Author: Mrs Hogarth

As part of our ‘Being safe’ theme, we have been discussing what a drug is, including alcohol. The children were encouraged to think about how they would manage risk and deal with influences and pressure. We talked about why people might choose to use drugs, smoke or drink alcohol. What would they say if they were placed in a scenario where they were offered any of these drugs? When discussing how to manage such scenarios, some strategies they could apply included being passive and not actively joining in. Other options included being more willing to confront people about what they were doing.

Help at home: ask your child if they know where to get help if they’re worried about drugs or being safe. They could talk to a trusted adult. Do they know who their trusted adults are? They could also contact Childline on 0800 1111 or even contact the police using 111.

We are sadly coming to the end of our Art topic and we have spent the week finalising our prints and adding the last final touches. The children were working on overlaying their prints with different colours or adding detail to their designs. The children really thought carefully about their colour choices, choosing complementary colours or vivid contrasting ones.

Some children took their designing skills further and designed a new printing tile – still inspired by nature. They created new designs of different sizes and their aim was to try and create their own repetitive patterns, very much like wallpaper. They considered colours carefully again. Here are some fabulous pictures of their finished pieces. Parents, you can breathe a sigh of relief as hopefully they won’t be coming home with much paint on them next week!

Year 5/6 have been busy creating more prints this week as part of our art topic. The children in a previous lesson had already created a leaf design on a polystyrene tile. They’d used this to create a simple print using acrylic paint. Moving on, the children have now added more detail to their leaves, such as veins and blemishes. The children selected alternative colours this time to print over the top of their original prints. The children thought really carefully about their colour choice. Did they want vibrant colours or complementary colours? It was great to see the children discussing their art with each other and thinking of changes and improvements to their original designs.

This week in reading, Year 5 have been enjoying a video called ‘Lily and the snowman.’ The video is a story about a child who builds a snowman and he comes to life. When the snowman starts to melt, Lily puts him in the freezer in the garage. Each day she brings him out and they sit and share stories together. Over time, Lily forgets about the snowman and she no longer visits him. Many years later, she remembers that he is still in the freezer in the garage and that she has forgotten all about him now that she is older and has so much to do. She returns to her parents house to see if he is still there – he is! The video is about always making time for the things you love. It might make you shed a tear – I nearly did!

The children have used the video to complete lots of learning over the week. They have thought of questions they could ask Lily and the Snowman. We then did a hot-seating activity in which a child takes on the role of a character. They must answer the questions as if they are the character. The children were also able to apply their oracy skills – voice projection, prosody and clarity and pronunciation.

Have a look at the video at home with your child. What do they like/dislike about it? Can they create some questions for the video? Can they infer what the characters are thinking or feeling?

Lily and the snowman

Our mission, in science this week, was to investigate the effects of water resistance on objects. This followed on from our previous learning about how air resistance effects objects, in which the children found that the impact of air resistance increases, the larger the surface area of the object. We wondered if the same rule applied this time.

The children created five different shapes using plasticine. They had to ensure the mass of each one was the same, but the surface area needed to be different. This is known as the independent variable. The children dropped the shapes into a container of water  and timed how long they took to reach the bottom. We had to be very quick at timing! The results were recorded in a table and our next job is to work out the average time for each shape and analyse the results. From this, the children will write a scientific conclusion.

Ask your child about the investigation. Can they tell you about different types of variables withing investigations? You could even set up a similar activity at home and see what results you get.