Week 15 (29.06.20)

Hello Chestnut and Maple!
 
Thank you all for the congratulations and kind thoughts last week. I am back in school this week, although with a Year 5 bubble rather than Lower Key Stage 2. I will be continuing to update this blog for both classes for the remainder of the term and it will continue in the same format to make sure it remains accessible, stimulating (hopefully!) and follows our school curriculum. In her letter of the 19th June, Mrs Smith requested that as of this week any questions, queries and any work is sent to your child’s class teacher rather than the member of staff writing the blog, this is because some blogs (such as this one and the ones for Year 1 and Year 2) are written by a different member of staff than who may normally have taught your child over the course of the year. For example, Mr Johnson is writing the blog for all of Year 2, but he doesn’t teach all of the Year 2 children; this means the children who are in Mr Johnson’s class will send their work or questions to him, whilst the children in Mrs Young’s class will send them to her. So, please may the children in Chestnut send any questions or examples of work to Miss Moffet (katie.moffet@school360.co.uk) and children in Maple send them to me (craig.warburton@school360.co.uk). Of course, if you just want to drop either of us a line to say “hello”, then that would be more than welcome! I’ve enjoyed being in touch with everyone from both classes! Also, whilst I was behind for a while following a rather busy time the other week (for one reason or another!) I should now have gotten back to all of you about your work. When I am in school teaching a separate group of children, I will respond to emails but unfortunately feedback or responses may not be as immediate or in as much detail as they were, apart from the last two weeks when I was working at home during my paternity period.
 
Well done to Addy and Tommy who are both this week’s Stars of the Week! Addy has written a simply incredible, and rather epic, 9-page tale and Tommy has donned a rather professorial jacket and leather armchair to tell us all about volcanoes in his home-made video!
 
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English
Activity 1 (Spellings)
Please may your child practise their week 5 set of spellings, guided by their sheet in the work pack.
 
Activity 2 (Independent Reading)
Please read The Abominables for half an hour.
 
Activity 3 (SPaG)
Please may your child complete pages 43 and 44 of their SPaG booklet. Page 44 has a story which is “the continued story from page 19”. This is not page 19 from the worksheets which were printed as part of the home learning pack, rather it is from the larger book that accompanies them and which was not sent home. Your child doesn’t need page 19 to be able to enjoy the story on page 44 or successfully complete the task. This SPaG activity will help your child complete their independent writing this week because before now I have been fairly prescriptive about how many paragraphs they need to write and what needs to be in each paragraph. This week, it will be up to them to organise their own work in a way that make sense.
 
Activity 4 (Reading Comprehension)
Please may your child read and answer the questions to the non-chronological report about Captain Tom Moore. As usual, the text has three levels of difficulty, so please just choose the one that you feel is most suitable.
 
Activity 5 (Independent Writing)
Now that we have finished reading Mr Stink, your child will review a book by David Walliams. As we have spent a long time on Mr Stink, they may want to switch focus and review another one of his books, such as Billionaire Boy for example, or any other book written by David Walliams that they have previously read. Before writing their book review, your child should stop to consider the things that are recognisable about David Walliams’ books – the humour; the way the story is told from the point of view of a child; the fact that the leading character is a child who is a bit lonely and who doesn’t have a happy home life; the way David Walliams interrupts the plot with lists, timetables, menus and other things that are not part of the story; and the fact that he talks directly to the reader (such as in this extract from Billionaire Boy):
 
In short, Joe was one horribly spoilt kid. He went to a ridiculously posh school. He flew on private planes whenever he went on holiday. Once, he even had Disneyworld closed for the day, just so he wouldn’t have to queue for any rides. Here’s Joe. Speeding around his own private racetrack in his own Formula One racing car. Some very rich children have miniature versions of cars specifically built for them. Joe wasn’t one of those children. Joe needed his Formula One cars made a bit bigger. He was quite fat, you see. Well, you would be, wouldn’t you? If you could buy all the chocolate in the world.
 
You will have noticed that Joe is on his own in that picture. To tell the truth, speeding around a racetrack isn’t that much fun when you are on your own, even if you do have a squillion pounds. You really need someone to race against. The problem was Joe didn’t have any friends. Not one.
 
David Walliams has what is called a colloquial style, it’s friendly, quick and easy to read even when dealing with some pretty difficult or sensitive issues.
 
When they come to write their review, it should start by saying what the book is called, who it is by and in one sentence what it is about it. It should finish by giving a recommendation about who the book is suitable for (you might want to consider the age of children the book might appeal to), similar books (could be by the same author or another author, such as Roald Dahl) and a star rating. The main body of the review should answer the following questions, although not necessarily in this order (in fact, a review is very similar to a non-chronological report, like the text about Captain Tom. It is separate pieces of information / opinions grouped together in paragraphs along similar themes, but these paragraphs – except the introduction and conclusion / final recommendation – can go in any order, and it makes no difference to whether the text makes sense or not; unlike a story whose events have to be ordered by time):
 
  1. Did it make you laugh? Which parts are funny? Can you give examples?
  2. Were the characters well-written? Did you sympathise with the main character (can you see yourself in a similar – but not as outlandish – situation?)
  3. Did it have a good plot? Did you keep on wanting to read on? Was it a page-turner?
  4. Where was the book set? Was the setting realistic?
  5. Was the language easy to read and suitable for the age it’s written for?
 
As an entirely optional extension, when reading or listening to Billionaire Boy, your child may notice that David Walliams spends a long time telling the reader about the timetable for Joe’s school. Whilst this doesn’t advance the story, it does serve an important purpose: it shows the reader in ways that just using adjectives like “posh” wouldn’t just how different Joe’s school is (which he discovers when he goes to the school instead). Similarly, the list of teacher and parent catch phrases doesn’t tell us any more about Joe’s life or what’s going to happen next, but it does make Joe a more relatable character as your child will no doubt recognise many of them! If your child wants to, I have attached a copy of the timetable for Joe’s private school and a blank timetable so that your child can create one for their ideal school. This is in both Word and PDF. I have also attached a list of teacher catchphrases, as well as their sentence type, in case your child wants to create their own top 10!
 
Billionaire Boy is available on Audible (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Billionaire-Boy/dp/B00557HRKE), a YouTube playlist (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAMRFZEkp6Le01WXPeRU8Bds5_v-foHmE) and on BBC iPlayer for free https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06t0xym. It is also available as a physical book from most book retailers online and possibly from WHSmith and Barter Books locally.
 
Maths
Activity 1 (Coordinates) @EMAIL
Last week your child plotted some coordinates to make a given shape, this week they have been given some shapes plotted onto a grid and instead they are going to move them left, right, up or down and count the number of squares that they have moved. This is called TRANSLATION. Please note that they may move in two directions, for example right and then up:
 
 
As it is the same shape, it’s important that your child goes counts from the same corner on Shape A to Shape B, not just the first corner they happen to come across on Shape B! If the question then also asks them what are the coordinates of points A and B, all they need to write (for the example above) would be A (1,4) and B (7,8). It is important to separate the digits with a comma otherwise it would be 14 and 78, which are 2-digit numbers not coordinates.
 
On the harder sheets, it asks for your child to draw the position of the shape after it has been translated. What they need to do here is to start from point A (which is shown) and count however many squares left or right then up or down they have been told. Once they have done that, they should mark that coordinate somehow, possibly with an X, and draw the exact same shape as they have already been given. It is vital that they understand that the corner they are starting from is the SAME corner as is marked with an ‘A’ on the first shape, it is not necessarily the bottom of the shape. The hardest sheet has these kinds of question but also has shapes that have been translated twice: from A onto B and then onto C. This is actually exactly the same process as before, just once you have moved the shape once you count how many squares it has moved, and in which direction(s), to get onto C from B. For example:
 
 
In the above example, and in all cases, it doesn’t matter if you say “to translate Shape A onto Shape B, you go 6 squares to the right and 3 squares down” or “to translate Shape A onto Shape B, you go 3 squares down and 6 squares to the right” as both end up at the same point.
 
Please do note that the sheets get increasingly complex in difficulty, so it might be an idea to just start on the one star sheets first to get an idea before trying the harder ones.
 
If you fancy an alternative, there is a game attached. You will need a pair of dice, and roll them one at a time. The number on the first die tells you how many squares you should move left or right (your choice) and the second die tells you the same, but this time up or down (again, it’s your choice which direction). Play a few rounds and the winner is the person who collects the most treasure.
 
This second online game might also help those who are struggling identify what a translation is when it comes to shapes, and why the shape should look the same just in a different place. You will need Flash for the game to run. http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/mathgames/geometry/shapeshoot/TranslateShapesShoot.htm
 
Activity 2 (Arithmetic)
Please may your child complete the four operation word problems sheet in their arithmetic pack. None of the numbers themselves are particularly challenging, the difficulty comes from working out which operation to use. Please remind your child to be careful as some may need them to use more than one operation.
 
Activity 3 (Times Tables)
Whether your child wants to complete their times tables online at https://ttrockstars.com/ or on the sheets provided in the work pack is up to them. If they choose to complete them on paper, then please may they complete the ‘fifth group’ of three sheets (Week 14, Week 15 and Week 16) which focus on the 3,4,5,6,7,8,9, and 10 times tables. If they choose to complete this activity online, then there will be 10 sessions for them to complete. Online games will test all the times tables, however. If, on the other hand, your child wants to complete the games online, there is nothing stopping you giving them some of the sheets to do too!
 
Activity 4 (Big Maths)
Please may your child complete their next Big Maths sheet. Big Maths sheets for Stages 1 to 6 continue to be available from my Google Drive in the Big Maths folder https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SxMvlQZho_ZOpXhbzYKcXSmbTAlgDxsf?usp=sharing.
 
Activity 5 (Schofield & Sims)
Please may your child complete the next two pages in their Schofield & Sims arithmetic book.
 
Science
Rocks
Having learned about volcanoes in geography, we are moving onto the three types of rock (sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous) and how they are formed. This video from BBC Bitesize explains what can be quite a dry subject in a fun way https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/z9bbkqt/articles/zsgkdmn, there are also two quizzes to go with it.
 
Not all rocks are natural, however, as some are man-made (such as brick). Using the PowerPoint can children spot the rocks in the first eight pictures then quickly go over again (assuming you have watched the video) the three different types of naturally occurring rock and how they are formed. After that there is some information about the history of man-made rocks and what we use them for, and finally an activity sheet where children need to sort rocks into whether they are naturally occurring or man-made, and, on the harder difficulty sheets, if they think they are naturally occurring whether they are sedimentary, metamorphic or igneous. There is a selection of pictures of different rocks to go with this. Next week, children will be learning about fossils but there will also be an optional activity depending on the resources you have at hand to test the permeability of the three different types of rock.
Once again, thank you for all your help supporting your child and stay safe,
Mr W