Maths
Now that we have a better handle on our times tables we have begun to move off into the order of operations following BIDMAS to establish the order in which mixed operation calculations should be solved.
Brackets
Indices (e.g.42, 33)
Division and Multiplication – solved in the order they are found
Addition and Subtraction – also solved in the order they are found
In class we will take this into some deeper problem solving where possible before heading off into multiplication and division next week.
English
Over the last couple of weeks we have been taking quite a detailed look at what gives an author a particular style. The skill is to identify the way texts are written with regard to what the author is trying to achieve which is very different to just looking at the ‘style’ of the book. For example, commenting on whether a book is a horror or a romance is to look only at the genre of the book and reveals nothing of the author’s style. Instead, looking at the way speech is controlled to reveal personality, or the way that description can build layers through a story teller’s voice is the kind of style we are studying.
Following in this vein, we have begun to tentatively analyse a book by Berlie Doherty (don’t ask me how to pronounce that) called Daughter of the Sea. I really think that the opening two pages are a master class in how to create a world through a beautiful story teller’s voice. If you get the chance, check it out and tell me what you think. Better still, get your child to read it to you and point out as many features of authorial style as they can to see how they are getting on.
We are using this book to drive the early composition work in which we are focussing on the expansion of ideas and the creation of ‘flow’. The new skill that we are developing is the use of statements to raise questions which can then be answered.
E.g. as a linking idea we have experimented with the following idea:
No book is perfect; it just depends on the reader and Mr S is the type of reader that treats books like they’re bananas.
The statement raises the question, ‘What are you on about?’ which requires the writer to now answer it with an explanation helping to link consecutive sentences together, thus creating flow. It’s a sophisticated approach but one which suggests that there is more to writing than just reporting and stating facts, forcing the writer to consider the reader more thoroughly.
In grammar we are still revising a few concepts and probing them with deeper questioning that requires more thorough justification. Although we are studying prepositional phrases, the fundaments that are being tested are the questions raised by adjectives and adverbs.
The questions are as follows:
Adjectives answer the following questions about nouns and pronouns:
- Which one?
- What kind?
- How many?
- Whose?
Adverbs answer the following questions about verbs, adjectives and other adverbs:
- How?
- When?
- Where?
- To what extent?
- Why?
Prepositional phrases contain a preposition (e.g. in, on, at, behind, after) and end in a noun (the object of the preposition) but do not contain a verb (otherwise they would become a clause rather than a phrase…Still with me..?)
e.g. behind the hedge, after the bell, in the garden.
When prepositional phrases are used to modify a noun, they are acting as adjectives. When they modify a verb, adverb or adjective they are acting as adverbs.
e.g.
The parent in the suit began crying in his grammar lesson. This one contains two. The first modifies the noun, parent, by answering the question, ‘Which one?’ so is adjectival, while the second modifies crying, which is a verb, by answering the question,‘Where?’
Simples…
Hope this is useful to you. Any feedback on these blogs would be much appreciated so please feel free to pass me your critiques.
