Maths

This week in maths Team JF have been busy exploring Miss Fury's sweet shop. The children have proven they have excellent understanding of the place value system and can apply their skills when adding and subtracting money. As the week went on Team JF worked in pairs taking on different roles becoming a customer or shop assistant. The children worked really hard to master to two step problems they were presented with and thoroughly enjoyed their time in the shop! 

Literacy/History

This week Team JF have combined literacy with their history topic of the Stone Age. The children started the week by researching the three eras of the Stone Age starting with the Paleolithic, moving into the Mesolithic and ending with the final era, Neolithic.  From this, the children turned their facts into informative sentences in order to create their very own factual leaflets to be presented in our school library.  The children have put lots of effort into their writing and have taken great care using their purple pens to edit and improve their pieces. 

I cannot wait to see their final published versions when they are finished next week! 

Maths

This week in maths Team JF have been busy consolidating their knowledge of multiplication and division. The children have used a range of exciting activities to ensure a deep understanding. For example, they started the week off by putting their problem solving skills to the test in order to solve a range of challenging 1 and 2 step questions. From this, they moved into creating their own multiplication game. This involved using digit cards and a dice to  generate their own calculations for a partner to solve. The children were not only demonstrating amazing team working skills, they have once again proven themselves to be brilliant mathematicians.  Keep up the great work!

Next week we will begin exploring money. 

Literacy

This week in literacy the children finished off and published their captivating adventure stories.  The children have really enjoyed writing their versions of the Stone Age Boy and have taken great pride in their work. This was evident  from their use of word mats in class, ensuring  higher level vocabulary was used and checking spellings with a dictionary.  As soon as the children were happy with their writing they created their own book cover and finished off the unit by reading their masterpiece to a younger child in school.

This was lovely to see and hear as both children took great pleasure from this experience and is something I hope to continue throughout the year. 

Literacy

What an amazing first week back! This week Team JF have traveled back in time using the story 'The Stone Age Boy'. After reading it, we decided to write our own versions using some of the ideas in the book. Our completed stories will then be shared with the younger children in school.  
To ensure our versions are remarkable, we unpicked the story identifying the setting, build up, problem, resolution and ending. We then started exploring features of adventure stories and focused on practicing one of the writing skills each day. 


Maths
This week in maths we started our new focus of formal division. The children were really excited to begin division and have shown great enthusiasm towards their learning. We started the unit off practically, using the place value counters to ensure children had a deep understanding of what division is. From this, we moved into the formal 'bus stop' method, dividing 2 digit by 1 digit numbers. They have really enjoyed this and even when presented with a challenge they have put in 100% effort. 


History
This week we began our exciting new topic of 'Through the Ages.' Within this unit we will be exploring what life was like from the Stone Age through to the Romans. 

To begin with we centered our learning around a timeline of Britain and discussed the different time periods including BC and AD. Our first session we focused on prehistoric Britain looking at artifacts and fossils from this time. As there are no written records, the children were really keen to know how we knew all of this information. This led us to explore archaeology. The children were given the task of becoming archaeologists to carefully dig for some artifacts from the past and as a team decide what it was and its purpose. The children really got into character and were fantastic at this, using every detail they could to judge what it was!

Literacy

This week in literacy Team JF have  used the opening scene from  'Rio' to inspire some creative writing. After watching the clip, the children worked as a group using their senses to gather as many appropriate adjectives and fronted adverbials as they could.  After generating our phenomenal vocabulary, we were able to turn it into a fantastic setting description as a class. Finally, we finished off the week creating our own rich setting descriptions. 

Maths

This week in maths we have continued our unit of multiplication and division. However, as Team JF are amazing at their tables we have moved into using these known facts to help us  solve others. For example, 5 x 6 = 30 therefore 5 x 60 = 300. Towards the end of the week, we moved into using these known facts to reason and problem solve explaining how we arrived at our answer. 

Next week will continue with this unit, however we will begin exploring formal methods to solve multiplication and division calculations. 

Literacy/Geography

Over the past couple of weeks Team JF have worked incredibly hard writing their own persuasive letters to stop deforestation. To begin with, the children researched deforestation, focusing on why it happens and the effects it has on the environment. From this they decided it was time to make a change!
After listing the pros and cons, we started learning about different persuasive techniques to ensure our letters had the maximum impact. 

The children have now completed and published their remarkable letters and are eagerly awaiting a reply! 

Maths

This week has been assessment week in school and the children have worked incredibly hard to complete the test papers.  To assess the children in maths they have been given two papers. Firstly, they completed an arithmetic test focusing on applying written methods using the four operations. The second paper involved thinking a little deeper and applying their knowledge of the four operations when faced with reasoning and problem solving questions. 

As always the children  have amazed me with their outstanding attitude and resilience towards their learning, keep it up Team JF!  

Literacy/ Design and Technology

Over the past couple of weeks in literacy, Team JF have designed and created their own rain stick instruments with a rain forest theme. As they were so amazing, we decided we  should write our own instructions for other people to make them too!

Last week we explored different instructional texts and identified the features to use in our own. From this, the children created their own steps based on what they had done. Once completed, they were able to use their purple pens to edit and improve their first draft and finally publish some amazing pieces! 

Maths 

This week in maths our unit of addition and subtraction has come to an end. As we moved through this unit the children have demonstrated a secure understanding of adding and subtracting using the column method. From this they have had the opportunity to apply these skills into reasoning and problem solving questions. This was a really tricky concept to determine the operation they had to do, however, the children have worked extremely hard to accomplish this and have showed great resilience towards their learning. 

​Keep up the amazing work! 

Literacy

This week Team JF completed their non fiction posters about Brazil. The children started the week by finishing their first drafts and moved onto editing and improving their writing using their purple pens. When the children were happy with their pieces they began publishing. 

The posters the children have created are fabulous and the vocabulary used within them is amazing!  They were all incredibly proud of their work and thoroughly enjoyed sharing them with one another.

Next week, Team JF will move onto instructional texts. 

Maths 

This week the incredible mathematicians of Team JF have continued exploring addition. The children have yet again wowed me with their knowledge of the number system and the column method. At the beginning of the week, we focused on practical learning using the place value counters to add three digit numbers where an exchange is required.  From this, we moved into using the formal written method to complete these types of calculations. 

The children have demonstrated great resilience towards such a tricky concept and have risen to the challenges set. 

​Next week our learning will be centered around subtraction. 

Maths
This week in maths Team JF have continued exploring numbers. We started the week by comparing objects identifying the greatest, smallest and equal amounts using the < > and = symbols. From this we moved into comparing numbers written in numerals and words. As the children demonstrated excellent understanding we moved our learning into identifying and writing numbers in ascending and descending order.  

The children have demonstrated excellent understanding of place value. Next week we will begin our new unit of addition and subtraction. 

Literacy
This week in literacy the children were introduced to a new unit of learning, non fiction. This began with the children exploring a number of text types and identifying their purposes. After we established what non fiction texts were, we worked in groups to pick out their features. From this we decided to link our literacy with our geography topic and write our very own information sheet about Brazil.  As a class we voted for the topics we wanted to write about and finished off the week by gathering research using the Ipads. 

Not only did the children have a fantastic attitude towards their learning they amazed me with their technical skills!  

Literacy

This week in literacy Team JF have been exploring writing from a different perspective. Throughout the week we took on the role of an alien from another dimension! From this, we imagined we had entered a classroom for the very first time and had seen some peculiar looking objects. After much discussion,  we created a variety of word banks to inspire our descriptive writing about some of the objects we had seen. 

Team JF have amazed me with their creativity this week, what a great start to the year! 


Maths

This week in maths Team JF have been exploring place value. We have been focusing on the value of each digit in a 3 or 4 digit number. To do this, we have had many practical sessions using the place value counters, base 10 and place value grids.  The children have not only  worked really hard to partition and  represent numbers in a variety of ways but also explain their reasons behind this. We will continue to develop our understanding of place value next week.