Week beginning 2nd July

For the next two weeks, we will be really focussing on our rehearsals for the End of Year production – a musical medley of songs and dances that the children have chosen from their time at St. Vincent’s. We have some very talented youngsters in our team and they can’t wait to show off their skills and abilities...complete with cockney accents!! The tickets for this should be going out this week, so please keep an eye out for them. Admittance into the hall will, as always, be strictly by ticket only. This is in order for us to comply with Health and Safety regulations. Many thanks for your co-operation with this.

You should also receive the words for the songs on Monday and it would be a BIG help, if you could help your child to learn these words. Don’t worry, even I know some of these words, so it shouldn’t be too much of a trauma!

So...that’s for the afternoons, but what about the mornings? Well...

Geography / Literacy / ICT

Much as I hate to say this, but the current ‘webbed-feet’ weather, has actually worked to our advantage! This week, we are looking at why floods happen and the effect they have on the environment.

It may seem hard to believe that a small, slow-flowing stream or gentle river could cause serious damage to people and the places in which they live and work, but looks can be deceptive! Rivers can be things of beauty and the historic lifeblood of a settlement. We will find out how we use flowing water to enhance life and living, whilst trying to contain its destructive powers when in flood, using the enquiry resources of the Internet!

Activities for you to try

We will be doing these activities in class this week, but have a go at home first – it will give you a great head start!

Identifying a river catchment - Use a map or atlas to identify a major river near to where you live, and use tracing paper to identify and draw its source (where it begins) and its mouth (where it ends). Then trace on the streams, brooks and smaller rivers that feed into your main river - these are called the tributaries. The source of each of these tributaries marks one point on the boundary of the river - joining these points up shows the approximate limits of the catchment area of your river.

Use an atlas to locate and mark Nottingham and the course of the River Trent on a blank outline map of the British Isles.

Try searching for information on how the Ancient Egyptians used the regular annual flooding of the River Nile to help their agricultural activities.

Why do you think that so many cities developed close to rivers despite the obvious risks?

Carry out a debate in the classroom presenting arguments for and against the damming of the River Nile.

What do people see as the advantages of the dam? What are seen as the disadvantages?
Investigate the factors which cause rivers to flash flood and why this is an increasing occurrence compared with past times?

Write a report on how the Thames Barrier works and why it was necessary to protect the city of London.

Locate Mozambique and mark the main rivers. How close are the main settlements to those rivers? Why?

Investigate what could have been done to avoid the devastating floods in Mozambique?

Find out how the world supported Mozambique in its struggle to cope with and recover from the devastating floods?

The following websites will be helpful when trying some of these activities:

http://www.mrdowling.com/607-aswandam.html information on the Aswan Dam

http://www.internet-at-work.com/hos_mcgrane/egypt/egypt2.htm the geography of the Nile

http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/menu.html

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/subjects/flood/1797794/ flood warnings from The Environment Agency’s website

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/662472.stm news story about the floods in Mozambique in 2000.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/655510.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/662847.stm

Numeracy

The Year 6’s will be working on their transition booklets, whilst the Year 5’s will be working on Problem Solving activities.

This is one of the most difficult areas of numeracy, and once you figure out the operation you have to use, the rest is easy (well, that’s the theory anyway!!)

A really good way of organising your problem solving, is to think in 3 steps:

Step 1 – read the question (obvious though it sounds, people often forget to read the actual words!)

Step 2 – highlight the information from the question using a highlighter pen, or just circle it with your pencil (if the question says ‘How much CHANGE...?’ remember not to write how much you have spent.) These are known as TWO-STEP or MULTI-STEP problems.

Step 3 – write down the calculation that you need to do to work out the answer


By then end of the week, we will have:

· Solved mathematical problems or puzzles, recognise and explain patterns and relationships, generalise and predict.
· Suggested extensions by asking ‘What if … ?’
· Known when all possibilities have been found and check for repeats.
· Organised the recording of possibilities, e.g. in an ordered list or table.

MUST: solve a problem by listing all possible answers in a systematic way.

SHOULD: begin to see how working systematically helps me make general statements.

COULD: find and prove that I have found all possible answers to a problem by checking against criteria.

These are some fun websites to help with problem-solving:

http://www.actionmath.com/GSM2/GSM2wp1.html

http://www.actionmath.com/GSM1/GSMwp1.html

http://www.actionmath.com/Katie2/Katie2wp1.html

http://www.actionmath.com/Katie1/Katiewp1.html

http://www.mathplayground.com/mathhoops_Z1.html

http://www.interactivestuff.org/sums4fun/nummaze.html

http://www.channel4learning.net/sites/puzzlemaths/

http://www.transum.org/Software/SW/Starter_of_the_day/index.htm

Also, remember to go to http://del.icio.us/amworrall/numeracy for lots of other websites to support your numeracy work.

http://www.freeducation.co.uk/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=downloads&cat=mathspowerpoint has some great powerpoints fro numeracy, which will guide you through lots of key concepts on numeracy. Try out some of the problem solving ones and use the 3 step strategy to see if it works.

http://www.timetoteach.co.uk/booster6.html click on lessons 5 and 6 for the activities we will be using this week.

Reports

On Friday you will receive your reports. They are for you and parents to share as a celebration of your achievements. They will be sealed, so PLEASE try to avoid the temptation to open them on the way home. We know that you want to know your SATs results, but it is much better to sit and open them away from your friends at home. As I write this, they haven’t actually arrived back in school from the external markers, so even the teachers don’t know yet!! The results for may look a bit confusing at first, but you will get your ACTUAL results and something called TEACHER ASSESSMENT. These are the levels which your teacher thinks you have been working at through the year. St. Gregory’s get BOTH sets of results.
The year 5’s will also find out which teacher they will be going to next year and the results from your test.

There is also a comments sheet included with your reports, for your parents to send back to school. The teachers do love to read them, so please do remember to send them back into school as soon as possible.

Sports Day

As you may have gathered, due to the very wet weather over the last week, we have had to postpone Sports Day until the 17th July. Unfortunately, this is the only available date, so if it rains on this day, Sports Day will have to be cancelled.

Barbeque

There are still some tickets available for the FOSV ‘BBQ’ this Friday from 6 ‘til late! If you haven’t got your ticket yet, please send requests into school, or see any member of the FOSV.

Here’s to a dry week!!??!!

Year 5/6 team