Friday 21st January

Multiplication methods this week in Owl class. Year 4 working confidently with the short method of multiplication and solving problems in context. Year 3 using number lines, the distributive law and moving to the more formal method of recording multiplication. They have worked hard on this all week. Well done.

In science the class have been thinking about how to classify animals and this week used the term vertebrates and invertebrates. Can Owls remember what they mean? The class also made a branching diagram and thought about the questions they could ask to sort different animals. Next week we are going on a minibeast hunt to look for invertebrates!

Writing this week has focused on planning our stories. Some brilliant descriptive writing has been part of our learning journey and the use of a story map to plan from has helped to create ideas for our ‘Journey’ stories.

We also spent time writing letters to Ufton Court to say thank you to the guides for a wonderful day.

Friday, 14th January - Ufton Court

What a fantastic end to our week. Ufton Court provided a rich and varied opportunity for the children to experience life as a Tudor. To be able to visit a building that is local to us and compare life in our locality throughout different time periods is relevant and valuable. Through drama re-enactments, source work and practical investigation Owl class learnt about life skills such as weaving, spinning, and the setting of fires. The children fulfilled the roles of Tudor Constables looking for evidence of ‘strange goings on’ at the house. A raid on the house was carried out and the evidence found was used in a trial against Lord and Lady Perkins and their Priest! The day was rounded off with a banquet and dance. This was more than a trip, this was History in action and the skills that are needed to be Historians were plainly on sight from the children! Well done Owl class.

The start of the 2022 journey...

Welcome back. It was lovely to see the children after the Christmas break and to hear about the things that they had done, presents received, books read, walks taken and food eaten!

Spring term has started with times table facts and linked division facts being a focus in maths. Please keep learning and revising them at home. From next week a times table activity will be sent home as maths homework alongside the spellings for the week and daily reading.

Great fun in Forest School this week. Building, creating, imaginative play, digging, climbing, hiding using camouflage and generally enjoying being outside in nature. Even in Winter we could see signs of Spring, see the photos for evidence!

Journeys is the whole school theme and this week in art we looked at perspective and where a road might take us. We have also been thinking about journeys people make to special places. Let us know about any interesting journeys you have been on!

Next Friday we are visiting Ufton Court and travelling back in time. Further information/reminders will be sent out early next week. Have a good weekend.

End of term... what a busy one!

The children in Owl class have had lots of different learning opportunities over the last term. Outdoor learning, local walks, visitors, trips to enrich their experiences, specialist teachers for music, PE and French and of course the routine of class and all that it brings. It has meant that the children have had a very busy and productive term.

The Carol concert last week, the Christmas walk and service at church and a wonderful lunch followed by a few party games and a visit from Father Christmas mean that the children have been excited by the festivities but have also reflected on the true meaning of Christmas. In class worship we have listened to the Nativity story and considered how Mary and Joseph reacted to the news of the gift of a baby from God. A gift for all the world.

May we take this opportunity to wish you and your families a very happy and peaceful Christmas. We look forward to seeing you back at school on Wednesday 5th January 2022.

Starting to feel very festive.

The children enjoyed a lovely time at the Watermill theatre last week. The Jungle Book was wonderfully staged and we all loved the songs. It was such a treat to be able to go on a trip as a school and make a start on the Christmas festivities.

The children in Owl class have been busy learning songs for the carol concert. They sing with such joy and have shown a great attitude towards learning a new hymn (to some) with some particularly tricky words and phrases.

Science fun and learning, making string telephones and thinking about how to alter pitch. The children investigated high and low pitch using a variety of instruments, it was a noisy but productive afternoon!

Over the last few weeks lots of new spelling rules and some recapping of old spelling rules and sounds has been a focus. The children love using different ways to remember their spellings and in school we use lots over the week. Pyramid writing, chain letter writing, removing the vowels, drawing on people’s backs and of course practising out loud with one another are just a few strategies.

The Christingle service in the village this week is another mark of advent. All the children made Christingles in class and discussed what each part represents.

We have lots planned in class to ensure the children have a lovely run in to Christmas. If you have any spare old t-shirts for painting please send them in next week. Many thanks.

A trip out...

A great time was had by Owl class as we managed to head out on our class trip to Littlecote Roman villa and mosaic. The children were amazed at how large the site was and the evidence that still exists to show how the Romans influenced life in Britain.

Dr Liz Bell provided some wonderful information about the mosaic and the story it represents and discussed with the class why the Boxford mosaic was covered over and yet the Littlecote mosaic remains on display. We thank Dr Bell for accompanying us.

As part of our art this term Owls will produce a mosaic tile and we have been looking at the work of Gaudi for inspiration. His buildings and sculptures in Barcelona use mosaics to create wonderful shapes, patterns and colours.

It has been another busy week. Writing letters in English and becoming more confident with the formal subtraction method in Maths. Thank you for all the reading and spelling practice that you are doing at home. Keep learning your KIRFs and practising those times tables. Have a good weekend.

Remembrance

A week of wonderful work linked to Remembrance. Owls studied the poem In Flanders Field and considered the language that was used and the power and meaning of the words. The children then created poetry artwork and shared it in our school service.

We answered the question how do we hear in science and investigated the different parts of the ear. Did you know it contains the smallest bones in the human body?

Throughout our PSHE topic the children have been reflecting on relationships and families. In class Owls have thought about what families do to take care of each other and that the word family can refer to anyone who is important to you in your life.

Together again.

Thank you for the home learning and support you gave. The work that has come in to school has been wonderful to see and celebrate. It has been lovely to be together as a class once more. We would also like to welcome a new member to class, who we hope will enjoy his time in our class and school.

As the nights are now colder it must mean Bonfire Night has arrived again. Owls reflected on the historical events and people involved in the Gunpowder plot and then created some artwork linked to literacy. They considered how fireworks move, sound and appear in the sky and created word banks of vocabulary to describe them. The words and phrases generated were then used to create firework artwork.

There has been a focus on mental methods in our maths learning this week. The pupils have been revising partitioning as a method and then investigated rounding and adjusting and redistribution as different methods. Lots to remember and lots to learn but they showed good resilience. The pupils also thought about the structure of addition and subtraction and how to find missing values in a calculation using the bar model.

This terms science topic is Sound and the pupils enjoyed ‘seeing’ sound using tuning forks and water and rice and a drum. They discovered and proved that vibrations make the sound. There was then a listening activity where they heard mystery objects making a sound and then had to decide what the object was and the part that was vibrating to make the sound.

In English this week Owls have been writing up their super recounts on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Editing and redrafting skills were used in class to make sure the recounts were written using all the features required and all the children worked with attention to detail on this. Next week we will present our newspaper reports and read the Owl o’clock news!

Topsy turvy day was great fun and the children looked wonderful, thank you for the donations. Have a good weekend.

Harvest time

A celebration of Harvest and the changing of the seasons marked the start of the week.

Owl class performed a poem creating their own actions and reading and performing with expression for our Harvest assembly. They were brilliant. We also enjoyed sampling some of the delicious produce grown in the school garden, the beetroot and corn were firm favourites!

We considered the question ‘How did the Romans change Britain and how do we know?’ We thought about the evidence historians use and look for and discussed what evidence in our locality there was to show the impact of the Romans. Of course we arrived at the conclusion that the Romans built towns and roads! Owl class used technology such as Google maps to find road systems that we still travel along today and towns that are near to us. Ermin street and Silchester show the links to the past. We are now looking forward to our trip to the Littlecote mosaic on Monday afternoon.

Visitors from Newbury Astronomical society came in to talk to us about the solar system and constellations we see in the night sky. Owl class used their knowledge of how light travels and can be reflected to safely look at a reflection of the sun and see sun spots. We also enjoyed looking at the moon through a very powerful telescope (despite it being an image rather than the real thing). We learnt a great deal and enjoyed the talk.

Autumn days...

Maths has seen cross-curricular learning in the form of Roman numerals. The children learnt about the Roman number system identifying how different it is to our Base 10 system (no place value holder) and identified the different letters and corresponding values. They then calculated with Roman numerals and we discussed when we might still see Roman numerals being used. They were brilliant!

Owl class have been accurately demarcating speech. We used speech bubbles to record what was said out loud and then converted it into formal direct speech using inverted commas. This helped us in our story writing and is a skill we will also use as we start to look at using quotes in newspaper reports. Owl class are looking forward to being reporters over the next few weeks.

More circuit making in DT this week. We had to develop a switch that would turn the light in a circuit on and off. We used our knowledge of conductors to plan and make a simple switch and the results were impressive. Thank you to those of you who have donated pringles tubes, our Lighthouse designs will be completed by the end of term.

Our Roman shields and Vesuvius volcanoes are showing our artistic flair. We combined our knowledge of how shadows are made and translucent materials when creating lava flowing down the volcano.

History has seen us writing some fantastic speeches as Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni tribe. She stood up to the Roman generals and army at Colchester and marched on to St Albans and London. We used sources to look for clues as to what she was like. Some sources were written by Roman observers of the time while others were secondary sources. Once we had formed an opinion of Boudicca we wrote in the style of this famous leader and read our speeches out loud.

September sunshine

Computing and internet safety have been discussed in Owl class this week and over the course of the term. E-safety is always an on-going theme. We know that passwords keep information secure and that there are many ways to stay safe whilst using technology and the internet.

We answered the question ‘Why did the Romans want to invade Britain?’ In class we discussed many reasons such as the farming land, the rich natural resources and the fact that the Romans wanted revenge on Britain for helping Gaul. It did take the Roman army three attempts to invade but they eventually managed with a strong fleet of ships and 50,000 soldiers!

We are enjoying finding out about the Hindu faith and the beliefs and customs that form the religion. We have designed Henna prints and have researched some of the Hindu deities. The stories are vivid and colourful such as the story of Lord Ganesh.

At the start of the week we completed our hot tasks in English, writing about a setting using descriptive language. We are now starting to think about writing our own version of the story ‘Escape from Pompeii’ and completed a story map to support our story planning and writing.

Lots more problem solving in maths this week using our place value knowledge. We are able to compare and order numbers and consider why this is an important maths skill we use in every day life. The use of stem sentences to help us reason and frame an answer are being used.

In design and technology we made a series circuit and checked our circuits for any faults. Everyone managed to light the bulb and this will be used in our DT project to design a light house.

Roaming Romans

Owl class have been learning about the Roman Empire and the countries that were invaded. They used atlases to identify countries and coloured in the Empire at the height of its power. The children also investigated why the Roman Army was strong and able to win many battles. They came up with five reasons and were impressed to learn that the Roman army had its own fitness regime!

In science the class answered the question ‘Which colour material would make the best coat to wear at night?’ The children made predictions from a range of colours and then investigated which colours reflected light and which colours absorbed light. Everyone agreed that the results proved that their prediction of bright colours especially yellow, white and metallic silver were the best choice as they reflected light.

Prepositions are forming part of the writing toolkit in Owls. Children have been thinking about describing scenes and situations using prepositional language such as below, towards, underneath and in turn developing more descriptive sentences.

In guided reading the children have been focusing on inference skills. Looking for clues and reading between the lines to find meaning. There have been some tricky questions but the children are persevering.

Number lines! The skill of identifying the intervals along a number line and the values they represent has been taught in class. This has helped the children to then identify where numbers sit on a number line further securing place value concepts. The children were then set 2dos to complete on the computers to apply their knowledge and understanding.

Lots of activity in PE this week. Tag rugby skills are being developed for our outdoor games session and team building activities and gymnastics in the hall on a Thursday.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Sunshine and first full week back.

Owls have had a variety of activities and learning opportunities this week.

English learning has focused on powerful verbs and effective ways to write descriptions. We have used the thesaurus to find synonyms and applied them in our writing. We created a list of twelve different words for ‘shake’ and wrote poems about earthquakes.

Place value has been the theme for our maths learning this week and will continue over the coming weeks. Lots of problem solving in class and use of equipment to help us with our explanations so that we feel confident we can answer the question ‘How do you know…?’ and the instruction ‘Prove it!’ One pupil asked the question ‘What does a million look like?’ So we tried to answer it!

Another question we asked this week was ‘Where did the Romans come from?’ We used maps to look for the city and identified the country and continent it is on. Can you remember the country and continent Rome is in? We listened to two different stories about the founding of Rome and considered their value as sources of evidence.

Music this term uses body percussion and our vocal skills. Brilliant singing from Owl class and two new songs which we think will become favourites.

In our science lesson we answered the question ‘What is light?’ using an experiment to identify an object without natural light. We also discussed why the moon, mirror and window are not sources of light.

Reminders

Please could reading records and reading books be in school every day. Thank you for sending the children in PE kits on a Thursday and Friday, they all looked very smart. Mrs Crawshaw will be teaching in Owl class every Thursday.