Weeks 9 & 10 (18.05.20 - 03.05.20)

Hello Maple Class!
 
I hope that you are all still keeping safe and well, and thank you once more to all of you for keeping up your efforts with your home learning. Sending me your child’s work helps me keep a record of what areas they understand and which areas to focus on through the rest of the year. I understand that many of you are juggling home learning with work and I know that this will be difficult. Please don’t feel that you have to mark your child’s work for me or that it should be ‘perfect’, most of the activities can be completed independently and if they email it to me from their School360 account (accessible from their homepage by clicking on ‘Mail’) or shared with me from their Google Drive (accessible from their homepage by clicking on ‘My Files’) I can provide feedback direct to them. Please also don’t feel that all of the activities need to be returned to me, I have marked the two which I would like to provide feedback on with @EMAIL. Of course, if your child gets up to anything exciting or something that they are particularly proud of, then I would love to see that too!
 
Speaking of which, well done to Maisey whose hard work and constant enthusiasm meant that she was our Star of the Week! I know that many of you have also been working exceptionally hard and have sent me some lovely emails, so it is always a hard decision. Hector has enjoyed being at the top of our Times Table Rockstar leaderboard for three weeks in a row, but this week he has been very closely followed by Fred and Alfie in joint second place. Well done to all three boys! Annabel, Ethan, Frankie, Isla-Megan and Dylan all played more than three times as many games as was set, which is seriously impressive. Freya, Courtney, Archie, Callum, Freya C, Kai, Georgie, Jack, Ava, Theo, Sam, Rupert and Addy also played more than ten games this week! We’re going to be a class of times table whizzes at this rate! In fact, the result of the Battle of the Bands was incredibly close with Sycamore winning by only 98 points. We were in the lead for a while until Mrs Sapor got her daughter up in the wee small hours of the morning to edge Chestnut over the line! I played a game against Alfie this week and he beat me! I need to get back into the classroom to hone my times table knowledge!
 
You will see that there is an extra activity this week, this is for the art competition organised by Mrs Smith (from Willow Class) and has an entry date of Wednesday the 3rd June which will also be the home learning activity for the Monday and Tuesday of the first week of next half-term (1st and 2nd June). Therefore, this page will not be updated until the 3rd June whilst home learning packs (see below) are collected / distributed. Of course, this doesn’t mean that it can’t be completed before these dates if you wish.
 
Home learning packs have been collated and will be printed ready for next half term. In these packs are a selection of maths arithmetic activities as well as some resources which are designed to help with them. There are also six sets of three Times Table Rockstar sheets plus an extra sheet (making 19 in total) in case you have difficulty accessing the Times Table Rockstars website at home. I have not included any Big Maths sheets, however. But, as always, if you need any, please let me know and I will email them to you. In terms of English, there are some SPaG activity sheets, a selection of differentiated reading comprehension sheets and a spelling overview for the next half term. When you get the pack, please do not feel that it all needs to be done at once. Instead, I will keep you updated in this weekly blog which sheet(s) I would like you to complete that particular week as well as providing guidance for them. I have not included any science or geography sheets as these will continue to be posted online.
 
English
Activity 1 (Spellings)
Have a go at the 'look, say, cover, write' approach but why not try other ways of learning your spellings. Write them in different colours, in different letter styles (wobbly, bubble...), small letters or big letters, or why not time yourself to see how quickly you can write them all or how many times you can write one word in 30 seconds? Get someone at home to test you on your words to see how many you have learned. Remember, if there are any of your spellings that you are unfamiliar with look them up in the dictionary to check their meaning.
 
Sports
Again, there is no particular rule for these spellings but they are grouped into two word families to show how they are related in terms of form and meaning.
 
WORD FAMILY ONE
scope
telescope
microscope
horoscope
periscope
 
WORD FAMILY TWO
inspect
spectator
respect
perspective
spectacles
 
Cars & Ships
Continuing to look at prefixes, these words all have the prefix non- meaning ‘not’
non-stick
non-stop*
non-starter*
non-fiction*
non-drip
non-violent*
non-profit
non-believer*
nonsense**
*These words can be spelled with or without the hyphen with either option being correct although sometimes considered non-standard.
**This word can be spelled with a hyphen but this is considered to be non-standard.
 
Animals
This week’s spellings look at the possessive apostrophe. Apostrophes are only used for contraction and omission (last week) or for possession where we need to show if an object, feeling or other ‘thing’ belongs to a noun. This class of apostrophes are only ever used on nouns and this week we are looking at singular possession (where there is only one of the noun, it does not matter how much is ‘owned’ by the noun. If there is one dog and it has one bone, it is the dog’s bone and if it has two or more bones it remains the dog’s bones. This is because usually putting the apostrophe after the s means there is more than one of the noun: the dogs’ bone means that there is more than one dog but only one bone).
Megan’s
Ravi’s
the girl’s
the child’s
the man’s
the woman’s
the school’s
the dog’s
the teacher’s
Gus’*
*This word and all like it are an exception because it ends in an s whilst singular.
 
Activity 2 (Independent Reading)
I would like you to read for 30 minutes. You could read a fiction story book, a magazine, a recipe book, a non-fiction book, a comic, cheats for Fortnite… the list is endless. Once you have done this, pick one of the following:
  • Create a new front cover for what you have read
  • Create a wordsearch which includes key vocabulary from your reading
  • Write a book review
  • Write a blurb
  • Create a poster advertising what you have read
  • Draw an illustration of one of the characters or things from your text
  • Write a character description
  • Create a model which relates to what you have read
  • Write the next chapter of your text
 
Activity 3 (SPaG)
We have looked at using inverted commas (speech marks) to write direct speech in class, but we have not yet looked at reported speech. Direct speech is used if you write down the words in the exact way that are said by the speaker (“I want to watch a film,” said Bill) whereas reported speech is used if you are saying or repeating what someone else has said (Bill said that he wanted to watch a film). Reported speech is a trickier idea to get your head around, but it is actually much easier to write in practise as there is a lot less punctuation to worry about! The National Curriculum requires children in Year 3 to follow the rules coloured green whereas Year 4 children need to be able to do both the green rules and those in purple.
 
Direct speech
  • Needs a reporting clause (a fancy name for writing who said it, for example ‘said Bill’ is the reporting clause in the earlier sentence) either before or after what is said;
  • Has all the spoken words and only the spoken words in inverted commas (speech marks);
  • A capital letter for the first spoken word (it is treated as a new sentence)
  • A full stop at the end of the spoken sentence if the written sentence finishes at the same time (Bill said, “I want to watch a film.”). This full stop, question mark or exclamation mark goes inside the inverted commas;
  • A comma at the end of the spoken sentence if the written sentence does not finish at the same time (“I want to watch a film,” said Bill.); and
  • A comma at the end of the reporting clause if the speech comes after it (Bill said, “I want to watch a film.”).
Reported Speech
  • Inverted commas aren’t used;
  • The words are sometimes changed so that the sentence makes sense; and
  • There is no reporting clause but an adverbial phrase (remember those from last week?) or prepositional phrase (see the OPTIONAL extension) may be added to give extra detail.
Because this is quite a complicated area of grammar, and one that children frequently hard to remember all the rules for, a PowerPoint explaining the rules has been attached. There are also some handy videos on BBC Bitesize which your child may want to watch instead, both do the same job:
 Finally, there is also a worksheet to go with this activity. As always, it does not need to be printed off. Your child first needs to identify whether the sentence given is direct speech or reported speech, add missing punctuation, change sentences from direct to reported speech (or the other way round) and finally write some sentences of their own. It would be great if they could use these new skills in Activity 5.
 OPTIONAL extension: as Frog is dead, I have set a SPaG game on Busy Things. It’s the first time that I have set work on this platform, so hopefully it goes smoothly. The work can be found by clicking on Key Stage 2 from the homepage of Busy Things and then Maple Class. Next, looking at the right hand side of the screen, you should see this icon (you may need to scroll down).
 
Activity 4 (Reading Comprehension)
Tying in with our current science topic, I have attached a reading comprehension activity about the water cycle. It is differentiated so you don’t need to do all three sheets! Instead, your child can choose the one that they are comfortable with but – at the same time – challenging themselves. As always, encourage them to answer in full sentences when they need to and to take parts of the question and put it in their answers.
 
Activity 5 (Extended Writing) @EMAIL
Now that your child has done their research about Northumberland, they are going to put all the skills and knowledge they have learned this half-term together and produce a leaflet or booklet about Northumberland and why it is such a great place to live. They will need to be both persuasive (after all, the BBC want to know which are the five best places to live in the country) and informative, including lots of facts. Here are some questions that your child could consider answering in their booklet:
  • What is the history of Northumberland?
  • What is the physical geography (hills, rivers etc.) like?
  • What is the human geography (towns, villages, population etc.) like?
  • Are the people friendly?
  • Are there any unusual facts, traditions or customs?
  • What’s the weather like (you may need to tell a few white lies!)?
  • Has anything interesting every happened here?
  • Are there any places in Northumberland that have a claim to fame?
  • Does anybody famous come from Northumberland?
How they set out and present the work is up to them, but I would like to see some pictures and captions (if your child doesn’t have access to a computer don’t worry about these), a snappy title, subheadings, examples persuasive techniques from weeks one and two of this half-term, conjunctions to extend and link ideas, some fronted adverbials to vary the sentence structure to make it more interesting for the reader and some direct and indirect quotes (they can be made up).
 
I am really looking forward to seeing what your child can produce after all the learning they have done this half-term!
 
Maths
Activity 1
So far we have represented tenths and hundredths as decimals and divided whole numbers by 10 and 100 to make decimal numbers. Before moving onto another area of the curriculum next half-term, this week we will be making a whole by adding decimals (you may wish to do this practically at home by adding groups of coins of various denominations together to make one whole pound). A common misconception your child may have is that numbers like 0.4 and 0.04 are the same, if you are working with your child please remind them about the tenths and hundredths place value columns and how it is important where a digit is placed.
 
Activity 2 @EMAIL
Our final area for learning for decimals is to compare and order them, and this is why so much emphasis has been put on the importance of place value throughout this unit. As in Activity 1, a common misconception comes from thinking that digits in decimal numbers represent the same thing as in their whole number counterparts. In other words, children often think that 0.3 and 0.14 act in the same way as 3 and 14, with 3 being less than 14. However, because 0.3 = 3/10 = 30/100 and 0.14 = 1/10 + 4/100 = 14/100, 0.3 is more. This is also why in class we emphasise pronouncing decimal numbers one digit at a time (i.e. “zero point one four” rather than “zero point fourteen”).
 
To compare and order decimal numbers, your child will need to look at the digits in each place value column, one at a time, starting from the left and working their way to the right. If your child is confident sorting words in alphabetical order, it works in exactly the same way. If one number has a greater value digit in the same place value column than another, then it is the greater number. Whereas if they have the same value digit, they go to the next place value column and repeat the process.
 
There are two worksheets attached. In the first your child will need to compare decimal numbers by using the mathematical symbols for greater than >, less than < and equal to =. If your child is struggling to remember which symbol is which, remind them that the greedy crocodile always tries to eat more. The second worksheet is split into three levels of difficulty, and children need to order a series of decimal numbers from least (or, on the worksheet, the quickest time) to greatest (slowest time). The main sheet and the one that I would like your child to attempt unless they are super confident only gives them numbers with digits in the tenths and hundredths. If your child is super confident, the numbers go into the thousandths and ten-thousandths along with some questions where they need to work out the difference between two given numbers. There is no expectation that your child will be able to do two harder sheets, so don't worry if they can't!
 
Activity 3 (Big Maths)
Please complete one Big Maths sheet from your home learning pack. Again, if you want more, please email me. If your child has finished the fifteen sheets in their ‘stage’ and they want a challenge, let me know and I can forward the next one up. Please be aware though that the next stage will contain areas of the curriculum they will not have been taught because it is from another year group. Alternatively, if you feel that the current ones are too tricky and they are having difficulty accessing them at home, please let me know and I can send the one down from those they have been given.
 
Activity 4 (Schofield&Sims)
Please complete 2 pages of your Schofield&Sims book.
 
Activity 5 (Times Tables)
Although ‘we woz robbed’ from winning the Battle of the Bands, your child should hone their skills for the next head-to-head by completing ten games. If you are struggling to access the online game, let me know and I can email sheets through to you.
 
Science
Continuing our learning about the states of matter, a PowerPoint, lesson plan and worksheet have been attached about changing the state of matter water is in, the effect of salt on ice, and how to reverse the process. If they don’t want to complete the worksheets, they could instead make a poster or a PowerPoint explaining the process. This is also a great opportunity for some real-world maths learning about negative numbers!
Art
With our annual art competition, Alnwick in Bloom, cancelled until next year, Mrs Smith (from Willow Class) thought we might have our own school competition to keep us busy over what would be the May half-term holiday. We would like you to get creative and design a picture which celebrates not just our fantastic NHS but all keyworkers who are working so hard to help us all at this time. You can use any medias you have to hand:  watercolours, crayons, pencils, poster paints, felt pens, gel pens… the choice is yours. You can also create your design on paper or card of any size and it doesn’t need to be fancy! If you don’t have card or paper to hand, then perhaps you can recycle something such as the inside of a cereal box. Attached is a full description of the competition, along with the different categories to choose from. Although any age can enter any category, certain categories are best suited to certain ages. Choose one then start planning some ideas for your art work.
 
Once you have created your final masterpiece, take a photo of it and email it to Mrs Smith at michelle.smith@swansfield.northumberland.sch.uk, making sure to include your full name and class.
 
Judges will choose 3 winning pieces of art work for Nursery, Reception, Key Stage One as well as Lower and Upper Key Stage Two. Local artist, Katherine Renton, who is normally on the judging panel for Alnwick in Bloom, will be helping with the judging process. She is very much looking forward to seeing the art work you send in and as well as helping select the winners. She will be sharing her thoughts on the winning pieces of art work too!
 
Thank you once again for all of your support helping with your child's education over these past few weeks. Your help in these difficult times has been truly invaluable, thank you. If you do need anything for your child's learning, please don't hesitate to get in touch; I am here to help. Please also don't feel under pressure to mark your child's work, I can and will do that as best I can and I can and will provide feedback direct to them.
 
I have also attached a PDF version of this week's blog so that you can download it to refer to rather than needing to come back to this page.
 
Stay safe,
Mr W