This week we have spent a little extra time rehearsing with Year R for the Christmas play. This actually comes at a good point in the term, with the class being very self-sufficient and therefore better paced to deal with timetable disruptions. The rehearsals are going well but they need to do some extra work learning the song verses, particularly, ‘Come, Join the Celebration’.. Any help at home on this small task would be much appreciated.
History
Following on from our recent trip to the trenches, we have spent a little time each day considering what conditions must have been like. We have imagined that we are on a six week tour of duty on the front line. Each day, we discuss the weather of that has passed, and the weather outside at that time and try to work out how we would be feeling. So far, we have been stuck in the woods for two weeks, and by our reckoning have probably only dried out for a couple of hours. The rest of the time we have been, wet, getting wet or covered in frost and the trench has become a pretty slippery place. Four more weeks to go… Through this work, we have begun to generate a letter home to try to discourage our younger brother from joining the army. Nearly finished and looking good.
Maths
I’m sticking with fractions for a little bit longer but changing the emphasis. We have revised subtraction and a little multiplication of fractions so they are now ready to become part of the skills work rather than the main phase teaching. Meanwhile, we have been hammering doubling of double digit numbers which has gone really well. Try it with your child this weekend and see how it goes.
Next week, I am going to start looking at ratio because it underpins a lot of the deeper problems.
English
Lots going on. We have really picked up the reading skills over the last couple of weeks, identifying specific skills required and learning to refine an answer for much greater accuracy. In grammar we gave been studying subordinate clauses and passive verbs to quite a deep level. The key questions we have been asking are as follows: What is the impact? How does rearranging the sentence change the emphasis? These are sophisticated questions that get past the more mundane aspect of grammar as a tick sheet exercise, and really focus on the class as authors with a responsibility to communicate with the reader with clarity, and therefore applying grammar with precision. Early days, ut already I can see a change in the way they are thinking through their ideas.
