English

This half term we have been reading Wolves by Emily Gravett. We read and enjoyed the book and used the book as a base for our writing. We developed our use of inverted commas for speech, adverbs to add detail and expanded noun phrases. We wrote our own alternate ending to the story and a poem all about wolves. The story was full of facts about wolves and used books and the internet to continue our research. We then wrote our own factsheet about wolves.

Maths

This half term we have been improving and developing our multiplication and division skills. We learnt how to multiply one digit numbers by two digit numbers, simple division, dividing with regrouping and solving word problems. We used a variety of methods to help us to work out which method we were more confident with. We have continued to use Times Tables Rock Stars to help us to recall our times tables facts quickly.

Science

This term we have started our plant topic. We have looked at the jobs the different parts of a plant have as well as setting up an experiment to investigate how the roots work. We used coloured water and placed plants with white flowers in it and left them for a few days. The white petals turned different colours to show the movement of the water from the roots. We also dissected a flower and looked at pollination and seed production. We set up an experiment to see what plants need to grow.

Geography

This term we have started our topics with the enquiry, ‘Why do some earthquakes cause more damage than others?’ We are studying the 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. We looked at a variety of sources of information to study the effects of an earthquake on infrastructure and people. We used atlases to locate New Zealand and Christchurch and more areas where earthquakes occur. We plotted the epicentres of earthquakes in the last 200 years to see if there was a pattern and we discussed when we think the next earthquake might occur.

Computing

We have been learning how to use email. We used 2Email on Purple Mash. We looked at how to useful email was, how to open an email, how to reply and compose our own. We discussed using email safely and attaching attachments. We had lots of fun sending and receiving emails form each other.

Design Technology

We have been looking at food technology this half term and we entered the Springfield Bake Off! We learned how to make bread and then we had to design our own bread rolls to hopefully score the most points from our judge, Mrs Nasim! We sampled different types of bread and evaluated what we liked and why. We tried different ingredients so that we could work out what ingredients to include in our recipes. We draw labelled diagrams and learned new skills such as kneading.

P.E.

We have continued to develop our fielding and striking skills. We learned how to play small sided games based on cricket skills. We also had a gymnastics coach come to school. We learned how to travel using different body parts, several types of roll and jump. We also practised how to balance on different body parts. We worked with partners on developing our own sequence involving these skills. We also practised these skills on the apparatus.