Weekly News 16.1.26
Here is what we have been up to this week...
English
In English, we have been learning how to write character descriptions. We have practised our skills by describing the farmer and the eagle from our story. The children have learnt to use expanded noun phrases and similes to describe their characters, and also about the importance of varying nouns and pronouns to avoid repetition.
In Reading for Pleasure this week, the children loved reading some children's magazines from the library. Here we are enjoying them...
Next week, we will be writing a 5 part story and learning how to write dialogue, compound sentences and complex sentences in our stories.
Maths
In maths this week we have been learning to add and subtract mentally. The children have been using rounding to the nearest 10 or 100 to round both of the numbers in the calculation and then quickly adding or subtracting these in their heads to get a rough answer. We then used the column method to find the actual exact answer and see how close our estimates were. E.g. 367 + 124 = 367 rounds to 370 and 124 rounds to 120 so a rough answer would be 490. We have also been using the inverse to check answers e.g. if 736 - 284 = 452, then we can do 452 + 284 and we should get 736 if we have done the subtraction correctly.
Next week we will be learning to multiply. We will be multiplying 3 single digit numbers and 2 digit by 1 digit mentally.
Thematic
This week we have begun our new topic 'Cracking the Earth's Core', and the children have been highly engaged and seem to be loving this themed learning already. We have learnt about the layers of the Earth; the crust, mantle, outer core and inner core. We have found out that the crust is not one solid piece but is split into large slabs called tectonic plates. We then found out about how volcanoes are formed and why they occur, and drew a labelled a cross section of a volcano. To finish off the week, we found out about the 5 deadly features of a volcanic eruption; lava flow, volcanic ash, volcanic bombs, mud slides and pyroclastic flows.
Next week, we will find out why people choose the live near volcanoes and finding out about earthquakes.
Love to Learn
This week's home learning task is an English one. In English, we have been learning to describe characters using expanded noun phrases and similes. Choose one of the pictures below and write a description of the characters using the skills you have learnt in class. Try to think about using interesting sentence openers too. You could draw a picture of the characters to go with your writing too if you'd like to!
Spellings
There are 20 spellings to learn this week as we are revising spellings that the children have already learnt, so although there may seem like a lot, they have already learnt all of these before. This is a chance to practice them again.
unable, unhappy, unlucky, untidy, undo, dislike, disown, disagree, disappear, disinfect, misbehave, miscount, misheard, misread, mistake, invisible, incomplete, inhuman, incorrect, independent
Other news
TTRS BATTLE
A battle between Year 3 and Year 4 starts on Monday 19th January and finishes on Friday. Please play as much TTRS as you can at home to help support your year group!
RSPB Big Garden BirdWatch
This term, the whole school is taking part in the Big Schools' BirdWatch to collect data for the RSPB. We are inviting you to take part at home too. Here's what you need to do:
1. Choose an hour between 23 and 25 January
2, Only record the birds that land in your garden
3. Record the highest number of each bird species you see at any one time
4. Sign up online and submit your results to the RSPB. Here's the link: Big Garden Birdwatch
Miss Isaac, who is Chilton's science leader, would love to see any photos of you doing this and also know any particularly interesting birds you saw. Feel free to send her an email: carol.isaac@chiltonprimary.co.uk
Have fun twitching!
Dates to remember
Friday 6th February – NSPCC number day (Reception and KS1 children to come in dressed in number themed clothes/KS2 to come in dressed as a Times Table Rock Star)
Friday 6th February – KS2 Countdown assembly at 9am (parents of year group house winners to be invited)
Tuesday 10th February - Safer internet day
Friday 13th February – Non-school uniform day
Friday 13th February - Chilton Fundraisers Winter Disco
Friday 13th February – Last day of term. School finishes at usual time