have looked at a WAGOLL (what a good one looks like), picking out features that we wish to use in our own writing.

In Maths, we have revisited the topic of written method for addition. We have been looking at a variety of problems including varied fluency and reasoning and problem solving, linking to our previous rounding topic, to show we can apply the skills that we learnt earlier in the year.

Week 23 (w/b 2/3/20)

This week in Maths, we have been revising our knowledge of rounding to 10, 100 and 1000. The children have been reasoning and problem solving with this skill which we learnt earlier in the year, to ensure that their understanding of rounding is embedded.

In English, we have completed a published write of a first person retell of Charlotte's Web. The children have written as the character of Fern, talking about their emotions when finding out their father wanted to destroy the runt pig Wilbur! We spent time looking at show not tell, emoting the feelings of Fern through a variety of ways.

Week 22 (w/b 24/2/20)

This week we have started to read our new book, Charlotte's Web. We began by doing lots of book talk and predicting what the characters, setting and plot might be based upon the front cover and then the blurb. We then spent time understanding the new characters we had met, and wrote a character description after using a WAGOLL to inspire us!

In Maths, we have finished the topic of co-ordinates this week. We have focused on translating a point using directions on the first quadrant. At the end of the week, we completed a pre-assessment to see how much we could recall about rounding before we go back to this concept next week! Miss Cooke was astounded by our knowledge recall!

Week 21 (w/b 10/2/20)

What a busy last week of term in Octopus class!

In English, Year 4 have completed their final published write about our book 'Cliffhanger'. We have written a newspaper article all about Tim's accident at the Adventure Centre, using features such as direct speech from eyewitnesses and relative clauses to add further information.

In Maths, we have looked at co-ordinates, one of Miss Cooke's favourite topics to teach! We have shown brilliant understanding of this topic and  were able to apply our knowledge into problem solving situations. We will continue this topic after half term, looking at translations.

Finally, myself and all the staff in Year 3/4 Octopus wish you a lovely half term full of laughter, fun and making memories :) 

Week 20 (w/b 3/2/20)

With only one week to go until half term, we have been just as busy in Octopus class!

In English, we have began to look at the features of a newspaper article and magpie ideas from WAGOLLs in order to write our own report about Tim's accident at the adventure centre in this half term's book, Cliffhanger. We have particularly enjoyed collecting quotes from the eyewitnesses to include in our articles.

In Maths, we have spent some time dealing with money. I have been so impressed with our understanding of money already, but we have learnt to add and subtract during one and two step problems with a decimal point, finding change from £5 and £10. Well done Octopus!

Week 19 (w/b 27/1/20)

This week has been full of exciting learning opportunities and making memories! In our afternoon topics, we have shown the process of mummification through acting it out, and writing instructions for a  new Embalmer. And in Science, we have been learning all about the life cycle of a plant, particularly pollination. Take a look at some pictures of our learning below.

In English, we have ended the week by publish writing our discursive arguments 'Should school trips be banned?' It has been brilliant to see the children form opinions and express their viewpoints successfully during this topic of writing, and their work has really impressed us.

And finally, in Maths we have continued our topic of decimals by looking at multiplying and dividing by 10 and 100, and relating this skills to converting between units of measure. Check your children's knowledge at home by asking them how many mm are in a cm, or how many cms in a metre!

Week 18 (w/b 20/1/20)

This week in Octopus class, we have spent our English lessons looking at balanced arguments. We had our own debate, where children argued for both sides of the argument before our Chairperson decided on a winner based on the evidence supplied to her! We have picked out the features of this kind of writing, and discussed using quotes from experts and facts to support our ideas. Next week, we will be writing our own discursive argument 'Are school trips purposeful to learning?'

In Maths, we have continued to work with decimals. We have delved deeper into tenths and hundredths, before looking at dividing a one or two digit number by 10 and 100. The children have worked really hard on this subject, and are showing deeper understanding of place value and the effects of dividing numbers and making them 10 or 100 times smaller.

Finally, in afternoon curriculum we have had the pleasure of a workshop all about Egypt! We have learnt so many facts about Ancient Egypt to help us in our lessons, and showed courage and determination when performing. Miss Cooke is so very proud of us all and will be sharing photos of the workshop soon!

Week 17 (w/b 13/1/20)

We have had a week full of learning in Octopus class this week! We have published our first piece of writing about our new book, Cliffhanger by Jacqueline Wilson. We have written our own chapter, using informal language to stay inkeeping with the style of the book. Our characters have gone a number of different adventures, experiencing problems and finding resolutions. We have used the structure of a story mountain to plan our narrative chapters. Miss Cooke is so impressed with our writing this term - we have written using a number of Year 4 features, and our use of vocabulary has been fantastic!

In maths, we have began the topic of decimals. We focused on tenths and hundredths, and the understanding of a tenth being ten times smaller than one whole. We showed how we could represent a tenth in a number of ways, including using base 10 and pictorially, before showing this on a place value grid. 

Week 16 (w/b 6/1/20)

What a busy first week back we have had in Octopus class! We have spent our week in English learning about our new book, Cliffhanger. We have began to write our own narrative, and spent time completing drama activities in order to understand how each character felt, showing empathy in our writing. 

Week 15 (w/b 16/12/19)

Wow what a busy week we have had to finish our Autumn term!

In maths we have been looking at statistics, and particularly interpreting and creating our own bar charts and line graphs. We discussed the differences between discrete and continuous data, and how we would represent these types of data in different ways. Challenge: Can you tell your family members what discrete data is, and what would be the most appropriate type of graph to represent this? What about continuous?

In English this week, we have spent time looking at narrative poetry, using the famous 'The Owl and the Pussycat' to pick out the features of this form of writing. From this, we have composed our own poetry using the theme of winter, deciding upon which characters we wish to include, and creating our own plot!

I simply cannot believe how quickly the term has passed, and how much you have all developed as young people in Octopus class. Over the past few weeks we have made so many memories and learnt about topics which have interested, engaged and inspired us. Myself and the other teachers cannot wait to welcome you all back to school on January 6th and hear about what you have got to during the winter break. Have a lovely rest, and we will see you soon :) <3

Week 14 (w/b 9/12/19)

This week we have been working hard to complete our final published write of The Firework Maker's Daughter. We have written a narrative inspired by the book, using the same setting and some elements of the plot but changing the main character and the reason for her quest to Mount Merapi. We have focused particularly on using punctuation correctly to support our ideas and add extra information. Below is a WAGOLL which we annotated in one of our lessons this week, and magpied examples of effective use of punctuation. Next week we will be looking at poetry, with a winter theme!

In Maths, we have started a new topic of statistics. We have spent time collecting our own research, using tally charts, before representing our data in a bar chart. We have discussed the different kinds of data, and asked questions about both our own data and other examples of data representation. We will continue this into our learning next week, as we complete some winter related statistic activities!

Week 13 (w/b 2/12/19)

In maths, we have continued our learning about fractions. We have spent lots of time looking at equivalent fractions both pictorially, and working out fractions using our times tables knowledge. We then moved on to representing fractions as both improper and mixed fractions, and defining what these words mean. Next week, we will look at fractions of amounts and problem solving with fractions.

In English, we have began re-writing The Firework Maker's Daughter, with a twist in the tale! We have changed the name of our character, and the reason why she goes on her journey to save her village. After creating our own plans, we have focused on using adverbials to link our ideas together.

Week 12 (w/b 25/11/19)

This week, we have been learning how to write our own stories following the journey of Hamlet the elephant from our class text, The Firework Maker's Daughter. We spent some time looking at vocabulary and identifying the meaning of new, high level synonyms. We then planned our writing, before writing a WAGOLL together. For our editing lesson on Thursday, we spent time looking at Alan Peat's sentence types. We magpied BOYS, 3 -ed and 2a sentences before including examples of them in our published write on Friday!

In maths this week, we have began the topic of fractions. We considered what we already knew about fractions, and made sure that this knowledge was embedded including understanding the meaning of key vocabulary - challenge: Can you explain the meaning of the words from our maths word wall? Moving on from this, we began to look at representing fractions and identifying equivalent fractions diagramatically. 

Week 11 (w/b 18/11/19)

This week we have finished our retell of Chapter Two of The Firework Maker's Daughter. We have focused on using a variety of sentence structures, and understanding different kinds of clauses including main, subordinate and relative clauses. During our editing lesson, we worked hard to re-read our writing to ensure sense, and focused on removing unneeded words or substituting them for more high level vocabulary.

In maths, we have spent the week looking at division. We have learnt the new skill of bus stop method to calculate 3 by 1 digit division. We have found this quite challenging as a class, particularly when carrying. However, we have used counters and pictorial representations to further embed our learning. We will revisit this topic later in the year, but Miss Cooke thinks we are ready for a well earned break from this tricky topic!

Week 9 (w/b 4/11/19)

In English, we have started our new book 'The Firework Maker's Daughter'. We have worked with the  VIPERS theme of prediction to consider what might happen in the book, before magpie-ing descriptive phrases about Lila from the text. Next week we are going to write our own character description of Lila!

In maths, we have began the topic of multiplication and division. We have used concrete apparatus to show how we multiply two by one digit numbers, and next week we will look at using column method!

Week 8 (w/b 21/10/19)

This week, Octopus class have worked together to create their own Kenning's poetry. The children have learnt the main features of this style of poetry before performing their finished pieces to the class. 

In maths, we have spent some time looking at symmetry and symmetrical figures, understanding the idea of having a line of symmetry which is like a mirror reflecting the image. 

We have had such a busy first half term in Octopus class, and I am so very proud of each and every one of you. I simply cannot wait to see what next term has in store for us all :) 

Week 7 (w/b 14/10/19)

In English, we have continued with our setting description. First of all we read the description of Hogwarts as found in the book, and then we watched snippets from the film to magpie vocabulary and descriptive language. Then, after writing our first draft, we practised editing our writing using ARMS and CUPS. We made sure we were using the correct word types in our writing, and ensured we could identify and explain what each word type was for. 

In maths, we have spent the week identifying and classifying quadrilaterals and triangles. We have learnt many features about each of the different 2D polygons, and can now classify the shapes using a variety of methods.

Week 6 (7/10/19)

In maths, we have begun a new topic of perimeter. We investigated the perimeter of rectangular shapes before moving onto rectilinear shapes, and missing numbers! Next week, we will continue to shape and move on to area before finding out about different kinds of shapes, including quadrilaterals! Why not do some extra research, and find out about different kinds of quadrilaterals and their properties over the weekend? We will be looking at different kinds of triangles too!

We are delving further into our novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone this week, and Harry’s imminent arrival to Hogwarts! Whilst in Diagon Alley, we described the magical world using adjectives, adverbs and prepositions. We also made sure that we magpied descriptive vocabulary from the text itself, and thought about our senses when describing a setting. Next week, we will use these skills to describe the towering, majestic Hogwarts castle.

In our afternoon curriculum, we have thoroughly enjoyed science this week. Using our understanding of magnets, we created our own games which require magnetism to work! What do you think made our characters move through the maze, without the magnet touching the character?

Finally, we would just like to say well done to Octopus class on their outstanding Harvest performance. The children wrote the poem themselves, and created their own actions to each line. The confidence and teamwork shown in your performance was simply outstanding. Well done J

Week Five (w/b 30/9/19)

In English, we have spent the week writing a persuasive letter to Mr and Mrs Dursley. We began by magpie-ing the features of a persuasive letter from a WAGOLL, before choosing some high level vocabulary to practice our dictionary skills. Moving on from this, we expanded our bank of adverbs to link ideas and paragraphs. On Monday, we will publish our final letter!

In maths, we continued to look at four digit addition and subtraction. We really embedded the skill before moving on to understanding the inverse of each calculation. Finally, we looked at two-step problems and mixing the two operations together.

Week Four (w/b 23/9/19)

In maths this week, we have continued our work on place value, looking at negative numbers and talking about their value being less than 0. We have practically created a number line to really embed our understanding. Carrying on from this, we looked at our favourite topic so far - Roman Numerals! Using the fantastic learning we had already done with Miss French last year, we moved on to numbers up to 100. Miss Cooke was so impressed with our prior knowledge, and how quickly we could translate digits to Roman Numerals and back again!

Finally, in English we received a mysterious letter from Professor Dumbledore asking for our help. We spent some time learning about how to write a formal letter back to the Professor, and next week we will learn about persuasive features so we can encourage Mr and Mrs Dursley to send Harry to Hogwarts!

Week Two (w/b 9/9/19)

This week in English, we have continued to read our class text, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. We spent some time describing the characters using vocabulary we magpied from the text, before using drama activities such as hot seating and freeze frames to feel empathy for Harry.

In Maths, we have continued to delve into the topic of place value to really embed this understanding. We have used number lines to represent numbers, and help us to compare and order numbers. Here is a challenge to really get your brains thinking!!

Finally, our stars of the week were Sara, Mohammed and Aminah for showing our school values at all times and fantastic presentation in all that they do. Here are some photos of our stars - look how proud they are!

Week One (w/b 2/9/19)

What a busy week we have had in Octopus class! Take a look at all our exciting learning in the slideshow pictures below. Our star of the week is Talha, for showing a fantastic attitude coming back to school this week. Well done :)

Miss Cooke and Mrs Acar

Welcome to Year 3/4 Octopus!

We are simply so excited to welcome all our octopus into their new class for the year. I just know that we are going to have a fantastic year together full of learning and making memories.

We will spend lots of time this week getting to know each other and creating some fantastic pieces of work for our new displays. We  cannot wait to see what our classroom will look like by the end of the week! I look forward to sharing all our exciting learning on our class blog every week.

Miss Cooke, Miss Gaskell, Mrs Acar and Mr Grocott

Week 37

We started out week off with an exciting trip to Enginuity at Ironbridge. We were all at school in plenty of time, which was amazing and we left on two coaches! After an hour and a bit, we eventually got there and were all so excited. We were greeted by one of the members of staff at Enginuity who went through some things with us then we were left to explore in our groups! It linked fabulously to our encompass topic, one of the activities to complete was 'Build an earthquake proof tower' this was tricky! Even Miss French struggled! There was a brilliant water feature which we all loved! There were also lots of different stations about ways to generate electricity! 

Back at school we had sports day! Miss French was so impressed with the way we showed all of our school values through sportsmanship. We encouraged each other beautifully and everybody was so impressed with our progress of skills from our PE lessons! The way some of us threw the javelin was beyond impressive!! 

We've got two weeks left together as Octopus class! Let's keep on being as brilliant as we have been all year!! 

Week 36 

Another busy busy week for us in Octopus class this week! We have been writing out alternative stories in English and WOW Miss French was impressed by some of the writing that we produced! The suspense built up to a cliffhanger in some pieces of writing were simply phenomenal! It has taken some of us a little longer and a little more structure to write ours but that's ok because we are showing resilience and will be ready to publish next week! 

In Maths, we have looked at length, Y3 and looked at measuring in cenitmetres and measuring accurately with a ruler whilst Y4 looked at converting between different lengths! Y4 loved this as it meant they could use their multiplication and division by 10 and 100 to help them! A great reinforcement of knowledge! Towards the end of the week we all looked at using these skills in worded problems. 

In Encompass we looked at tsunamis in a bit more detail and watched some footage Miss French showed us to help us understand how serious they can be! We then created our own fact file on a natural disaster of our choice. We used the iPads to help us research our chosen natural disaster and then recorded this information in our books!

Week 35 

Another wet and rainy week this week, although we have definitely had more time outside which is wonderful! In our learning this week, in English, we have been creating our own alternative stories based on Gangsta Granny. We have worked as groups and come up with ideas and started to plan the openings! Miss French cannot wait to read them when we do our first draft on Monday morning! 

In Maths, year 3 have been looking at 2D and 3D shapes. They have been recognising their properties and naming them which is fantastic! On Friday they even got to model and make their own 3D shapes using this knowledge! Year 4 have been looking at 2D shapes as well but have then moved on to looking at symmetry. On Friday Miss French even challenged them to complete symmetrical shapes on a mirror line. 

Week 34

This week has been incredibly wet and miserable with the weather we have had! Octopus class however, have brightened every day impressing me with their learning!

In maths this week year 3 have been looking at angles as a property of a shape, they went on a shape hunt to find angles around school, discussed the difference between acute, obtuse and right angles and then moved on to learning about turns and lines! They have worked so incredibly hard with lots of new learning. Year 4 have worked hard as well, they have been ordering and comparing angles, they have really impressed me this week and some of the children have been consistently pushing themselves and proving they can achieve gold and silver challenges which is fantastic!

In English we have published our instructions ‘How to be a gangsta!’ We have written some fantastic instructions and really thought about fronted adverbials we could use to show the chronological order the tasks need to be in. We have tried our hardest to use all of the skills we could but ensuring our writing still makes sense

In Encompass on Monday there was an earthquake at lunchtime and when we returned to the classroom it was chaos! We all said we felt a small tremor but the devastation in the classroom showed us how big it really was! We investigated what had happened and then wrote a short report in the style of a newspaper. We really enjoyed this and now understand why earthquakes happen and what causes them!

Week 33

Welcome back after half term! What a busy week we've had. We came back to school on Tuesday after half term and some of our children and Mrs Karim weren't in because they were celebrating Eid! We spent the day celebrating the festival too! Miss French learnt so much from those children who were in school about the festival and how it is celebrated! Some children then celebrated Eid on Wednesday with their family and we began our learning for the week! 

In English we are writing instructions on 'How to be a Gangsta!' which we are loving! So far we have looked at the features that are unique to a set of instructions and looked in more detail at how to use fronted adverbials to help organise our writing! We are now working on imperative verbs and trying to think of some really exciting ones that we will be able to use in our own instructions next week! 

In Maths we have started to look at angles, turns and lines. We really struggled with this on Thursday so we spent the lesson discussing it and trying to get our head around right angles and which angles are bigger or small than them! 

Have a lovely weekend! 

Week 32 

What another fabulous week we have had! We started the week off with our drama workshop all about volcanoes and we LOVED it! It was fantastic, Debra, the lady who ran it for us was hilarious! We learnt and laughed a lot during our hour with her! Make sure you ask us what we learnt and we will do our best to tell you! 

In Maths we learnt all about roman numerals! We learnt a song which has really helped us! Even Miss Gaskell was impressed when we sang it to her! We learnt the numbers 1-12 and then Year 4 learnt numbers up to 100! Miss French was so impressed at the detective skills of working out given numerals from information they already knew! 

In English we tackled the really tricky subject of present perfect tense. Miss French thought this would be a real challenge for us and although it was challenging we did our best and understand now how to change a sentence from the simple past to the present perfect! 

Have a lovely and safe half term! 

Week 31

We have had a very jam packed, exhausting week in Octopus class this week! We took one of our maths lessons outside, learnt to colour mix and began writing some character descriptions of Granny! That's only a few things we got up to! 

In Maths, we have been looking at statistics over this half term and the focus for this week was bar charts. Miss French decided to take us outside and make a human bar chart to help us understand how scales work! We LOVED it! We created a bar chart all about the different colour hair in our class, we started off in split groups (year 3 and year 4) and then did a massive class one! This really helped our learning later on in the week! 

In English, we started writing character descriptions of Granny. We have struggled with this and found it tricky, we are going to show resilience though and still edit and publish our work next week and show Miss French how amazing it can be when we persevere! 

Week 30

What another fantastic week! Octopus class just keep on impressing me with their attitudes to learning! We ended this week on over 500 dojo points! Something we are all very proud of! 

In English this week we have been writing our diary entries as Ben from Gangsta Granny. Miss French is incredibly impressed with the standard of our writing and can't wait to continue reading them over the weekend! We have really focused on using lots of different prompts and resources to help us write our final piece, remembering it isn't just our plan that can help us!

In Maths we began to look at pictograms. We found this quite tricky, so on Friday Miss French needed our help to create a pictogram based on some data she had collected! You can see how she did it below! 

In our Encompass lesson we began our learning about the Earth's layers! Miss French told us we would be using Mars Bars to help us and we couldn't believe it! A Mars Bar can show the layers of the Earth really well! Definitely something we will remember now! 

Look at the photo below and see if you can remember what each layer is?

Week 29 

Our first week back has been jam packed full of learning already! We have hit the ground running with our new text for the term ‘Gangsta Granny’. We keep asking Miss French to read it to us at any given spare moment! So far we are absolutely loving the book! We have started to look at writing a diary entry from the perspective of Ben and how he hates going to his Granny’s house EVERY Friday evening! There have already been a lot of funny moments in the book that have had us all giggling!

In Maths we have been looking at statistics. We have started this unit by looking at tables, why we use them and how we use them. So far we have impressed Miss French with how well we can interpret data! Below are some of the questions we have been looking at! See if you can try them at home and remember what to do! Maybe even teach your parents!

We have made our own volcanoes this week to start off our new topic tremors! IT WAS INCREDIBLE! We loved watching the ‘lava’ bubble and foam over the top of our very own volcanoes!

Holiday homework!

We set some holiday homework over Easter to either create a model of a volcano, design and create an earthquake proof house or research famous volcanoes! 

Lots of our children took up the challenge and have create some fantastic models! This is just a sample of some of the fantastic pieces that have been bought in! The rest are on display in the classroom!

Week 28

What a fast paced final week of term we have had! It was an incredibly busy week for us Octopus'! The biggest event for us was our Going For Gold production. It was FABULOUS! Everybody who came to see it, parents, carers, siblings and Mrs Knowles all said how amazing we all were as a key stage and how well we had all done in the time we had! We thoroughly enjoyed everything to do with the performance and can't wait to do another one next year!! 

When Miss French gets her hands on some of the photos she will put them on here so you can see for yourselves how brilliant we looked on stage! 

Week 27

What another busy busy week we have had in Octopus class! It has been full of production rehearsals, costume preparation as well as everything else! 

English

In English this week, we have published our diary entries writing as Mowgli. We have tried our very hardest to include as many of the year 3 and 4 skills as we can as well as remembering the features of a diary. This can be very tricky but we've done very well! Miss French has enjoyed marking them! 

Maths

In our Maths lessons, we have been looking at how to round numbers. Year 3 have been rounding the nearest 10, while year 4 have been rounding decimals to the nearest whole number. We have explored this in lots of different ways. We started with our concrete materials and used dienes and rounding mountains to help us, we then looked at how to round using a number line (with all the numbers on). Miss French then challenged us to round using a blank number line. We finished the week by answering varied fluency style questions. Everybody impressed Miss French with this with their determination! 

Next week will be even busier with a dress rehearsal of our performance to the school, the real thing to parents, our DT project of making flatbread coming to a close as well as fitting in everything else ready for the end of term! Get lots of rest this weekend as it is sure to be a very tiring week! 

What an incredibly exciting week we’ve had this week! We have had all sorts going on from healthy eating and clay workshops to recorder and choir festivals! We even managed to get our class assembly in too!

Our class assembly showcased what amazing friends we are to each other in our class. We showed great determination on Monday when we spent the whole day doing play in a day! Miss French was exhausted by the end of it! We practised how to use the stage and practised our song about friendship. Miss French even gave out some solo’s which the audience loved! Thank you to all of our parents who came to watch! We loved seeing you there.

On Wednesday the year 3 had the privilege of going to watch the school recorder players in their festival at Victoria Hall. They came and reported back to Miss French and the year 4’s how amazing it was! On Thursday night, Miss French took 6 of our lovely children to again, perform at the Victoria Hall but this time in the KS2 choir! There were lots of other schools there and our children were simply amazing! They sang beautifully and remembered everything Mrs Barker taught them! We even had firework canons for the finale!

We took part in a clay workshop this week. We learnt some new skills and built on some of our old ones on how to use clay. We each made a clay pot which will be coming home on Monday with the children.

Have a lovely weekend

Week 25

What another fantastic week we have had! In English we have been writing our letters from Mowgli to Mum. We have been trying to include as many year 3 and 4 standards as we can and have really impressed Miss French again! 

In Maths we continued with converting tenths and hundredths into decimals! We have now really got the hang of it and will move our learning on next week! 

In Encompass we used some of our reading skills knowledge and applied it to our learning about Ancient Greece! We looked at the Battle of Marathon and summarised the events in the order that they happened! 

Photos of our superstars this week will follow! Miss French has had trouble with the iPads and photos this week. 

Week 24 

What another busy week we have had in Octopus class! The writing this week from our children has been simply amazing! We began the week by publishing our non-chronological report on Bengal tigers and then Miss French introduced us to informal letters. We started to look at and think about Mowgli’s thoughts and feelings. We came up with some brilliant vocabulary and then put these ideas into sentences.

In maths year 3 have been problem solving with different types of fractions with Mrs Karim and really enjoying while Miss French challenged the year 4’s on beginning to convert fractions into decimals. We did this with a lot of concrete resources!

This week was British Science Week. We began the week by receiving a letter from some people who needed us to create a contraption that would protect some goods to drop down on to a desert island. In our groups we thought about how we could make this and what materials we would need. On Friday we then got to make our designs and test them out when Miss French dropped them from a height! Only one group managed to keep the egg as one!

We had a fantastic workshop all about inventors and their inventions. Octopus class really impressed Steve and Miss French with their acting and freeze frame skills! We showed the life and career of Ada Lovelace through a series of freeze frames to music!

Week 23 

In English this week we have planned and written our first drafts of our non-chronological reports on Bengal tigers. We have learnt how to use adverbs of time, manner and place. Miss French can’t wait to see these in our published writes next week!

In Maths we have tackled equivalent fractions. We used playdough, lego and fraction walls to begin with to see if we could notice any patterns. We then moved on to looking at them pictorially. Miss French and Miss Cooke argued over chocolate! This was the only way we could understand equivalent fractions!!

Thursday was World Book Day! We had some fabulous children dressed up in fabulous costumes! We had tigers to monkeys and panthers to elephants! Miss French was impressed by the effort the children went to!

This week my English superstar is Raheem for the amazing content and Year 4 skills used in his writing and my Maths superstar goes to Kevin for his brilliant understanding of equivalent fractions.  

Week 22

Wow what a busy and long first week back we have had! In English we have started our new book ‘The Jungle Book’. Our focus is on non-chronological reports. We will be writing this on Bengal tigers the same as the character Shere Khan from the book! We have researched all about them today!!

In Maths we have been adding and subtracting fractions! We have really understood this and Miss French was very impressed. We have been tackling some varied fluency style questions which made us think a little bit harder!

In Encompass we looked at how t Ancient Greece has influenced the Western World. We learnt a lot, especially about the Olympic Games! A lot has changed since those times but the games still happen today!

Next week is World book Day and Parent Consultations for our class! Remember to create a costume for Thursday, it can be as creative as you like! Masks and face paint welcome!! You will have had the text about consultations so please book a slot to see Miss French!

Look at our superstars of the week! This week Lexi got our Maths superstar of the week because of her determination and improved attitude towards tackling different problems and Lucy is our English superstar of the week because of her improved knowledge of vocabulary! She was able to tell us what words like territory meant! Octopus Class are so proud of our superstars this week! 

Week 21

What an exciting last week of term we had! We had our trip to Chester Zoo on Wednesday and we LOVED it! It was a long day and we did a lot of walking! We split into our groups with our adults and we explored the zoo tailored to the animals we all wanted to see! We learnt lots of exciting facts throughout the day. Some of us ate our lunches surrounded by a family of giraffes. There were a lot of monkeys at Chester Zoo! these seemed to be the favourite animal! We saw the biggest orangutan who had his face right up against the glass!

Everybody enjoyed this trip, it was a lovely end to our science topic Living Things and Their Habitats!

Week 20 

Maths

We have been looking at finding unit fractions of amounts this week. We have impressed Miss French so much, she is so proud of us! She couldn’t believe how quickly we understood the method! We started off on Monday using concrete apparatus and then moved on to solving questions pictorially and even abstract!! Year 4 have taken this even further and have been finding small fractions of amounts!

English

On Monday morning we got employed by Mr Charm who realised he wasn’t very good at writing letters. He needs our help to persuade Miss Cackle to create an academy for both wizards and witches! We have looked at the structure of a letter as well as persuasion techniques. Ask us what exaggeration or rhetorical questions are! We’ve learnt all about them! We spent a lesson looking at how to include speech in our letters as a quote. Mrs Knowles and Miss Gaskell popped in to this lesson and said how lovely the presentation in our books is now.

Encompass

On Tuesday afternoon we looked at the daily life of Ancient Greeks. We found out lots of interesting facts! The most interesting for us was when we found out the women cannot do anything, even leave the house without the man’s (husband or dads) permission. Our tasks included a crossword! Some of us found this tricky as we had never seen one before!! We think we should try some this weekend to get used to them in case Miss French gives us one another time!

We have had some trouble with our iPads and taking photos this week! Miss French will ensure to upload some for next week so you can see our learning in action!

Week 19

English

In English this week we have been learning all about the Worst Witch. We used our own imaginations to create a wizard who we have written a character description about! The skill we focused on was subordinating conjunctions (because, when, although, if). We really understood these and you can ask us all about them! We know how to explain them now! Miss French can’t wait to read some of them in our character descriptions!

Maths

On Friday it was NSPCC Number Day. We looked at and read the story ‘365 penguins’. In it a family get a penguin for each day of the year. Miss French set us the challenge of working out how many penguins they have on certain days. We found this very tricky but we still tried our hardest!

At the beginning of the week Kevin and Raheem passed the times table mission 1! This was just fantastic! We then started the week by looking fractions! So far we have ordered tenths and hundredths and unit fractions and even began to compare them!

Week 18 

In Maths this week we have consolidated our learning of division by tackling some problem solving and reasoning questions. We found this quite tricky so still need lots of practise at home with this type of question to help us become independent mathematicians! 

In English, we published our setting descriptions of Cackle's Academy. We tried our hardest to use all of the year 3 and 4 standards and we are definitely getting there! We can't wait to see what we are going to be writing about next!! 

We have our creative homework winner!! Miss French had to choose our winner and it was Raheem! He made a fantastic moving model of a Trojan Horse! Well done Raheem! 

Week 17         

This week we have continued to write our setting description of Cackle's Academy for Witches! Some of us have tried exceptionally hard to get back into the swing of writing and have really impressed Miss French! She can't wait to see the published pieces on Monday! 

In Maths it has taken us a bit longer to grasp the idea of using a number line for division. We have finally cracked it thought and can now fluently use this method to help us answering sums! 

In Encompass we started our topic by looking at where Greece is today and comparing this to where Ancient Greece was! We used maps and the iPads for research to help us! Miss French even gave us a jigsaw of the Greek flag to complete. This was tricky but we succeeded! 

Week 16 

What a fabulous first we back we have had together!! In English we have looked at our new book 'The Worst Witch' which we are thoroughly enjoying! We have done lots of book talk this week and learnt lots of new vocabulary including words such as 'loyal' and 'absent-mindedly'. Next week we will start writing our setting descriptions of Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches!!

In Maths we have started looking at division. We looked at all the different methods we already know and then began to focus on using the grouping method. We have impressed Miss French with how well we have grasped this concept already! 

We had our WOW day for our new Encompass topic 'Gods and Mortals' on Wednesday and those of us who dressed up looked absolutely superb!! We learnt a lot of about Greece ready for starting our learning next week. We took part in some Greek music, Greek dancing and even some Greek food tasting! We are definitely not fans of olives or artichokes! 

.

Week 15

What a busy and fun packed week we have had to end the term! We have practised for our winter performance of 'The Snowman and the Snowdog'. We had the important job of singing the song 'Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer' Richie impressed us all and sang a beautiful solo! It even made Miss French cry!! 

We looked at the poem 'twas the night before Christmas in English and thought about how we could change it to resemble our own family Christmas celebrations!

We looked at how different countries celebrate Christmas and found out lots of interesting facts! We finished the week by going to the Church as a whole school and joining in a carol service which was truly magical!

Week 13                   7.12.18

This week in Maths we continued using the grid method (see last weeks post!) for multiplication and are now starting to get the hang of it! We are going to carry on with this up until the Christmas holidays so Miss French knows we are secure in using this method! Year 4 next week will be taking the learning further and attempting two digit by two digit multiplication whilst the year 3's will be securing their three digit by one digit multiplication!

In English we have been innovating the traditional fairy tale 'Little Red Riding Hood' we have had some sensational ideas such as 'Little Blue Riding Hood' and some children have even changed the wolf to an eagle or a fox! I can't wait to start planning these on Monday morning!

Pictures will follow later in the week! Keep posted with our learning on Marvellous Me, I will be sending home messages all week this week so make sure you're signed up! 

Week 12                                30.11.18

What another busy week we have had in Octopus class! Towards the end the week in Maths we started looking at multiplication. We looked at all the different ways we know how to multiply then looked at our new way to do this, the grid method. We found this a bit tricky, but that's ok! We're going to continue looking at it next week. 

In English, we planned, edited and published our non-chronological reports. We tried to follow our steps to success and gave ourselves targets in our edit. We can't wait to see what our next piece of writing will be! 

Week 11                         23.11.18

What a fun but busy week we've had this week! We had our very exciting trip to Tatton Park to immerse ourselves into the daily life of a Viking. We learnt all about the different weapons they used, how to braid and how to make bread. We had such a good time!!

In English, we have started researching wolves and looking at features of a non-chronological report ready to publish our own next week!

We have found out lots and lots of interesting facts and can't wait to share them with you!! 

Week 10                   16.11.18

Another brilliant week in Octopus class this week. We have really impressed the adults who work with us this week in both English and Maths. 

In Maths, we have now learnt how to carry out subtraction using the formal method. We have had lots of practise with this now and even managed to answer the difficult word problems Miss French left for us on Thursday! They weren't easy!!

This is an example of the column method for subtraction crossing the boundary (which we now know all about)

In English, we have now written our draft of our innovation of Jack and the beanstalk - Jack and the magic mountain! We cannot wait to publish these! We have really enjoyed writing these and can't wait to do another innovation in a few weeks time! 

Week 9          10.11.18

What a fabulous first week back after half term! The children have settled back into the classroom beautifully this week. In English we have looked at the original tale of Jack and the beanstalk. From this we have then innovated it and we are getting ready to write our own version of the story which we have called Jack and the magic mountain. The children had some fantastic ideas and cannot wait to get writing next week!

In Maths the children have been learning how to become more independent with their learning. They have really loved the new shape of our maths lessons. We have been focusing on subtracting numbers using concrete resources and the pictorial method. On Thursday, every child got to gold which is just fantastic!

In Encompass we have started looking in more detail at the Vikings and where they came from. The children used their map skills to locate Scandinavia and the UK and were also able to say why they thought York (Jorvik) was the best place for the Vikings to settle!

On Friday we had an art day for the centenary of WW1. I cannot even begin to express how proud I am of the children and the art work they produced. We looked at the charity, The Royal Legion and discussed how the money helps veteran soldiers. On Monday our artwork will go into the whole school exhibition ready for parents to purchase if they wish! 

Pictures will follow from this!!

Have a lovely weekend! 

Week 7     15.10.18

This week we celebrated harvest. We bought in lots of tinned goods to donate which is fantastic! We performed a poem in an assembly in front of our friends and family. It was brilliant, Miss French was very impressed with our loud voices on stage! We really enjoyed learning all the songs too. 

In English, we published our diary entry. We pretended we were George and wrote all about how we wanted to make Grandma a horrible medicine! We impressed Miss French with how well we can now use fronted adverbials. 

In Encompass we learnt all about King Alfred the Great! We wrote a mini fact file all about him, had a go at drawing him and even did a reading comprehension!

Week 6      8.10.18

On Monday we were very lucky to be able to visit All Saints Church to meet a solider who told us all about how the army has changed since WW1. We then made our very own poppies and dedicated them to a local solider who sadly lost their life in WW1. It was interesting to see that some of us even shared surnames with some of them!! 

In English we have started to look at how to write a diary entry. We are pretending we are George and writing all about what a horrible day we had when we had to stay at home with Grandma, until we had the idea to make her our own medicine. We have been learning lots of different skills to help us improve our writing including time conjunctions and fronted adverbials. 

In Maths, we have been adding 10 and multiples of 10 to 3 and 4 digit numbers. We have been using concrete apparatus to do this and this has really helped us! Some of us even moved on to doing it mentally which is just fantastic! 

We wrote a non-chronological report in Encompass this week all about Anglo-Saxon life, we really impressed Miss French with our afternoon writing! 

Week 5  01.10.18

We carried on our character descriptions of Grandma this week. We have tried to include a range of prepositions in our work. This is something we have worked really hard on. We are becoming experts at recognising different prepositions now! On Friday we published our writing and Miss French was very impressed by the standard of our writing already. 

In Maths we started looking at adding a 1 digit number to a 3 or 4 digit number. We have used lots of concrete resources to help us do this. Towards the end of the week we started adding these numbers and crossing the boundary! We will be carrying on with this learning next week to consolidate! 

In our Encompass lesson this week we researched what life was like for Anglo-Saxons. We used the iPads and different books to find out all about their lives! Did you know, Anglo-~Saxons ate oatcakes!? We will use this research next week to write a non-chronological report!

Week 4

This week we have been learning all about how horrible Grandma is in our book George's Marvellous medicine! We have really impressed Miss French with the vocabulary we have come up with as a class! These have been on our working wall all week to help us! 

In our Maths lessons we have been looking at how to problem solve and explain our reasons why. This took some time but we persevered and are now getting the hang of it!

We carried out an investigation in Science this week called 'Are liquids runny?' We had 4 different liquids and investigated how runny they were. We really enjoyed this and it helped us learn all about different liquids! 

Week 3

This week in Maths we carried on working with place value, looking at ordering and comparing numbers. We used our place value grid on the floor to help us do this! We now know how to decide if a number is greater than or less than another number and then use this to help us put numbers in order. Later in the week we used this knowledge to help us put numbers on a number line!

In English we did our first published write of the year! Miss French was really impressed with how well we all did! There were some amazing pieces of writing. I'm sure George would love to make some of these medicines for his Grandma by following our instructions

Week 2

Another fantastic week in Octopus class this week! We started our writing journey by looking at punctuation and where and when we need to use it. At the end of the week we looked at instruction writing and started to think about making our own version of 'George's Marvellous Medicine' we thought of some really disgusting ingredients to use! 

In Maths, we have been spending our time learning all about place value. Looking at what different vocabulary means as well as physically representing numbers with dienes apparatus. We all impressed Miss French with how well we can partition numbers using the bar model!

We had a very special visitor in school on Thursday! Beornwulf, an Anglo-Saxon. We all came to school looking fabulous in our our Anglo-Saxon/Viking outfits for the day too! We definitely learnt a lot about living in the Anglo-Saxon time from Beornwulf. Ask us why they liked to eat onion soup!!

Have a lovely weekend, see you Monday x

Week One

What a fabulous start to the year we have had Octopus Class!! I am so excited to continue the year the way we have started! 

We have become familiar with the routines of being in Year 3/4 and gave out classroom jobs! We impressed Miss French with our enthusiasm when learning french, we can count to 13! We even got over 200 Dojo points in the first week!!

Have a super weekend, see you next week

Week Ending 22nd June

This week we have written a re-tell about Lalchland finding the letter from Lila saying she's going on a dangerous quest to Mount Merapi. We discussed his thoughts and feelings and did some role play to get into character. After writing our dialogue, we then performed our work in groups, see the pictures below. 

In Maths we have we have revisited conversions of measure which most of us managed to succeed it. It is a tricky objective so Miss Smith was proud of our determination. 

In the afternoons we have written a discursive piece of text discussing whether rivers should be used for leisure activities relating to the animals and the environment. 

Week Ending 15th June 

In English this week we published our first piece of writing from The Firework Maker's Daughter. We have written a letter to our father pretending to be Lila, expressing our annoyance at the fact he won't let us be firework makers. We used lots of new vocabulary such as: betrayed, devastated, apprentice and quest. Miss Smith was very pleased with the emotion shown in our letters.

In Maths we have re-visted a tricky objective and completed correspondence and scaling problems. We used recipes to help us understand the process, thinking about how much of each ingredient we would need for a different number of guests. We made lots of progress and we are beginning to become secure in these skills. 

In the afternoon curriculum, we have learned all about flower pollination and researched seed dispersal. If you can remember the different types of dispersal then try and make a poster to bring into school. 

On Friday, it was Eid celebrations so we spent the day learning about Eid and wrote our own acrostic poem. Some of us designed Mehndi patterns and made a powerpoint all about the celebrations.

This week, a number of children bought medals and trophies from their out of school activities, this is lovely to see and they were presented beautifully, see photographs below... 

Week Ending 8th June 2018

We have had a great first week back with beautiful weather! We have introduced our new story, The Firework Maker's Daughter by Phillip Pullman. We have carried out lots of book talk, reading the first 2 chapters. Next week we will start writing our letter from the main character, Lila to her father, telling him that she's off on an adventure to find the main ingredient to make the best fireworks. 

In Maths, we have continued to look at calculation and applied our skills to worded problems. Miss Smith is very impressed with the progress we have made as most of the class are now confident with 2 step worded problems which can sometimes be a little tricky, well done!

Encompass has been very interesting this week as we have found out about the different activities that can take place on or around a river. We thought about who these would be suitable for and the environment impact they may have. Take a look at the example of work from Friday's lesson. 

Week Ending 18th May

This week we have celebrated the Royal Wedding! We took part in lots of English and Maths activities relating to the special event. We wrote our own wedding speeches and completed code breakers to find out information about the happy couple. 

We also published our final piece of writing this week, a WANTED poster to find Augustus Gloop who was sucked into a pipe at the Chocolate Factory. 

In Maths, we have been comparing and ordering decimals and fractions using our knowledge of tenths, hundredths and ones. 

In Encompass we have written a persuasive piece of writing to persuade people to visit the River Nile. We used persuasive techniques such as the power of 3, exaggeration, superlatives and emotive language. 

Week Ending 11th May

What a great week we've had! Even though it's been a slightly shorter one, we have been just as busy. In English we have published our second piece of writing, describing the Chocolate Room, they were extremely good and Miss Smith has sent lots of Marvellous Me messages home to celebrate our writing. Next week, we will be writing a WANTED poster for Augustus Gloop after he gets sucked into the chocolate pipes! Be thinking of words and phrases to describe him to help you in this week's English lessons. 

In Maths we have revisited Roman Numerals which some of us still find a little bit tricky, especially when the numbers have a 4 or 9 within them. 

I = 1      V = 5     X = 10   L = 50    C = 100

It also helps to remember these because then you can recognise them in a number:

IV = 4     IX= 9     XL = 40      XC = 90 

In afternoon learning we have started to research The River Nile and continued our Plants topic, planting seeds and going on a plant hunt in the playground! Take a look at some photographs below: 

Week Ending 4th May 

In Maths this week we have learned all about measure. We learned that we could measure lots of things including time, mass, capacity, height and length. 

We had a difficult week remembering all of the different conversions but we worked really hard using our skills or multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000 to convert between different units. 

We ended the week putting our learning into a real life context, measuring things around the school and converting the measurements we found! See some pictures below. 

In English, we have started our second piece of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory writing. We have pretended to be Charlie this week. We have written all about him waiting outside the factory and going inside to the Chocolate Room. We will continue this next week using descriptive language. Take a look at the photographs we are describing below. 

In the afternoons we have continued working really hard with our Encompass and Science work. We've learned about the physical features of a river and planned an experiment in Science to find out what plants need most to grow, we will update you on the results! 

Week Ending 27th April 

This week we have worked extremely hard to get our first published piece written. We have written the section where Charlie tells his family about finding the ticket - using dialogue. Everybody used inverted commas correctly and some of us even added action to make it more interesting for the reader, well done!

In Maths we have been learning about Fractions. We learned how to find equivalent fractions and how to write them as decimals. Some of us found this tricky but we showed determination and made lots of progress, we will get there!

In the afternoons we've started our plant topic, learning the parts of the plants and their jobs - can you remember what they were? 

Below are some photographs of our Drama morning related to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, we got into role and had lots of fun! 

Week Ending 27th April 

It has been a great week back after the holidays and we have been busy as usual!

A big thank you to all the children and families who have given in their creative homework. They are fantastic and look great in our classroom!

In Maths we have looked at problem solving using all 4 operations (multiplication, division, addition and subtraction) and most of us managed to reach Gold in our year group. 

In English we have started our new story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! We have watched short clips of the films to help us with our writing. We have written the part where Charlie found the last golden ticket!

In the afternoon we have had lovely weather and we spent Thursday afternoon at the River Trent, look at the photographs below of our visit: 

Week Ending 9th March 

This week we have finally been able to celebrate World Book Day! We all came dressed as Where's Wally and took part in lots of activities related to reading. We read with KS1 children, helping them to use their phonics to read and we enjoyed reading our favourite books in class. Thank you to all the parents who made an effort to create or buy a costume! 

In English we have continued to perfect our non-chronological reports using topic language and a variety of openers. We did lots of work on conjunctions in order to link our ideas together. 

In Maths we have revisited place value, challenging ourselves to ordering decimal numbers and complete reasoning questions. A lot of children reached Gold or above in these lessons, well done!

Miss Smith enjoyed meeting the parents of Year 3 and loved telling them how hard Octopus class is working. Please remember our trip to Magna has now been changed to next week: Tuesday for Year 3 and Thursday for Year 4. 

Snow Day Learning 

Today the school is closed due to the bad weather. It would have been World Book Day today at school so I have attached some Reading activities for you to complete:

1. Write a book review for your favourite book including 

- the title and author

- a picture/drawing of the front cover

- a star rating out of 5 

- reasons why it is your favourite 

- who would you recommend it to and why? 

2. Draw and design your own version of your favourite book's front cover. 

3. Create a book trailer to advertise 'The Wild Robot' our class book. Why should people read it? Who would it be suitable for? What is it about? (short summary). You might want to research what should be in a book trailer to make it effective but always ask an adult for permission or supervision when using the internet. 

4. And most importantly, don't forget to enjoy your snow day! 

Week 18

This week we have published our diary entry and tried to include the skills we have learned so far. We found it tricky to change viewpoints at first but all of our diary entries sounded like we were one of the otters who discovered the mysterious object.

In Maths we have revisited equivalent fractions using concrete materials and diagrams. Some of us moved onto the abstract method using our knowledge of factors and multiples. We now understand that for a fraction to be equivalent they need to be the exact same size. 

The afternoon learning was the most exciting because we made our own playground equipment using recycled materials. We all made a swing, slide, seesaw and roundabout using forces such as gravity, push, pull and friction. Here are some pictures: 

Week 17

In English we published our Chapter retell from The Wild Robot and made our first published book of 2018! We then began to write our next genre which is a diary entry from Roz's point of view. We thought about her emotions and thoughts when writing them to make it sound personal and reflective. Next week, we will continue writing our diary entry but from the otter's point of view, Miss Smith can't wait to mark them. 

In Maths we re-visited Multiplication and used a variety of methods to multiply 2 and 3 digit numbers by 1 digit including the grid method, expanded method and short multiplication (examples of these are on the photographs below). We did very well and even got onto some problem solving, well done Octopus! 

In the afternoons we have designed our very own piece of playground equipment using research from our time at the park. Some of them were very interesting and I'm sure lots of people would like to see them in the park. 

Week 16

This week we have started to write our Chapter retell from The Wild Robot. Miss Smith was very impressed because everyone used the skills we have learned so far including fronted adverbials, expanded noun phrases, a variety of punctuation and even dialogue. 

In Maths we have learned about Division. Some of us found this challenging but we showed determination and use concrete materials and number lines to help. We have also answered word problems, looking for key vocabulary and things to help us.

The most exciting part of our week was going to the park to investigate the equipment and the forces they use. We have had a council letter from Mrs Crabtree asking us to design our very own piece of playground equipment. Here are some pictures from our time at the park... 

Week 15

Happy New Year to Octopus children and families! We hope you've had a lovely break and are well rested for the busy term ahead!

This week in English we have started to read our new book The Wild Robot by Peter Brown. We have planned our writing for next week which will be to retell Chapters 1 and 2. We predicted what we thought the book would be about and answered lots of comprehension questions related to the text.

In Maths we have recapped rounding as it was something we struggled with last term. Some of us moved onto reasoning questions and using rounding to estimate the answers to addition and subtraction questions, well done! 

We ended the week by presenting our homework which was to make a robot! The children who made one stood in front of the class and told everyone how we made it and what our robot's name and function was! Thank you to all the children and parents who took the time to make a robot, they were all fantastic! 

Last week before Winter Holidays!

Although we had a short week, we had a really busy last couple of days in school. We spent time making Winter Cards and Calendars as well as transforming our classroom into a metal scrapyard! 

We took part in lots of activities such as setting descriptions, metal research and a KWL grid to see what we already knew about metals. Take a look at the photographs below to see our wonderful new display, thank you to those who added to this by making their own robot! 

Snow Day Learning (15/12/2017)

Good Morning Octopus, we have another snow day! Here is some learning for the day...

Today we would have been creating lots of things for our new display all about Mighty Metals. 

1. If you have access to the internet and permission from your parents, search for images of a metal scrapyard. Your task is to write a setting description as if you are walking through it. Think about your senses. What might you hear, see, smell or feel? What might the weather be like? 

2. Design your very own metal Robot. Think about what you would like your robot to do and the size of it. You might want to research existing robots to see what you can magpie (ask your parents permission). Draw a picture of your ideal robot and label its features. 

These tasks can be done either on a computer or written on paper, its up to you. 

Creative: Can you make your own robot from recycled items? 

Snow Day Learning

Maths: This week we will be learning about Area and Perimeter. Find out what these words mean and try to find the area and perimeter of things around the house! 

English: We will be writing a poem all about Miss Trunchbull this week. Can you find the features you might need to include? Try looking at some examples of poems online and see what they all have in common. 

Extra Challenge: Think of some effective vocabulary to describe Miss Trunchbull ready for your poem. 

Afternoon: Next term we will be starting our new topic Mighty Metals, carry out some research into this topic, how many different metals can you find in your house? 

And finally...HAVE FUN IN THE SNOW! Take lots of photographs of any snowmen you have made! If you're not going outside, try and draw a picture of what you can see from your window or your ideal snowman! 

Week 13

This week we have published our letters to the Department of Education complaining about Miss Trunchbull. We all used formal language and persuasive sentence starters and Miss Smith was very impressed with the end result! Well done Octopus class!

In Maths we moved onto multiplying and dividing by 10 and 100. We found this tricky at first but after practising we realised all we had to do was move the digits! It all linked to place value and everyone managed to explain the process and have a go at the challenges. 

To link to our morning learning we also wrote a letter to persuade in our Encompass Lesson. After learning all about Shark Finning we were disgusted so we wrote a letter to a restaurant who sells shark fin soup to complain, using all of our skills! 

Science was a fun lesson this week because we turned into TV presenters! We all wrote a script and made our own episode explaining how sound travels to the ear. We looked at some good examples to see what needed to be included and they were all great! 

Week 12

In English we have started to write our letter of complaint to Trunchem Hall complaining about Miss Trunchbull's behaviour. We took part in drama as Amanda Tripp's parents to talk about how we felt and our thoughts on the matter. 

In Maths we have moved onto Multiplication and learned about the different methods we could use to multiply. We have moved onto the grid method before ending with the column method. 

This week we have had another exciting visitor for our Predator topic. Zoo2u visited our classroom and brought some animals in for us to see and even stroke. We discussed which features they had which made them good predators including sensitive eyesight, strong, muscly legs and sharp claws. 

The visitor was impressed with everything we already knew about food chains and predators so Miss Smith was very proud that we'd remembered lots of information. 

Week 11

This week in English we have published our diary entry pretending to be Matilda on her first day at school. We spoke about her thoughts and feelings and discussed how to put these into our writing effectively. Out focus was to use a variety of punctuation which we all managed really well! Spelling is improving so much so please keep practising at home!

In Maths we have had a break from Fractions and learned how to answer word problems relating to addition and subtraction. We looked at different language that might help us to know which method to use and some of us managed to reach 2-step word problems, well done!

Our Encompass learning was all about crocodiles and alligators, we looked at where they live and what features they need to live safely. 

Science was very exciting, we learned about vibrations and used a bass drum to see the vibration waves using paper clips! 

Week 10

In English this week we have launched our new topic Matilda by Roald Dahl. We have started to write character descriptions of Miss Trunchbull and Miss Honey. We started the week by watching a video clip and discussed different words which would be appropriate to describe them. Next week, we will be starting to write a diary entry from Matilda's point of view describing her very first day at school, we can't wait! 

In Maths, we continued learning about fractions, specifically equivalent fractions. We used lots of concrete materials to show these and started to learn that whatever happens to the denominator, happens to the numerator. We proved our learning using diagrams and answered true or false questions.

Encompass was very exciting because we watched an episode of Deadly 60 and started to plan our own episode for our own aquatic predators!

This whole week has been anti-bullying week so we have also taken time out of the usual curriculum to learn about the different types of bullying, producing a pic-collage and poster to explain what to do if you experience bullying. 

Week 9

This week we visited The Blue Planet Aquarium to launch our new topic of Aquatic Predators. We looked at the Sharks and Stingrays being fed by divers and took part in a Jawsome workshop where we learned lots of new facts about Sharks. 

We had a fantastic day and can't wait to apply our learning and experiences in our Encompass lessons. Take a look at our photos from the day below: 

Week 8 

Welcome back Octopus Class! After a week resting at home we've had another busy week on our first week back! 

In English, we have started a new topic of 'Spooky Settings' to link to Halloween. This is something we asked for as a class so we're particularly enjoying our writing tasks. We've spent lots of time finding vocabulary and will finally publish our setting description next week!

In Maths, we have also started a new topic...FRACTIONS! During our engage we found the definitions of related vocabulary such as denominator, numerator, unit and non-unit fractions. We've used this language all week during our learning where we have explored finding fractions of amounts and compared fractions. Miss Smith used chocolate to show that the more people who share an object (the denominator), the smaller the pieces! 

It was a very exciting week because we received a visit from a real soldier who came to discuss what life was like as a soldier in WW2 and the differences in today's army. We all enjoyed it and some of us even got to dress up! Take a look at the photographs below. 

Please remember, it is our trip to the Blue Planet Aquarium on Wednesday 8th November. Could all children please be in school for 8:15, we can't wait! 

Week 7

It is the week before half term, we can't believe how quickly it has gone! We've had yet another busy week in Octopus class, including our Golden Time film treat with sweets and popcorn! 

In English, we continued to work hard and wrote our own instructions to help the chickens of Foxearth Farm. We told them how to catch the devious fox to save their family! We used lots of features such as imperative verbs, bullet points, adverbs and adjectives. 

In Maths our topic of the week was Money. We used all of the skills we've learned so far (place value, addition and subtraction) to add amounts together, find change and comparing different amounts. We enjoyed putting our learning into a real life context. 

The afternoons have been very interesting too, we virtually dissected an owl pellet and looked at how they were formed. Some of us found this disgusting while others wanted to know even more and did extra research. 

After a busy week we are ready for half term, have a lovely week off and stay safe!

Week 6 

This week we have produced our best piece of writing yet! We finally wrote our published diary entry pretending to be the devious fox from Foxearth Farm. We included lots of different skills including time adverbials, expanded noun phrases and thoughts and feelings. Miss Smith was very impressed with our writing and struggled to pick an English Superstar, well done!

In Maths we started to discover and use Roman Numerals. We started the week researching what they were and where we might find them in today's society. Some of us began to break secret codes in Roman Numerals using the skills we had learned. 

We have continued learning about our Predator topic, looking at skeletons and why we need them. We enjoyed labelling different skeletons and researching the bones within them. 

Week 5 

This week has been a very busy one as usual! In English we have started to write a diary entry pretending to be the sly, vicious fox at Foxearth Farm. We did lots of work on finding the features, planning our diary and role play work. Miss Smith can't wait to read the end product when we write our very own next week! 

In Maths we have use the Rounding Rap and number lines to help us round numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000. We are very proud of our determination throughout the week because it's something we found quite tricky but we're certainly on our way to becoming secure. We will revisit this in the future to make sure we fully understand the process. 

In the afternoons we have written our very own poem about 3 deadly predators! Some of them were quite scary and everyone worked extremely hard to include all of the features including descriptive language, repetition and alliteration. 

In Science we have been investigating which materials were magnetic and non-magnetic. We enjoyed our practical learning and can't wait for next week's investigation. 

Week 4 

We have tried our best to catch the sly, vicious fox from Foxearth Farm this week by writing our own WANTED posters describing his appearance and personality. We used some powerful adjectives and focused on using different nouns for 'Fox' so it didn't sound repetitive. Well done Octopus Class! 

In Maths we've moved our learning onto Calculation, adding and subtracting using the formal method. We tried so hard in these lessons and we're nearly there! We will revisit this further on in the year to make sure we're completely secure with it.  

In PSHE we turned our classroom into a polling station. Lots of us stood for Class President and wrote a persuasive speech for the audience. Everyone had a vote and the winners were Naqi and Hur by just one vote! 

Week 3

We have been busy once again in Octopus Class. This week, we have written our own versions of the first chapter in our class book, The Fox Busters. We managed to use fronted adverbials, powerful adverbs and paragraphs! We are very proud of ourselves. 

In Maths we have continued with Place Value to make sure we're secure. We've been ordering numbers using our knowledge of place value! 

The most exciting part of our week was our Science investigation. Take a look at the photographs below. We investigated which material created the most friction. We found out that the material had the most. 

Week 2 

This week we have been writing non-chronological reports about foxes which links to our key text 'The Fox Busters' by Dick King-Smith. We found out what the features were before using them in our own writing. Miss Smith was very impressed with some of our research, we all found out so much about foxes! 

Maths has been all about place value! We have been so busy using concrete (dienes, place value counters and even marshmellows and cheerios!), pictorial and abstract methods. Take a look at some of our photographs below: 

Friday 14th July

This week was our penultimate week in Octopus Class and we have only spent 60% as Octopus children!  From Monday to Wednesday, we completed our usual learning as Octopus and then we were very excited to go to our new classes for two full days of transition on Thursday and Friday. Our class is going into either the Jellyfish Class with Mr Bevan, the Dolphin Class with Miss Davies-Moore and the Whales Class with Miss Brindley. 

In English, we finished the first draft of our spooky stories, which told the tale of Tom and his adventure into the old, abandoned mansion house.

In maths, we became detectives as we completed maths challenges to work out whodunit in a murder mystery! We were very excited at the thought of solving the suspicious case!

In music with Mrs Barker, we enjoyed playing lots of singing and action games - look at how much fun we had!

Friday 7th July

We have enjoyed another fantastic week of learning in Octopus Class this week. In English, we have continued with our spooky stories theme and have started to write our own spooky story. Miss Brindley has been helping us to include a range of high level vocabulary to build up atmosphere and tension. She told us she wants to be too terrified to mark our stories! 

In maths, we have been working with a variety of graphs, tables and charts when looking at statistics and data. We have also practised doubling and halving and had a refresher lesson on using short division.

In encompass, we learned about Native American stories. We focused on the Navajo Spiderwoman and had great fun working in groups to create a role play of the story. Look at our pictures below!

Friday 30th June

What a super end to another busy week in Octopus Class! This week, we were engrossed in our English lessons, which were all about spooky stories. We love this topic and we have spent our time thinking of lots of spooky vocabulary to describe a range of ghostly, ghoulish settings. 

In maths, we have worked hard to secure our learning in some of the areas we weren't as confident in in our half termly assessment. We have all shown super resilience in our maths learning this year and Miss Brindley continues to be impressed as we achieve good and outstanding progress in our lessons on a daily basis.

On Thursday, we enjoyed taking part in an amazing art day, in which we studied the artwork of Hannah Cole. We produced a pencil sketch, a watercolour and a pastel version of a seaside inspired scene, which were then displayed in the art gallery for Waterside's 10 Year Anniversary Garden Party. If parents were unable to attend the party, children's artwork can still be purchased, for a small fee of £1.50.

In science, we went on a super sound hunt, using our ears to listen and rate the different sounds that we could hear around school.

Friday 23rd June

We have enjoyed yet another fantastic week in Octopus Class this week, with lots of outdoor learning taking place in the beautiful sunshine.

In maths, we got hands on with perimeter and went to measure a variety of perimeters of shapes and objects on the playground. We also took our half termly assessment in maths this week and were eager to show our progress over the term.

In English, we took part in some exciting drama activities as part of our learning about the book The Day the Crayons Quit. Look out for the fabulous pictures of us! We used the drama to then inspire our persuasive writing and we took on the character of a crayon to convince our owner Duncan to give us a break.

Some of Octopus Class were chosen to represent Waterside at the Top Links Festival at Northwood Stadium. Check out the photos of this super afternoon on the Sports News section of the Waterside Website!

We finished the week with a lovely, calming art lesson where we researched the history of Native American head dresses and we then designed our own. Look how focused we were!

Friday 16th June

What another busy week for the Octopus class! 

In English, we became poets for the week, with a focus on the poem The King of all the Dinosaurs, by Paul Cookson. We looked at the features of the poem, learned to recite the poem by heart and then created our own versions of the poem. We were able to use super descriptive language, as well as repetition and all four sentence types. Ask us for a rendition of the poem while it is fresh in our minds!

In maths, we were learning a range of skills that we need to know as we near the end of the school year, including rounding and estimating numbers, finding 10, 100 and 1000 more or less than a given number and multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000. We were very shocked during arithmetic lessons this week, that we are expected to be able to complete 10 quick fire arithmetic questions within 30 seconds - that's one question every 3 seconds! We do love a challenge in octopus class, so we have remained focused and are showing lots of determination in beating our scores each day!

In encompass, we have been learning all about Florida and what an amazing place it is to visit for a family holiday. We were completely in awe of the videos we saw of the Sunshine State and we then used our learning to write a persuasive piece of writing to encourage people to visit. 

Another highlight of our week was sports day, on the school field. We really did ourselves proud as we raced, cheered and supported each other. Look out for pictures below!

Friday 9th June

This week has been Health and Wellbeing Week at Waterside and Octopus class have enjoyed finding out more about how to keep our bodies and minds fit and healthy. We have taken part in a variety of activities including fitness circuits, food detectives, healthy teeth and mindfulness sessions. We were sad that sports day had to be cancelled because of the torrential rain and heavy winds on Tuesday, but we are excited that it has been rearranged to next Friday.

Look at our photos to see some of our Health and Wellbeing Sessions.

In maths this week, we have loved learning geometry. We have learned about symmetry, position, direction, translations and 2D shapes. What a lot of learning! We even managed to fit a mental maths test, a big maths test and a lesson about telling the time on top of all the geometry. What superstars we have been!

In English, we became Junior Journalists for the New York Times daily newspaper. We had to work shifts in the press office to report on the mysterious giant peach that landed on top of the Empire State Building. What a mystery! We learned all about the features of newspaper style writing, before compiling a newspaper report that even included direct and reported speech from a real American eyewitness. Look out for some of our published articles appearing on our blog!

Friday 26th May

What a super end to the term for Octopus class!

In maths, we have learned more about fractions, place value and we have looked at what is happening to each digit in a number when it is multiplied or divided by 10, 100 or 1000. We really got to grips with this and consolidated our learning using a hands on method where we became the digits. Look at our pictures to see what we have been up to.

In encompass, we independently researched the city of Los Angeles in America and compared our finding with the research we did in New York. We used atlases, online maps and a range of creative resources to produce a super double page spread in our encompass books. 

In science, we continued learning about circuits as part of our electricity topic, this time with a focus on conductors and insulators. We were able to accurately describe each of these key terms and sorted materials according to whether they were conductors or insulators of electricity. 

Friday 19th May

It has been another busy week in Octopus class with lots of fantastic learning going on each day.

In English, we have been developing our own story ending for James and the Giant Peach. We have been able to magpie some super vocabulary from the book and our guided reading lessons and Miss Brindley has been really impressed with us for using our newly acquired vocabulary in our story telling this week. We have also designed insects and flying seagulls to put on our new James and the Giant Peach inspired display. Photographs coming soon!

In maths, we have learned some new skills using multiplication and division. We can now explain the associative and distributive laws and integer scaling. We then completed some great learning using these skills including creating some peculiar potion recipes. Ask us to tell you more and we will explain! 

We have enjoyed another hands on lesson in science this week. We were super excited and engaged when using equipment to make circuits. We were able to light up light bulbs and power fans and motors without any help from adults. What bright sparks we are!

Friday 12th May

It has been another fantastically productive week in Octopus class, with lots of super hands-on learning taking place.

In maths, we had lots of fun weighing and measuring capacity in our engage lesson on Monday. Look how engaged we were in our learning!

In English, we have enjoyed looking at the story James and the Giant Peach, with a focus of us as the authors. We used a hot seating activity so that we could understand the thoughts, feelings and actions of the characters in the story. We then used our author's skills to retell the story in our own words, making use of feedback each day so that we were able to publish a final version of our super stories on Friday. 

We enjoyed a fabulous PE lesson on Wednesday, with Tom teaching us some super skills in football. He was that impressed with our focus and excellence, that we then ended the lesson with a football match. What an exciting afternoon!

In encompass, we learned about physical and human geographical features and researched a physical feature of the USA. We enjoyed finding out more about famous landmarks including the Grand Canyon, Mississippi River and The Rocky Mountains. We showcased our learning by producing a colourful and creative information page.

Friday 5th May

We have had another super week of learning this week in Octopus Class. In English, we have continued our study of James and the Giant Peach, with a focus on retelling the story from James' point of view. Miss Brindley was really impressed with our diary-style writing and our high-level vocabulary. 

In maths, we have completed lots of learning challenges relating to the crucial skill of understanding number and place value. We have learned about negative numbers, estimating and representing numbers on a number line, and we looked back in time at the use of Roman Numerals. We were all able to use Roman Numerals up to 20 and some of us mastered the Year 4 objective of using Roman Numerals up to 100. 

In encompass, we enjoyed a fantastic afternoon of learning about America, with a focus this week on New York. We learned how to research effectively and presented our map work and research in a travel journal style. Look out for pictures of our star work below.

In science, we are excited to be learning about electricity. We began our learning by thinking about how electricity is created, what uses electricity and how to stay safe with electricity.

Take a look below at our new displays in class...

Friday 28th April

This week, we have enjoyed an American themed wow day to really immerse the children in our final topic of the school year, Road Trip USA! The topic is geography based and will take children on a virtual trip around the United States of America. Children will also use their historical research skills by looking into the history of Native Americans.

Thank you to all parents who provided some great costumes for their children.

In English, we are reading another Roald Dahl classic, James and the Giant Peach. Children are studying characters this week and have looked at James's cruel Aunts, Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. The children then magpied Roald Dahl's fantastic vocabulary when describing a new Aunt character of their own.

In maths, we have learned about perimeter and area and how to calculate them for simple shapes. We have also learned more about time. You can help your child to improve in their ability to tell the time by talking about intervals of time and using lots of time related vocabulary at home. The children who are exposed to time talk at home always shine in their maths lessons about time.

Spellings have been sent home with children tonight, ready to be tested next Friday. Please help your child to learn the meaning of the words as well as the spellings. 

Friday 7th April

It's been another busy week at Waterside, especially for the Octopus class, who not only wowed parents in the Spring Sing, but also in their Roald Dahl themed class assembly on Wednesday. Look out for the pictures appearing soon.

In maths this week, we have continued with fractions and decimals. We also took our half termly maths assessment.

Friday 24th March

What a busy week it has been! We have been really fortunate to have two trips out this week; firstly to Chester Zoo to look at animals and their habitats, which links with our science topic, then we finished off the week with a trip to Hanley Museum to learn more about the Staffordshire Hoard and Saxon times. Look at our photos of our amazing experiences.

In the classroom, we have continued to make super progress in our learning; in maths, we have been getting to grips with division and in English, we have been writing the biography of Miss Brindley. 

In PE, we have been taking part in athletic events so that we can refine our skills in preparation for sports day at Northwood Stadium in June.