Maths
A tough week. We had a lot of work to do to get division embedded as a skill and things are looking more positive now. The homework this week reflects that well, showing how the class are learning to mix short and long division together within the calculation rather than relying on one or the other. I think repertoire and options are better problem solving tools than absolutes.
We have also been working hard at multiplying decimals by whole and in some cases, other decimal numbers e.g. 4.6 x 7.89 Think we’re there now so these will mostly start to appear in increasingly difficult problems. Again, I hope the homework reflects this.
English
The grammar work has been no less challenging but I’m really pleased with where we have managed to get to. We have moved on from prepositional phrases and begun to look in more detail at the role of verbs in a sentence. This week, intransitive complete and transitive active verbs have moved centre stage. Actually, this sounds more complicated than it is. Intransitive complete verbs do not pass information from the subject to an object. E.g. Billy swam. The baby kicked. If however, the questions who or what are asked and can be answered, the verb is transitive active and the answer is the direct object. Billy kicked the ball. What did Billy kick? The ball.
In other words, in a transitive active sentence, the subject is ‘verbing’ the object.
Tricky, but after a week, much clearer to us than it probably is to you right now. And yes it is useful. Once this is in place, it becomes much easier to understand the difference between passive and active writing which is a key concept in the Year 6 curriculum. More of that nearer the time but for the moment, the groundworks are underway.
Homework
I’m very pleased to see that as a class, the quality off the homework seems to be improving. More children are coming and asking for help during the week which shows a growing independence. Thanks to everyone for their help at home.
I hope this is useful to you. Please let me know if this blog is useful in this format or if there is anything else you would like me to cover.
