Upwell Academy

Year R  

 Another super busy and successful week in Kerr class. We have been using the book ‘The squirrels who squabbled’ as a basis for our English work, we have been making predictions, thinking about the characters and the setting and finding some amazing words in the text like scrambled, sprinted and scampering to name just a few. In maths we have continued to work on subitizing numbers (knowing how many in a pattern without counting).  

Our new sounds this week have been ‘p - down the pirate’s plait and over his face... aarrgghhh!!’ and ‘g - round the girl’s face, down her hair and give her a curl’. 

In art we looked at and tried to replicate the work of Jean Miro and in geography we looked at our immediate environment at school and what a map of the classroom would look like, they then created their own maps.  

Next week we will be learning about people who help us and we will be having some very special visitors in to talk to us about their jobs.  

 Year 1  

Another busy week in Donaldson class! 

In English we have continued looking at Room on the Broom. This week we have been captioning pictures and ensuring we are using the 5 sentence essentials: capital letters, using phonics, finger spaces, full stops, and reading our work back. We began our first addition and subtraction unit in Maths. We have been adding by counting on from numbers within 10 and have been finding number bonds within 10. Our Geography topic this half term is Spatial Sense. We have had fun exploring different types of maps and this week looked at compass points. In Music we have been finding the pulse and beat in different songs. In PSHE this week we looked at falling out and making up. We considered different scenarios where someone was upset and ways in which they could resolve this. 

Thank you for those of you who uploaded homework, we thoroughly enjoyed looking through the posts in class. I will set new homework shortly. 

Have a wonderful weekend everybody! 

 

Year 2 

I can’t believe it is Friday again already! We have had yet another really productive week. In Maths we have started our addition and subtraction unit by practising our number bonds and have moved on to giving 1 and 10 more and less than a given number. We have also been practising our 2,5,and 10 times tables. In English we have continued to complete our stories, finishing the week with illustrating them. In Science we have explored how we know things are living, have died or are inanimate. In RE we looked at the story of Noah and that he sent the floods because he was angry with the world. A rainbow was sent to show forgiveness and a promise not to do it again. The class produced some beautiful work both in their writing and drawings. They have completed this week’s spelling test and are aware of the next set of spellings. Handwriting sheets with these spellings are going home today. The children have also completed the maths challenge set by the Trust – all coped well with this, and it gives them an opportunity to show us what they know. 

In computing we have discussed how we communicate online and how we can do this safely. 

Just a reminder that the children need to learn their weekly spellings and that there is a maths challenge and Sumdog each week to complete. It is also really important that the children read regularly at home and well done to more and more children getting to the top of the Reading Mountain! Thank you for your ongoing support. Have a lovely weekend. 

 

Year 3 

I can’t believe it is Friday again already! We have had yet another really busy week. In Maths we have started our addition and subtraction unit by practising our number bonds and have moved on to giving 1, 10 and 100 more and less than a given number. In English we have continued to read The Stone Age Boy, looking at it in much more detail and using it to plan our own version of the story. In Science we did an experiment looking at whether rocks were permeable or impermeable by putting them into water. We then recorded our results in a table and had a go at drawing a scientific diagram showing our observations. In PSHE we considered different types of questions and how we can use our Charlie Communication skills to ask effective questions. We compared the physical geography of our local area to the contrasting locality of San Francisco in Geography. We started learning about what life was like in the Bronze Age. We looked at the different types of writing in the Bible, including the Ten Commandments and then thought about why we have rules and why it is important to follow them. In art we looked at The Great Wave by Hokusai and discussed how he made prints. We have prepared our own polystyrene tiles to use next week to make our own prints from. In computing we considered how we communicate online and how we can do this safely. 

Just a reminder that the children need to learn their weekly spellings and that there is a challenge on Sumdog each week to complete. It is also really important that the children read regularly at home. Thank you for your ongoing support. Have a lovely weekend. 

 

Year 4

We have had a fantastic week of learning. Earlier in the week, we researched further into our topic for English and this resulted in us making rather sticky bird feeders! We are hoping that we get a visit from some feathered friends.

In Maths, we have been comparing numbers all the way to 100. We feel that we have mastered this now and look forward our next learning outcome. Did you know that XXI stands for 21 in Roman Numerals?

Thinking of the Romans, we have been learning about them in History. We now know how long they reigned, and how they were famous for building long straight roads.

Did you know that large scale maps have lots of details but small scale maps have minimal detail. We learnt this in Geography.  

The timestables test made us all feel a little bit worried but we all scored at least one point, with one of us getting 52/ 53. Mrs Wilkin introduced our Timestables progress board - five of us are at the top of the board!

We wish you all a restful weekend.

Year 5 

It has been another busy week for Year 5! We have started looking at observational poetry in English. In preparation for this, we spent some time outdoors, making close observations of things we could spot on the playground. We then created a bank of expanded noun phrases that we could then draw on to create our own short poems in the style of ‘Personal Helicon’ by Seamus Heaney. We also completed some sky paintings in preparation for writing our own poems next week, taking inspiration from observations of the sky as well as our water-colour paintings. In Maths, we have been practicing rounding numbers as well as revising number lines and mental strategies for adding and subtracting larger numbers. In History, we learned about the layout of Baghdad when it was first built, and produced our own labelled maps of the circular city, designed by Caliph Al-Mansur. We also spent some time using scales when map reading in geography. We did really well measuring the distances between UK cities using the scales given! Today, we had our art lesson looking at different styles in art, and then had a go at creating our own sketches of pears using different styles and techniques. 

Well done to Year 5 for their super homework this week too! You will find a reminder of the 5 homework elements as well as spelling test scores in the front of reading records.  

Homework club sign-up form: https://forms.office.com/r/HekznFdET5   

This is a quiet space for children to attend after school in order to complete their homework. Please only sign up for homework club if is it necessary (ie. if your child has not yet completed all of the homework tasks set or needs additional support). As always, I am happy to work with any children during the week if they need it too. 

Have a fantastic weekend! 

 

Year 6 

We are really getting into the swing of things now! This week, we have focused on our multiplication strategies, revising these in lots of different ways. We have finished our informal letters from the trenches in English and we are now exploring the ending of War Horse. In History this week, we learnt about how WW1 was fought. In Geography, we have learnt about the lines of longitude and latitude and why these are useful. We have also revised our Year 5 first aid skills, ready for our year 6 ones. Finally, this afternoon we are learning about the function of the heart. Wow, what a busy week!  

Well done to all of the children who completed all 5 areas of their homework this week. We do have high expectations of the homework, just like we would in class learning, behaviour, attendance etc. We strive for the children to be the best they can be!  

Here is the link for next week’s homework club: https://forms.office.com/r/HekznFdET5   

 This is a quiet space for children to attend after school in order to complete their homework. Please only sign up for homework club if is it necessary (ie. if your child has not yet completed the homework tasks set or need additional support). As always, I am happy to work with children during the week if they need it too.  

Have a fantastic weekend everyone. Thank you for your hard work and support.