Writing: What is a promotion?
Lately, we’ve been learning about promotions in our writing lessons. Today, we gave it some thought as to what even makes a text a promotional text and who texts that promote/sell a product are even aimed at – we call this kind of stuff the purpose and audience. It’s a great idea to really take a step back and analyse a text like this before you get down to the nitty gritty of the language etc.
Check out how awesome we are at analysing texts…
As always, if you’re a bit unsure, come and chat to us at school – we’re always happy to explain what’s going on in class for you!
Topic review
Thanks to those parents who managed to attend our topic review this afternoon – it was great to share our Digital Art topic with you. Hopefully, we’ll see more parents next time we review our topic after in the new year.
Be sure to keep practising that ever important topic vocabulary – the words tend to be words we don’t use very often in our everyday chatting, so why not try quizzing your child next time you’re in the car on a long journey, on your way to school or chatting at the dinner table each evening!
Christmas events
It’s a busy time of year with so many things happening. Here is a reminder of the Christmas events taking place over the next two weeks:
Wednesday 7th December, 2pm: Christingle Service at St James’ Church
Thursday 8th December, 2.15pm: Early Years and KS1 Christmas play
Friday 9th December, 9.30am: Early Years and KS1 Christmas play
Tuesday 13th December: Christmas dinner
Wednesday 14th December: Early Years and KS1 parties (non-uniform)
Thursday 15th December: Ks2 parties (non-uniform)
During our productions, we will be raising money for our new school charity voted for by the Junior Leadership Team. This year we will be supporting Cancer Research UK.
Digital Artists
Today, the children used photos they had taken previously to create some digital art. Using an app on the iPads, the class enhanced their photos. Some chose to add very vivid colours while others opted for black and white.
What’s that sound? Does sound get louder or quieter the further away it is?
Year 3 investigated sound this week to see whether they could hear the same sound equally well the further away they moved from its source.
Mrs Neal blew her whistle and we moved further away from her down the path!
Sir Christopher Wren
Year 3 and 4 have been learning about Architects in their Topic lessons. This week Year 4 looked at Christopher Wren’s designs for St Paul’s Cathedral. They looked closely at 3 designs and decided which one was used for the final building.
They designed their own Cathedral and then constructed it using Lego or cardboard boxes. I hope you will agree they are really fantastic!
Living and Learning: Mental Health
We’ve started a three week block of Living and Learning lessons around mental health this week. Being able to identify and talk about our feelings and emotions is an important part of mental health. In our Living and Learning lesson today, we shared our feelings and emotions and discussed how these can change. The children considered different things we can do if we’re feeling angry, sad, worried, anxious.
When I feel angry I ….
listen to music
read a book
listen to the sound of birds
take time out
lie down
do some breathing techniques
do some mindfulness
The following emotions, stress and anxiety, came up a lot in our class discussion so we thought of strategies to help to ease these.
Reduce Stress and Anxiety
Using a fidget toys cannot prevent or eliminate these issues, but they can help to calm our strong emotions. We have a selection of these in our room so we each took turns in touching them and describing how fidget toys may help to ease some of our emotions.
Finally, the children created some helping heroes. These advertised some self help techniques for others.
Maths: area
In maths, we’ve been learning about area – the space inside a 2D shape. We’ve used a range of skills when learning about area: estimating, comparing, counting and reading.
Help at home: Why not check out this video to support your child’s maths learning at home!
Digital Artists
Today, the children used photos they had taken previously to create some digital art. Using an app on the iPads, the class enhanced their photos. Some chose to add very vivid colours while others opted for black and white.
After some time exploring the possibilities, we showcased some of the images onto the main teaching screen.
In the next lesson, the children will continue to edit and use paint effects to enhance their images further.
Topic: Commenting on the work of famous architects.
We have been looking at the work of the famous architect Sir Christopher Wren today. He won the commission to design St. Paul’s Cathedral after it was destroyed in the Great Fire of London. His design was chosen by King Charles II. We have looked at Christopher Wren’s designs and compared them to a photo of the actual cathedral and made observations about both.
We then designed our own Cathedral.
