Our second visitor, who came into school on Friday, was the Mayor of Warrington, Cllr. Direr and her consort. As you may know, the children are taking part in a lengthly project, to improve our local environment. They had come up with some questions which they wanted to put to her, about the council's perspective on certain environmental issues. She commented on how articulate the children were and how we definitely had some budding Jeremy Paxman's in our midst!
Diary
This week, we have a number of things happening in school, which you should already have received a letter about.
On Thursday, all of the juniors will be visiting Penketh South for the Kinetic Theatre company's production about Science. We saw a similar show a few years ago, and it prompted some brilliant science work, so we look forward to the same happening this time round.
On Friday, we shall be having our Harvest Festival Mass in the school hall at 9.00am. Parents and Friends of St. Vincent's are most welcome to attend. Thank you so much for all the donations which have been made towards our harvest display. A representative from St. Joseph's Family Centre will be coming into school next week, to explain to the children where all their donations go.
On Tuesday, and for the next 6 weeks our Year 5 children will have the opportunity of working with a visiting dance specialist. They will learning lots of different techniques and hopefully will be able to show a finished product by the end of the course.
Also on Tuesday, we say a sad farewell to two of our pupils in Year 4 and Year 6, who are off to start their new life in Australia. We wish them all the luck and best wishes in the world and wish them a safe journey. Please look in your child's diary for more information !!!!
With all of this going on, it is going to be a packed week fitting in all the curriculum!!
Literacy
We continue our theme of Autobiography anhd Biography. The children really seem to have taken this on board and have brought some fantastic examples into school for us all to share. If you would like to investigate further at home, you could visit...
http://www.roalddahl.com/ the sounds on this site are really loud, but great for helping children to navigate around
http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/dickkingsmith/
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=421 We will be asking the children to write their own autobiographies over the holidays, so this site (which is primary aimed at teachers) will give some ideas of how you could make a start collecting the information your child might need
We are also having a real push on learning and spelling the High Frequency words, both during a test AND in their independent writing. The lists of words that your child is currently working on, is stuck in the front cover of their diaries, but do keep going back to words which have previously been ticked off. You will be amazed at how quickly children do forget them, particularly if they haven't used them for a while.
http://www.primarygames.co.uk/pg2/wwout/workout1res.html This is an evaluation copy, but it's still a great game to use
http://www.primarygames.co.uk/pg2/scrambled/scrambled.html Again, an evaluation copy, but it is quite difficult - even I had to think about some of them!
http://www.lancsngfl.ac.uk/curriculum/literacy/lit_site/lit_sites/plurals/pl_4/plurals4.htm
This will help the children this week, as we are looking at how words that end in an 'f' change when they are put into their plural form.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/spelling/plurals/pluralrules/index.shtml this site will help your child to brush up on all the skills they have learned so far about plurals. How quickly can they identify the strategy they have to use?
Numeracy
We have been working really hard on our numeracy sessions with the children and they are beginning to get to grips with some of the more difficult concepts. They could be boosted even further, by constant revision of the basic skills. This includes knowledge of the time tables, number bonds to 10, 100 and 100; working out change from £1 and £10 and place value.
In order to help with this, there are a number of websites to improve those basics. It is best, if you talk through the answers with your child and find out HOW they arrived at their answer. Quite often, although they get the wrong answer, they have used the correct strategy, and so it may be a simple addition which had tripped them up, not they can't do any of the problems.
http://www.ictgames.com/technowithflock.html This is a real giggler! It shows how to use a number line for addition and subtraction
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/maths/big%20sums/big%20sums%20add.html Move the numbers up to 99 on each card to help find the missing number
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/numbers/wholenumbers/addsubtract/mental/flash7.shtml mental calculations - practicalities!!
http://www.ictgames.com/spitfireufo.html shoot the correct answer for the times tables
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/numbers/wholenumbers/multiplication/written/flash2.shtml multiplying my partitioning
http://www.kidsolr.com/math/fractions.html
These are just a few of the resources which we use in school, so your child should be familiar with them all. We intent to send more 'hints and tips' out at parents evening, as well as written activities for you to try.
As you can see, we have an incredibly busy week ahead of us in school. Homework has been handed out every Monday for Literacy and Numeracy and Wednesdays for Science. It is helpful for us, if you could ensure that your child returns their homework on the appropriate day, so that it can be amrked and returned on time. It is also a vital part of their preparation for high school.
Please could you also ensure that the following letters and slips are returned as soon as possible:
- pantomine slips and monies
- parent's evening slips
- science show slip and contribution
Looking forward to a great week!
5/6 team.
