This week in Year 3

Open Classrooms

Another week of learning in Year 3 culminated in the children proudly showing their work on Friday morning to their parents. The Year 3 pupils took great pleasure in spending some time carefully choosing the pieces of which they were most proud. They also took care to ensure that their books and the classrooms reflected this pride in the progress they had made since the beginning of the year. We would like to thank parents who were able to come into school to share this delight with their children.

English

We delved into a new topic this week and have been looking at The Tunnel story by Antony Brown. An adventure story that sees two siblings unite together as they journey through a mysterious tunnel… Year 3 have explored all aspects of the story; investigating the characters and the settings and have used comprehension skills to discuss their thoughts on the story so far. As the next couple of weeks progress the children will build on their comprehension and writing skills and will be creating their own version of the story to end our unit. We are all excited to see the Year 3 creativity skills fly within this task!

Topic – The Geography of the United Kingdom

Thank you so much for all of the wonderful pictures you have sent into school in the wide variety of places in the UK that the children have visited. They have been so excited to see themselves on our Geography boards and it has helped them to create an image in their heads of where these landmarks and cities are located.

From the Year 3 Team

This week in Year 4

Year 4 Science

Egg-periment!

As part of our topic on teeth in Science, Year 4 carried out an egg-periment on eggs! Did you know that the outside of an egg is made of the same material as our teeth?! They are both made of enamel! With this in mind, Year 4 decided to investigate the effect different liquids would have on our teeth (or eggs!).

Method

We got five beakers and five eggs, and put an egg in each beaker. Our Year 4 egg-perts then poured Coke into two of the beakers (one of the eggs had been treated with fluoride and one had not), and then water, Diet Coke and vinegar into the other two. We will then wait about five days for the results!

The Results

After waiting patiently for five or six days the Year 4’s were very enthusiastic to see the results of their egg-periment. Some of the results were un-eggpected! The egg in water had not changed at all- though it was a bit wet! The egg in Coke had been stained brown and the egg felt rough and could be scratched away. The fluoride had stained the egg brown but the shell felt hard and could not be scratched away easily. The egg in Diet Coke was surprisingly quite brown but the shell felt firmer and smoother and could not be scratched away. The egg in vinegar had gone very soft and we could almost see through it as lots of the shell had peeled off! We were even able to bounce it like a bouncy ball, until it burst open!

Our Conclusions

We found out that sugar and acid attack enamel in our teeth and it is very important to brush our teeth twice a day! Fluoride which is in our water and toothpaste can help prevent tooth decay.

Take a look at some photos here:

Inverted Commas

In 4B we decided to put our musical and theatrical talents to good use! We learned the inverted commas song and made up our own actions to help us learn how to punctuate speech.

Take a look at their video here

Remember everyone: Inverted commas, talking talking talking, a piece of punctuation, inverted commas… Then, tell us who said it, and how they said it (you plum!).

The Year 4 Team

This week in Year 5

Sensational Science!

5B and 5CB have started the term with their new science topic – LIGHT.

They have enjoyed some furious debate on whether glow in the dark stars count as light sources or not and why it is that some creatures have even adapted to produce their own light. Armed with torches, mirrors, translucent materials and ‘shadow sticks’, the pupils have enjoyed plenty of independent investigation already and are now looking forward to studying the biology of the eye and how light rays reflect and refract.

While half of Year 5 have been using their eyes, the other half of Year 5 have been using their ears as 5K and 5D have kicked off the term with the unit of work on SOUND.

A variety of noises have been heard coming out of the science labs as they have explored how sound is made! Alongside more familiar musical instruments, they have been using balloons, straws, bottles and elastic bands this week to explore what pitch is and what affects the pitch of a note. Next up, boom whackers, straw pipes and (fingers crossed), lollypop harmonicas before moving onto measuring volume using sound meters and investigating if sound travels quickest through a solid, liquid or gas. As ever, Mrs Balfour and Mr Kneller have been wowed by the enthusiasm and curiosity of the pupils.

Take a look at photos from their week below:

The Year 5 Pastoral Team

From the Middle Department Library

Worst Week Ever: Monday by Eva Amores & Matt Cosgrove

First in a brand new 7-part series, starting off with Monday, this hilarious book will appeal to fans of the Storey Treehouse series and Tom Gates as it’s packed full of funny illustrations and silly storylines.

The main character is Justin Chase and he’s having a bad week. His mum has just married a vampire. His Dad is driving a giant toilet on wheels. His cat has probably been abducted by aliens. A bully is making his first day at a new school miserable. To make matters worse, it’s only Monday and he’s hanging off the edge of a 10-metre-high diving tower in front of his entire class wearing nothing but rapidly disappearing crocheted swimmers.

Head’s Commendations

Congratulations to this week’s recipients of Mrs Cussans’ Commendations:

	Nurture	Inspire	Engage
Year 3	Lily V	Rudr M, Bea B, Oliva W, Arthur L	Alex F, Ed B, Joey M
Year 4	-	Miles H	Madeleine F, Will F,, Magnus G, Olivia C, Oliver WG
Year 5	Kai K, Chloe LB, Sam B, Olivia F	-	-