Good Morning Blue Class!
What a strange week! For the first time ever, I had to queue outside my local shop and wait until somebody came out before I was allowed in. It is super quiet on the road near my house but as I type, Mr Deards is sanding down our garden bench and making a bit of a racket in the process.
It was Daisy’s birthday last week. I made her a cake and we had her favourite dinner. Luckily we had bought all her presents before lockdown. People were really kind and sent cards and little gifts and she spoke to her friends on various social media. One of her friends emailed a card for us to print out and another filmed herself opening Daisy’s card and sent Daisy the clip! We went for a walk up in the hills for a bit of fresh air and watched a film in the evening. Have any of you had to celebrate special events differently? We would love to hear about it if you have.
Did you all join in with the ‘Clap for our Carers’ event? My friend’s son decided to bang a saucepan as well as clap. Unfortunately, he put the pan on his head before bashing it with a wooden spoon. There was a tense moment when the family thought it was stuck and when it came off, his ears had turned bright red!
What inventive ways have you all found to keep yourselves occupied? I have found some yoga channels and have done lots of digging and weeding in the garden. I know lots of people who are doing the Jo Wicks PE session each day. My teacher friends say it nearly finishes them off when they attempt it.
Blue Class, well done for continuing with your learning this week. Mrs Benson and I know it is challenging and we are so proud of you for giving it your best shot. Try to stay patient with the grown ups who are trying to help you stay on track.
Below is the suggested learning for this week.
Spellings
Ask somebody to test you on the spellings from 9.3.20. These were looking at the ei spelling pattern when it makes an ‘ay’ sound. A reminder of these words – weigh, freight, eight, neighbour, vein, reign, veil, sovereign. Sovereign is pronounced slightly differently. The ei makes more of a short ‘i’ sound. Remind yourself of the meaning of all these words.
New spellings to learn this week. This is the ie spelling pattern. Group the words according to the sound the ie makes when you say each word.
thief, belief, mischief, obedient, glacier, patient, medieval.
Practice writing them out and circle or underline the tricky parts or write those parts in a different colour.
Reading
You should be aiming to read for at least 20 minutes every day. If you have younger brothers or sisters you could also read a story to them, making sure you do all the voices and are as expressive as possible. We had ERIC (Everyone Reading In Class) at school, what could the acronym be now we are all at home? Who can come up with a good one?
Year 5
Laws Affecting Women or Yellow Brick Road (depending on what was in your pack)
Year 6
Weird but Wonderful Octopus or White Fang (depending on what was in your pack)
Maths
Our friends at White Rose Maths have come up with some daily maths lessons which are more similar to a school lesson. There is a short video to watch that explains things a bit and then an activity where you can practise what you have seen. The answers are included which will help you judge how you are doing and save your parents some time!
https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/
Year 5
Triangles and circles – Start at Week 1 Day 1 – Decimals.
Continue with one lesson each day. You might like to have a go at Problem of the Day as well.
Squares – You may wish to start with Y4 decimals until you feel confident to have a go at Y5.
Everybody – http://www.timestables.me.uk
Use this to generate yourself a times table challenge. You can do it online or there is a version which generates a printable sheet if you prefer. It is perfectly fine to make 45 questions all on one times table if you need to learn it, You may be ready to pick several or all the times tables. Wherever you are on the times table journey, practise the division facts too, even if you are at first stage of learning.
Year 6
Start at week 1 day 1 – Ratio – We have covered this but it is good to fully consolidate it in preparation for Year 7.
Have a go at Problem of the day to see a mixed selection of questions.
In addition Year 6, please complete the arithmetic paper in your pack.
Writing
Please continue with your Daily Diary. This week, we will revisit our old friend the relative clause. Remember, a relative clause gives extra information and is ‘stapled’ in place by two commas like this – Year Five and Six, who are studying at home because of lockdown, are trying really hard with their diaries. Relative clauses are introduced by relative pronouns who, whose, which, that, when, where. You do not have to make every sentence contain a relative clause. Maybe just one or two each entry for this week. By the way, you can use contractions in your diary (won’t, can’t, didn’t etc.) because you will be using an informal tone in your writing.
If any of you fancy emailing Mrs Benson and me this week with a paragraph of (beautifully constructed and punctuated) news, we would love to hear from you.
Science
We would have been moving on to forces in Science, so have a go at this very easy experiment.
You need:
some identical pieces of paper
a large rock or something else that is quite heavy but won’t break when you drop it.
somewhere high
- Hold the piece of paper in one hand and the rock in the other. Which is heavier? So which will fall to the ground faster?
- Crumple up the piece of paper into the smallest tightest ball you can.
- Stand somewhere that you can safely drop a rock from a height to the ground without hitting anyone or anything.
- Drop the rock and the piece of paper at the same tine from the same height.
- Describe what you observed.
- Now take 2 pieces of paper of identical weight. Crumple one up and leave the other flat. Drop them from the same height at the same time.
- Describe what you observed.
Try to find out the reasons for your observations. Explain what you found out to an adult.
Talking of adults – A huge thank you to the adults who are all planning, explaining , marking and everything else that home schooling involves, often with multiple children of different ages. It is a tough call but thank you so much for all you are doing.
Keep smiling everybody!
Love from
Mrs Deards and Mrs Benson