Tuesday 14^th April 2020

I trust that this finds you all well, rested and that you have had a joyful Easter. I hope the Easter bunny had the chance to visit all of your homes last Sunday. I know for one we had a very excited little lady in our house!

It’s great to be back. I have missed our online interactions over the past two weeks. Thank you to all of you who have been in touch over the Easter period, those who have shared well wishes and indeed learning. I will back in touch with you as soon as I can.

Can I just say, what an amazing community we have in Base 1! I find it heartening and inspiring how you have supported your child’s learning in the face of such strange and difficult circumstances over the past while. I know just how challenging this is. My partner Jenny and I are on the very same journey as you are on in terms of supporting our own child’s learning, balancing this with other demands such as work or caring for other vulnerable persons within our households. I fully understand these challenges but I also know what a rewarding experience it is. It is with all of this in mind that I have developed our next steps in providing learning provision for the following period of time.

Something new to do or explore

Science

The next area of science we will be looking at is light and shadow.

The link provided will allow you to find a set of questions to base some research around. This can be done as an online activity or by setting up a real world experience. What shadows do you see in and around your home? Can you draw them or take pictures of them?

Science Exploration Project Wc14.4.20

This project is expect to be completed over the next week in multiple sessions rather than a single session. Just remember it is an investigation so have fun using the questions as prompts for investigation.

Discovery Education

I hope you have all logged onto Discovery Education. If not and you are having difficulties, please email the school and the message will be passed on to me. I will get back to you with a solution as soon as I can.

On the front of the learning packs received towards the end of the week, there was a username and password for a resource called ‘Discovery Education’. On Discover Education you will find lots of different resources to support your child’s learning. Check out the section ‘Espresso’ – ‘KS2’.

I hope you have been able to log into Discovery Education. Today, I would like you to do the following activities.

English

Once in the section KS2, please go to ‘English’ – ‘Grammar and punctuation’ – ‘punctuation’ – ‘Using headings and subheadings’ – Watch the video. Have a go at the quizzes and activity afterwards.

Have fun learning and happy exploring….

Top Marks

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/mental-maths-train

If you click on one of the four operations (+ – X ÷), it will bring you to a screen with lots of different activities. You can then choose for yourself the level of challenge you wish to have.

Mental Maths Train is a maths game which focuses on the essential vocabulary of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. It can help children to understand what type of calculation they have to do when faced with word problems.

It is a multiple choice game that is suitable for children from 5 to 11 years of age. Mental Maths Train is also good for consolidation of times tables knowledge.

For the best experience press the full-screen icon in the top right corner of the game. As with all of our games, Mental Maths Train is tablet friendly and it works well on an interactive whiteboard.

Things to continue with

David Walliams Book Reading

David Walliams is reading one of his World’s Worst Children stories every day at 11am. Check out his website – https://www.worldofdavidwalliams.com/ to tune in.

Handwriting/Spelling

I have uploaded some handwriting/spelling resources. It includes the Year 3 and 4 statutory spelling list, along with another list of words we use every day called High Frequency Words or HFW spelling list. You do not have to use the spelling and the handwriting resources together but it works well using both together.  The best thing to do is to only choose about 5 or 6 spellings at any one time and focus on those until they are learned rather than trying to learn too many at once.

Times Tables

Keep learning your times table. All the hard work is paying off!!! (https://www.timestables.co.uk/multiplication-tables-check/)

Bug Club

Keep going with Bug Club. I have updated everyone’s Bug Club account. Your login details are in the front of your home and school contact books on page, Wc 30^th September 2019. I will be allocating activities on Bug Club for you to complete over the next while.

PE/Dancing

If you are following Joe Wicks – Well done – We did it as a family today and my goodness we were so tired by the end. We were doing it on catch up as we could not do it at 9am. So, if you miss the one at 9am, Joe saves the session to his Youtube channel so it can be accessed anytime.

Dancing with Oti Mabuse is live on her Facebook page where you can learn a dance routine. This goes live at 11.30am each day.

Have a great day.

Mr Whitty

Welcome back!!!

I hope everyone had a joyful and peaceful Easter break.

Please see the message below from Mrs Cousins regarding home learning provision.

I will be available to answer any questions you may have. Please use the link at the bottom of the splash page to get in touch. I will endeavour to answer any questions you may have as quickly as I can. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

In the meantime, take care and stay safe.

Yours faithfully,

Mr. Whitty

Home Learning Guidance
Summer Term 1
Spellings
Each week your child will get new spellings they need to learn (they will know if they
are usually in my group or with Mrs Louise). Please make sure you scroll down the
page because as well as their usual ‘Look, Cover, Write, Check’ way of learning, I
have also included two more spelling tasks.

Reading
Reading and Contact book expectations are the same each week. Mr Whitty will
ensure you have plenty of books on Bug Club to keep you going.

Maths
Each week your child will get maths home learning. This is to be completed over the
course of the week, not in one day. You will see it has been named ‘Year 3’ and
‘Year 4’ however please feel free to complete either one depending on how
comfortable your child feels with the learning.
Please also ensure your child is practising their times tables up to 12 X 12. There is a
wealth of resources online to support them in this. A couple of good websites are:
Hit the Button – https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button
Use this website to practise specific times tables.
Multiplication Check – https://www.timestables.co.uk/multiplication-tables-check/
These are random times tables, up to 12 X 12, giving your child 6 seconds between
each question to ensure they are fluid in these.

Handwriting
Please watch the following video on how to practise cursive handwriting
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NQ6uS8blwY). Each week I have included a
booklet for you to practise forming your letters correctly. Remember you always
start from the bottom of the line and you do not join up capital letters.

English / Science Project
For the first half of the summer term we are looking at ‘Light and Shadow’. I would
like you to complete a research project over the next 6 weeks. However, unlike your
Topic research project, I would like you to research a different question each week.
These questions are on the ‘Summer Term Science Project’ page with more
information about the project.
Make sure in your project you are including the below writing skills:
 Simple sentences.
 Compound sentences.
 Complex sentences (if you learnt these with me).
 Expanded noun phrases.
 Fronted adverbials.
 Included words from the year 3/4 statutory word list.
 Cursive handwriting.
 Verb tenses are correct.
 Editing – make sure you are re-reading your work so it makes sense.

Please feel free to e-mail with any questions regarding the learning. These will go
through to Mr Whitty and he will do his best to reply to you with answers.

Keep yourselves safe.
Take care, Mrs Cousins

Home Learning Guidance

Book 1 Handwriting

Contact Book Guided Reading Expectations

Maths – Year 3

Maths – Year 4

Spelling – Mrs Cousins’ Group

Spelling – Mrs Louise’s Group

Summer Term Science Project

Hi all!

I hope you are having a lovely Easter break so far?

I have just had an update about the Lucas Jet Circus performance and workshop we had at Haytor View. Lucas is uploading videos of circus skills you can practice around your home. I have had a go, I think I might need a bit more practice!

Have a go at…

Toilet paper tricks

Juggling socks

Enjoy and let me know how you get on!

Best wishes and big smiles,

Miss Hall 🙂

Today’s message I am writing from inside the school. It’s really strange being hear without seeing you all and hearing your laughter…  I collected the rest of the garden peas so I can do some more gardening at home. Yesterday I planted some tomatoes, aubergine, basil and chives, but I had one pot let. Thankfully there are some garden pea seeds ready plant!

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter and continue to keep in touch through the website. You are all amazing and have done a tremendous job of a very unusual and tricky week. Remember, we are still here to listen and support.

Best wishes and big smiles,

Miss Hall 🙂

Dear Year 3 and 4 Base 2,

Wow! What a week it has been for everyone.  I am very proud of all of you for putting your safety first and staying at home.  I can appreciate this has been a tough week for everyone and getting into different routines can prove challenging.  I hope you are all giving yourselves credit for just how difficult this is for everyone and you are managing it fantastically no doubt!

As I prepare to for my little baby to arrive, I wanted to say a thank you.  It has been a pleasure teaching all of you.  You have all made great progress in yourselves and your learning.  I would also like to thank your mum’s, dad’s, and the rest of your families for supporting you (fast tracking their way to ‘teacherhood’).

With not knowing if the school remains closed after the Easter holiday, I wanted to reassure you your learning will not cease!  However there will be a slight change.  Instead of receiving daily learning activities you will receive it weekly.  Mr Whitty will make sure it is uploaded to our class webpage.  Please feel free to contact the school with any questions; Mr Whitty will do his best to reply to these.  Mr Whitty will also check your Bug Clubs and make sure you have plenty of books.

Remember to stay safe, help out around the house and be kind to one another.

See you all soon!

Mrs Cousins.

Good Morning year 5,

Well, what an unusual week it has been. I am so glad that the sun has come out, enabling us all to spend some time in our gardens, get windows open and make the most of the daily exercise.

Over the next two weeks, please keep up the essentials: Reading daily, practising your spellings/handwriting using the 5/6 spellings list and daily times tables practice…and yes, Maths Prodigy! Year-5-or-6-Spellings-Whole-Year-Tick-Box.docx 

UPDATE: I have been finding my way around the Prodigy site this morning. The review reports I can see for each of your profiles are showing some inconsistent scores. Please make sure you are thinking about the questions and taking a little time to ensure you answer them correctly. The website uses your answers to decide what level of questions you need next. I have allocated you all an assessment to complete on decimal numbers and rounding. Please take care when completing this so that I know whether you need more practice on this area of maths or are ready to move on. Thanks in advance!

Keep active, both inside and out, making the most of websites such as Joe Wicks, Just Dance and GoNoodle – I’m sure there will be even more options by the time you have read this!

A reminder about your Easter Project:

In art, we have been looking at different mythological creatures. We have learned that these were often made by combining different animals (sometimes even humans). Please research a mythical beast of your choice. You can present this in any way you would like (PPT on a USB stick, Poster, information text etc).

You need to know at least:

• Where did the mythical beast originate?
• What does the mythical beast do?
• What creatures are combined to make the mythical creature?
• What is the story that links to the mythical creature?

Please also design your own mythical beast. It would be great if you could draw/paint/create it as a presentation piece to share with the class. If you are able to upload a photo of you doing this, I would love to see your progress!

A challenge for you all…when you are next online, google the positive impacts of our communities slowing down and reducing transport. Some of the images (such as in Venice) are really quite extraordinary.

Fab resources I’ve noticed online:

• World of David Walliams – daily audiobook
• The maths factor – free maths sessions from Carol Vorderman
• Prodigy Maths
• Joe Wicks – P.E. Sessions
• Scratch.mit.edu – coding activities
• Rosetta Stone – 3 months free French learning

There will be soo many more out there that you are using, if there are any particularly good sights you would like to recommend, send me an email through this website and I’ll share with the rest of our year 5 team. 

Look after yourselves, 

Miss Shopland

Hello everyone!

Friday is Jobs and Jokes day so send in your favourite joke and I will share them on the website.

Also, choose a job you can do at home to help out. Send in a photo of you doing it. It would be great to see how helpful you can be.

It is the Easter Holidays coming up. I’m not going to be setting any learning so, keep working through your home learning project ideas but I will make sure the Bug Club activities are updated for those people who do them.

Take care

Mr F.

Home

Check out the Chester Zoo live virtual tour starting tomorrow at 10:00. Here is the schedule:

10:00 👉 Red pandas 🐼
11:00 👉 Rothschild’s giraffes 🦒
12:00 👉 Asian elephants 🐘
13:00 👉 Butterflies 🦋
14:00 👉 Sun bears 🐻
14:30 👉 Sumatran tigers 🐅
14:45 👉 Humboldt penguins 🐧
16:00 👉 Aquarium* 🐠

Tune in and enjoy!

Miss Hall 🙂