Switched On Learning!

We have had another fantastic week, with the children working really hard in all of their lessons. We’d love to share what we have been getting up to!

Maths

This week in maths, we have been focusing on how to add four digit numbers. We began by using visuals to represent the two numbers that we were adding, which made it easier to see exactly what was happening at each step. From here, we started to look at how to use the formal methods of column addition – particularly how to properly exchange between columns. The children have shown a good understanding of this so far and have been able to answer a range of different questions. We hope to develop this further next week, when we will also be looking at subtraction.

English

In English, we have moved away from our work on explanation texts and have instead started to explore the idea of perspective and how it can change a story. To begin, we looked at the familiar story of Jack and the Beanstalk, discussing how we might describe the character of Jack (typically using heroic adjectives such as brave or adventurous) and the Giant (which tended to be more along the lines of cruel and greedy and unkind). However, once we had read the same story from the Giant’s point of view, we found that our feelings towards both of these characters were completely flipped on their head! We then took it a step further, trying to think of other traditional tales we knew and how their ‘villains’ might tell the story. It was a very interesting task and the children were quite creative when it came to explaining away some of the more evil deeds!

Science

In science, we have been exploring switches to try and understand more about what they are and how they work. We learned that switches provide a way to ‘break’ the circuit without dismantling it, allowing it to be turned on and off. The children were then given a set of components (this time including a switch) to see if they could put this idea into practice. Once we had successfully integrated our switches, we then tried designing some of our own, using only card, split pins and paper clips. All of the staff were impressed by how well the children worked throughout both of these activities.

Other News

This week’s homework is due in on Wednesday 18th October:

• Maths – Adding two four digit numbers
• English – A set of words from the 3/4 word list to practise at home

We hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Miss Levett and Mrs Kenvyn