Silver Birch Class Blog 2024/2025

Term 3 Week 2  17th January 2025

This week we did a science experiment with cars. We were investigating friction by testing different materials and how fast toy cars moved on them. This was part of our new science topic: Forces. 

In literacy we have been learning about characterisation and how to create strong fictional characters. Check out our Friday writing inspiration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APsBurHQMC4 We loved the scenery and strange character in the video.

In maths we were learning about long division and long multiplication. We talked about the most efficient methods and we solved some multi step problems.

Term 3 Week 1 10th January 2025

Welcome back to term 3! This term our topic is the Shang Dynasty.

This week we have been doing formal methods of division in maths and in Literacy we opened our new text: Danny Chung Does not do Maths.

This is a brilliant book about an English boy with Chinese parents who is finding out ways to balance is heritage and culture in England. Everything is going well until Nai Nai comes to stay!

Term 2 wrap up.

Term 2 flew by in such a hurry. We had an amazing time learning about Light. Our trip to science Oxford was brilliant and we enjoyed exploring themes of light and dark in the poem The Highwayman and in our art where we experimented with shades, tones and tints.

Term 2 Week 1

Welcome back to class!

What a fantastic week 1 we have had. Our highlights this week have been our first trip to Forest school and learning about highwaymen.

Forest school was a very relaxing autumnal afternoon and we enjoyed hot chocolate and a story around the fire.

The children enjoyed learning about D- Turpin (our internet safety measures will not allow me to name the man! You know who I mean,) and execution methods for highwaymen in Georgian England. We began our literacy unit on the poem by Alfred Noyes. I was blown away by the children's reading and comprehension skills!

We began our science topic about light by learning about the parts of the eye and that we see because light reflects off of objects into our eye. In our wildlife photography assembly on Friday we learnt that although kingfishers look blue, their feathers are brown. We will have to explore why as part of our topic.

Term 2 begins!

It is my intention to complete the class by the following Monday of each week in term 2. Thank you for your patience.

Here are some pictures from our DT topic in term 1 and our end of term hockey match.

In DT we designed and built tabletop carnival floats inspired by Notting Hill carnival as part of our Windrush topic. We developed skills of designing 3d nets and learnt about material choices and joining.

Term 1 week 6 11th October 2024

This week we began to create our tabletop carnival floats in DT. We hope you saw the wonderful photographs on Instagram.

We learnt that it was possible to make 3d shapes from a flat piece of paper and then we had a go at designing our own nets to create our carnival float.

Please send as much clean cardboard, fabric or decorative paper in this week for our final products.

Thank you to everyone who has been giving do much support for our new homework!

Term 1 Week 4 23rd September 2024

This week was the start of our weekly home learning. If you have any difficulties or concerns, please let Mrs Cox know. The children have been asked to look at the work on the day it is set so that they can have time to get support if needed.

This week we have written our autobiographies after learning about the purpose, audience and skills needed. They are all very lively and interesting for such young people!

In maths we have completed our unit on place value and we are going to do a brief week of addition and subtraction before moving onto a longer unit of multiplication.

The weather has been very wet this week but we still managed plenty of play and our class hockey lesson. See if your child can remember what Indian dribbling is!

Spelling. We are not sending lists home each week but your child had a list of the year 5-6 statutory words in their bags. Please help them to cross off the ones they can already spell and learn 2-3 per week. We will look at these in class too.

Term 1 Week 3 19th September 2024

The weeks are flying by! I haven't quite mastered images on the blog but I do hope that you have seen images on Facebook or Instagram. 

This week in maths we have been developing our knowledge of place value: comparing, ordering and writing large numbers up to 10,000,000 in numerals(numbers) and words and representing them on number lines of various values.

In literacy we have been learning how to alter our writing to create effects for the reader and we have been looking at how our writing style changes depending on the purpose for writing and  who we are hoping will read it.

In science we learned the scientific explanations for day and night and we can demonstrate our knowledge with a diagram.

In computing we learnt about making our coding simple and therefore more efficient. We demonstrated our knowledge by simplifying codes in an existing catching game on Purple Mash: 2code. The class showed that they have a really good prior knowledge of the vocabulary used to discuss coding.

In PE we are doing Hockey and this week we continued to pass and receive while learning to dribble the ball with control.

In History and DT this week we focussed on the Windrush. We learnt about some of the differences between the UK and the Caribbean and why moving from the Caribbean to the UK might have felt really unusual for many people. In DT we looked at the Notting Hill carnival celebrations that were started by members of the Windrush generation. We explored carnival floats and began to create specifications for making a scaled model of a carnival float.

Finally, our highlight this week was a visit from Alfie Watts who won the BBC show, "Race across the World." with his friend. Alfie answered all of the really thoughtful questions that the children asked about Asia and travelling. We learnt that Alfie loved Japan but wasn't as at-home in Cambodia. We also learnt that there were pink dolphins!

Coming in week 4

23rd September: reading records come home to be signed 5 times per week.

25th September: Homework will be coming home and will be due the following Monday. If our new booklets have not arrived yet, this will be on paper.

Mrs Cox