What we are doing this week in Lilac Class for the week beginning 24.6.24

For Maths in Lilac Class, we will be learning about decimals.  Lilac Class will be using known facts to add and subtract decimals within 1.  This will lead us to finding complements to 1 for numbers up to 3 decimal places.  What number bonds can you see to help you?  What is the same and what is different about finding complements to 10/100/1,000 and complements to 1?  Lilac Class will then learn about adding decimals with the same number of decimal places.  It is important that we line up the columns correctly, particularly if the calculation involves zero as a placeholder.

In English this week in Lilac Class, we are continuing with the levelling up and editing of our dual narrative writing based on our supplementary text Ice Trap! Shackleton’s Incredible Expedition by Meredith Hooper.  We are considering the question ‘What should Shackleton and his men do now that the ship is sinking?’  We will be drawing on our role-play work and ‘hot seating’ when writing about the point of view of the men and then Ernest Shackleton, their leader.  Why are the men anxious and worried and why do they believe in their leader? What is going on in Ernest Shackleton’s mind at this point?  Does he believe he can succeed and save his men? 

For our Guided Reading text, Shackleton’s Journey by William Grill this week, we are reading pages 55-60. Lilac Class are discussing what the author means when he says the crew ‘were reaching their limit’ and why the men shook each other’s hands when they saw the harbour.  We will also be exploring the mood conveyed in the text and summarising it in less than 15 words. 

For RE in Lilac Class, we are learning about Sawm, the Fourth Pillar of Islam.  We will be learning about Ramadan and Eid al Fitr and thinking about what it is like to give up something for a length of time and what we can learn from Sawm.

For Time and Place in Lilac Class, we are continuing with our work on the mountain ranges in India and finding out where they are situated on a map.  We will learn how different types of mountains are formed and finding out facts about different mountain ranges. For Science in Lilac Class, we are learning about the reproduction of insects and amphibians. We will be labelling diagrams that show the life cycles of a frog, newt, butterfly and dragonfly. For Design and the Arts, we are starting work on our seascapes using a range of different materials to create a variety of effects and textures.  The mixed media design ‘Colourful Fish Swirl’ by the artist Nikki B who lives in Tintagel in Cornwall and photographs of the coastline around Tintagel will give us inspiration. In ICT, we are explaining how selection is used in computer programs and revisiting our previous learning on ‘selection’ and identifying how ‘conditions’ are used to control the flow of actions in a program.  Lilac Class will be using the Scratch programming environment.

We will also be growing beans and part of a geranium plant (artificial reproduction) in our classroom and observing what happens over the next few weeks!