Happy New Year and Happy Epiphany to all!

It has been lovely welcoming back the children after their Christmas holidays and seeing how well rested and content they are. They all told me lovely things about their break and showed gratitude towards every present or experience they have received.

We focused on the Feast of the Epiphany in these short two days with a class Act of Worship and a Key Stage Mass on Thursday. The children completed learning on the symbolic meaning of the gifts baby Jesus received from the Three Wise Men, whilst they applied their art skills when they created a collage piece based on the Epiphany. They also reflected on the gifts they can bring to the new year and offered a gift themselves to someone in their community wrapped in a handmade Epiphany box. We also blessed our classroom by following a long standing Catholic Tradition where we marked our classroom door with the letters and numbers 20+C+M+B+22 referring to the names of the 3 Wise Men and the new year. By doing this we invited Jesus to be a daily guest in our class and to be with us in our comings and goings, our conversations, our work and play, our joys and sorrows.

General information:

The children will start swimming this term on Wednesdays. Swimming counts as one of the children’s PE lesson. On Wednesdays (starting from next week, 12.1.2022) the children will need to come in their full (warm) PE uniform. As of their swimming outfits, we have 2 procedures in practice in school. Some children (especially boys) might decide to wear their swimming shorts underneath their PE kit and have the rest of their kit (towels, etc) in a clearly labelled bag ready to take it down to the pool. Another practice is to have their kits in school and use the lunchtime break to get changed in the allocated toilets, where we can ensure separation and privacy. All children must be changed into their swimming kits before leaving the school, ensuring a more swift access to the lesson. After their swimming session, the children will have access to a quick shower and then get changed back into their PE uniform in the allocated changing rooms.

Any questions regarding swimming, please feel free to contact me.

Later this term, on 24th January (Monday) we will take part in a class trip to visit the Bhaktivedanta Manor as part of our Other Faith Week. I am looking for three parent helpers to accompany us and help the class as during the trip smaller group activities are organised for us. If you are able to support, please let me know. Many thanks in advance.

Have a nice and safe weekend,

Ms Varga

P.S.: Thank you so much for your very kind and generous gift at the end of last term. I really appreciate your warm gesture.

It has been a week of preparation for our Advent Service and the children have been working hard to learn their parts and learn the songs for this special service.  The class have been to the church to practice and did this with great reverence.  Well done!

In RE this week, the children have developed their Liturgy of the Word and wrote prayers of intercession.  A group of children from Year 6 visited the class today and led a Liturgy of the Word for the children to see how they are to lead theirs in the coming weeks of Advent. Thank you to Aidan, Ellie, Lily and Fabian for leading us in prayer.

In English the children have begun to develop their setting based on the story ‘The Viewer’.  They have been learning the importance of developing their understanding of a good opening describing their setting so that the reader can picture it, describing their character(s) so that the reader can picture them and setting the atmosphere for their story.  I am so encouraged by the writing they have done so far and look forward to seeing them edit their narratives to develop their writing further.

In Maths, the class consolidated their understanding of using known facts to solve problems.  We have also started learning the times tables the children find tricky to remember.  There was lots of singing today in the classroom!  I have attached the link below for the six times tables below for you if you would like to have a go with your child this weekend!

On Wednesday, the children had their final swimming session which was a fun swim.  The swimming pool was full of floats, balls and excited children!

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs McNamara

Home Learning this week:

Home Learning this weekend is for the children is to continue to practice the words for the songs they will be singing at the Advent Service and the words and links to these can be found on the special blog that Miss Donatantonio has uploaded.

I have also given the children details to their spelling frame account.  Please check that they have stuck it into their reading diary alongside their read theory and Mathletics log in details. For those who had their reading diaries in school, I have attached these details to the others.

Log onto spelling frame and try out the activity on hyphenated words and practise the Year 5/6 Statutory Word list.

Six Timetables link click here

 

 

The children in year 4 were busy practicing for their Advent Service this week. We walked down to the church to practice our readings and acting, whilst in class, we sang our songs ready for next week Wednesday.

In RE, we looked at St Luke’s Nativity and came up with definitions for the different titles he used to tell us about Jesus, such as Messiah, Saviour, Lord, etc. The children then wrote beautiful acrostic poems using some of our collective ideas.

The children also finished their ‘Place Between’ narrative applying all the learning from before, such as fronted adverbials, subordinating conjunctions, inverted commas for speech and noun phrases for description. I was very impressed with their stories. Well done!

In Maths, the class further consolidated their understanding of the column addition by looking at missing number sentences and working on reasoning.

In karate, they have learnt evasive moves for blocking whilst in rugby we played simple attacking games in smaller teams.

We also started decorating our classroom for Christmas, creating chains and other hanging paper decorations. It is looking festive already!

Have a lovely and safe weekend,

Ms Varga

Your Home Learning this week:

Spelling	Please log onto spelling frame and practice this week’s spelling words before testing yourself on them. Spelling Rule 10 – Endings which sound like /ʒən/ (e.g. erosion, pension… etc.) https://spellingframe.co.uk/
Multiplication	https://www.mathschase.com/ Spend some time practicing your mixed multiplications.
Reading	Please update your reading logs as you continue to read at home and be ready to present them on Wednesday.
Songs	Please carry on practicing our songs for next week’s Advent Service.
Science	Thank you for all of you, who have brought in your musical instruments. They look fabulous. You still have some time left to complete this assignment.

 

The children in Year 4 had a really busy week. In Maths, they have moved on to formal written methods for addition and subtraction, whilst in English, they further consolidated their understanding of speech punctuation and learnt about the use of prepositions. Next week, they are going to plan and later write their first big story based on the lovely artwork they completed as their Home Learning, describing their ‘Place Between’.

In Science, they learnt about what sound is and how it travels through different media to reach the ear. They carried out several practical enquiries like talking through balloons or listening to the sound of tuning forks as well as putting them in water or using them with table tennis balls to make vibration visible. The children really enjoyed these investigations and created some excellent diagrams about their observations.

In D&T, the class moved on to their third prototype, the ‘moving dragon’. They are getting better each time at measuring accurately, making design decisions or evaluating and changing their mechanisms. Can’t wait for their final project.

In RE, they looked at Luke’s Nativity in depth and written fact files about it, whilst in karate they moved on to punches. In History they started looking at the reasons behind the Roman invasion of Britain using iPads for research.

The children also wrote their Advent promises and displayed them in the hall during a special Advent assembly, beyond receiving parts for the upcoming Ks2 Advent Service. We will be walking down to the church next week to practice our part as well as going through our new hymns. So far, beautiful singing therefore I am sure the service will be wonderful.

Have a lovely and safe weekend,

Ms Varga

Your Home Learning this week :

Spelling	Please log onto Spelling Frame and spend some time practicing this week’s spelling words before you test yourself on them. Spelling Rule 9 – Words with endings sounding like /ʒə/ or /tʃə/ (e.g. adventure, creature… etc.) https://spellingframe.co.uk/
Multiplication	Please log onto Maths Chase and spend some time practicing your mixed multiplication facts. https://www.mathschase.com/
Reading	Please carry on reading over the weekend, and make sure you update your log with relevant details about the books you are reading. Please be prepared to present your reading records on Wednesday.
Advent Service	Please practice reading your lines over the weekend, thinking about expression and pace. Also start learning your lyrics for the new hymns as we will have separate hymn practices as well.
Science	Just a reminder that you still have approximately 2 weeks to complete your musical instruments for your Science lesson. Thank you for those of you, who already brought them in.