A quick message to all Room 8’s parents.

There will be no homework or spellings set over the Easter holidays, however, when we get back, the children will be looking into all things Ancient Greek so any reading or research into this topic or myths and legends would be really helpful and perhaps I can put some work up on the wall to start us off!

Another mention.

Due to Year 3 going swimming on a Friday afternoon after Easter, I will have to move the day in which the children hand in homework.

The reason behind this is because by the time we get back from swimming on a Friday afternoon there will be very little time to organise the children in regards to homework and spellings. Therefore, homework will now be due in on a Wednesday and new homework and spellings will be given out on a Thursday afternoon.

I can only apologise for the inconvenience, however, I cannot make this activity work in the current timetable for the upcoming term.

Thank you.

As you are probably aware, the walk around Pontesbury didn’t happen today as I felt the weather was a little too unpredictable. However, the children did have their hot chocolate and marshmallows as compensation!

We will try again tomorrow afternoon, therefore, could I ask that all children have coats, maybe gloves and even waterproof trousers if you have them, so they can be better prepared for the crazy April weather.

Thank you for any co-operation, we will persevere!

Mrs Davies.

To parents of Room 8,

Just to let you know that on Wednesday 3rd April I am planning on taking Room 8 on a little walking tour of Pontesbury. The reason? To improve their map reading skills!

So far in our topic this term, we have looked at a lot of geography based concepts to do with Pontesbury. We have identified human and physical features of the village, we have investigated OS symbols and created our own key based on what we know Pontesbury has to offer (we discovered that although the village still feels pretty small, it actually has a lot of things happening and going on!)  and we have also used digital map software to look at the growth of Pontesbury, Shrewsbury and Birmingham over the last 120 years.

However, what I feel is important and a life long skill, is for the children to get to experience and practice the skill of ‘map reading’. The plan, is to walk around the village trying to locate the human and physical features we have previously looked at and try and locate them on a map.

The class will be split into smaller groups, each with a designated adult and walk around the village. We will only be gone for the afternoon so if you happen to see your child, please give them a wave. Please can all children have coat with them, just in case and maybe, if their really good, they can have a hot chocolate afterwards, when they get back to school!

As the trip is within Pontesbury and within the catchment area of the school,  I do not need individual parental consent, nevertheless, I thought I would inform you in case you spotted your child in the village and wondered why they were not in school! However, please feel free to catch me on the playground or ring the office if you would like any more information.

Thank you,

Mrs Davies

Just a quick message in regards to this week’s homework to do with reading and understanding time tables.

We have come to the end of time for the moment as I thought I would leave it for a bit and come back to it in the Summer term. However, their final sessions were on using what they have learnt about time in a practical context about reading a time table.

The activity the children took home this week is the exact same activity which they completed in numeracy this week. The majority of children still found the concept of reading a timetable very difficult so I thought it would be best for them to have the activity again but be allowed more time with their parents to discuss it and address any misconceptions.

If they are still struggling, then please let me know before Thursday and I will try and go through it with them at a convenient time.

Thank you,

Mrs Davies.

To the parents of Room 8,

Thought I would post a quick reminder on here to let you know that our Cricket session with Mr Corfield have now finished. Room 8 have really enjoyed these cricket sessions and have really worked on areas such as catching and throwing, working as a team, listening skills but most importantly having fun!

Find below a few pictures of the sessions below. 

Because we are edging towards the end of term, I really feel like there is no need to disrupt Room 8’s timetable by moving their PE session to another time during the week. Therefore can I please ask that until the end of term,your child still turns up to school in their PE kits on a Monday morning ready to go so we do not have to waste time getting changed and the kids can get as much time as possible doing some physical activity.

Thank you,

Mrs Davies.

We have been using the laptops today to look at maps. Using a piece of sofware called ‘Digimaps’ we have been looking at Pontesbury, Shrewsbury and Birmingham. We have shaded in all the built up areas of each place and then compared their growth from the 1950’s and even back to the 1890’s!

The children discovered that although Pontesbury still feels quite small and we still call it a village, it certainly has grown…alot!

As part of our Science, Room 8 have undertaken a comparative investigation into the effect of acid on our teeth.

We used three hard boiled eggs (as the shell represents the enamel on our teeth) and placed them into three different liquids. We decided that we were going to keep the amount of liquid the same (200ml) and the time they were in the liquid (1 week) the same also.

The liquids we used were water, orange juice and coca cola. As a whole class, we predicted that coca cola would cause the most damage to the egg shell because it was fizzy and had lots of sugar and because mum’s “tell us it’s not good for us”.

What we actually discovered was in fact that it was the orange juice which caused the most damage to the egg shell, practically peeling away the first layer of shell! We were surprised at this because we believed that orange juice was healthier for us because it had fruit in it!

We talked about how we could limit the effect of the acid on our teeth by:

• Rinsing our mouths with water afterwards.
• Using a straw to direct the liquid to the back of our throat not around our mouths.
• Brushing our teeth about an hour later.

I thought I would just give you a little feedback on Room 8’s attempts at telling the time. Overall, Room 8 has been really strong at being able to read the time on an analogue clock, it has been a joy to mark there work and see most children feel confident in telling the time.

However, a little area that has been flagged up today with the majority of the class has been to turn analogue time into digital. We have struggled! Areas which came up in class were:

• Remembering that with a digital clock you must write the time with the hours first followed by the minutes. Whereas with an analogue clock you say the minutes first followed by the hour. E.g, 4:40 not 40:4.
• All the minutes are read as minutes past the hour.
• Reading the clock carefully and recognising that the minute hand is ‘massive’ (we call it massive minutes) and the hour hand is small. A lot of the children are reading the times, back to front.
• Lastly, a lot of children are writing for example the time for quarter past 8 as 8:3. Which indicates that the children are writing the numbers which the clock hands are on rather than calculating the minutes past the hour.

I hope this makes sense!

These are all pretty typical misconceptions children have when telling the time and I will obviously do another lesson on this tomorrow to try and amend theses but any help at home which you could give with this life skill would be gratefully received.

Regards,

Mrs Davies