Term 1 Week 5– overview

Our ukulele lessons with Mr Lawrence will continue this week.  Ukuleles are provided by the school.

Spelling and grammar – we will be revising the words we have learnt this term.  We will also be working on adverbs of frequency and of manner.

In English, we will be continuing with our text, Escape from Pompeii, by Christina Ballit.  This ties in with our history enquiry, ‘What did the Romans do for us?’.  We have worked on sensory place setting descriptions and used powerful verbs to refer to damage caused by the earth tremors that proceeded the eruption.  This week we will focus on identifying turning points in tension, when our main characters realise what is happening in Pompeii.  We will pick these out from the text and brainstorm some of our own ideas.  We will use drama to consider the feelings of the characters as they try to make their escape and will also work on describing the 4 phases of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

In Maths, we will continue with place value, working on our understanding of Roman numerals, rounding to the nearest 10 and to the nearest 100.  On Thursday we dedicate time to working on our personal times tables targets.  Regular, short burst practise at home will really support this.  Each week, pupils are progressing towards their personal targets, which is very encouraging.

This term we will be studying a unit on Creation in RE.  We have already discussed the Biq Question ‘what do Christians learn from the creation story?’ and this week will focus on present-day custodians of the earth.  

We will be investigating case studies of Mucknell Abbey, Ruth Valerio and Forest Churches as examples of people who show their love for God and Creation.

We will continue to investigate the work of the artist Giorgio Morandi by observing his use of muted tones.

In Science, we will be investigating sound over the next few weeks.  This week we will be plotting the results of our investigation into volume, vibration and sound waves.  In our last lesson, we learnt about the link between volume and the size of sound waves.  We used a decibel meter to record our results and will be using them to draw conclusions.

In Computing, pupils will be exploring what the internet and World Wide Web are.  This will also involve discussion on how to be safe online.

PE lessons are on Tuesday morning with Mrs Barter and Thursday afternoon with Mrs Tompsett.  This term we will be developing ball skills and invasion techniques in football and basketball.  

Reading records will be sent home, with free-reading children choosing a book from the selection in class or bringing one from the reading scheme.  All children have an additional book in their tray for reading sessions in class.  Please could we have reading records in school to be checked on Tuesday and Friday mornings.  

Homework is issued on Wednesday and is due the following Monday morning.  It will usually consist of a Maths activity and an English activity based on what we have been learning in class.  One of these will be online, using the Purple Mash platform.  Pupils have new usernames and passwords this year, which have been stuck in the front of their homework books.

Please contact me if you have any queries using the class email address:

chestnut@st-barnabas.kent.sch.uk

Have a lovely week!

Best wishes,

Mrs Barter