*Please return singing consent forms- if you are going on the singing trip*

*Forest School clothing not required on Tuesday due to singing trip*

*Residential deposit due this week*

In our Maths learning this week, the children finished off their statistics learning- focusing on line and pie graphs, they will need this understanding for topic work during the rest of this half term. The children then moved on to learning about fraction, decimal and percent equivalents.

During our English lessons, the children finished drafting their poems, edited, and improved them- making sure word choices were ambitious and not repeated. They then wrote their improved versions up in their best handwriting. During this, the children reflected on their handwriting and they now know how they need to improve their handwriting further. They have also been thinking about what makes a good performance when sharing their work; some children shared their poems with the class.

During our Science lesson, we learnt about the circulation system. We learnt about the different parts of the heart and how oxygen is pumped around the body. We were intrigued by oxygenated and deoxygenated blood and will continue our learning about this next week!
In our R.E lesson this week, the children learnt about the story of ‘Nian’, which is a story from Chinese culture about the origins of Chinese New Year. The children designed their own creature based on this story, which will actually link to our next English writing topic. 
This week in our music lesson, the children finished writing their ‘Climate Change’ song, which some children will be sharing in front of other BridgeMat children and staff on Tuesday.
During our Forest School lesson, the children planned walks around Pelynt and local areas; they learnt about maps in more detail including contour lines and symbols. They then used string to help measure the distance of their walk- thinking about the scale.

Thank you to Mrs Goddard for coming in to Class 4 to give us a talk on handwashing; we all REALLY enjoyed using the ‘glo germ’ to see our hands under the UV light! We got to see which parts of our hands we have been missing when washing them. This linked perfectly with our topic and hopefully the demonstration will help us all stay a little healthier this year!
For our topic we have also been learning basic yoga poses; we have been trying to use this as a time for quiet, self reflection. Our poses are currently a work in progress!!! 

On Friday, we welcomed two visitors from the NSPCC into our class; they gave us an interesting workshop about staying safe and gave us ideas of what to do if we do not feel safe. The visitors were extremely impressed with our focus and our level of understanding already.

Things to remember for next week:

*Singing trip on Tuesday
*Residential deposit 
*P.E kits will be needed for Friday afternoon
*Homework books to be handed in on Thursday morning

*Please read the events diary on this website for dates

Happy New Year to you all.

It has been great to welcome everyone back this week into our new topic, ‘Health and Wellbeing.’ We started the week looking into our topic question, ‘What does it mean to be healthy?’ The children created their own questions from this to help guide the topic in the direction of their interests.

We have a new reading area in class, called, ‘Read and Ride’, where the children can cycle on an exercise bike whilst another child is reading to them. We have a hotly contested competition- seeing who can travel the furthest in 2 minutes. I am currently not winning the competition- but watch this space : )

In guided reading this week, we have been focusing on understanding different genres. The children worked in groups to sort a range of books into the correct genre. They were also specifically looking at the genres you can have within fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts, which caused some fantastic debate and discussion within class. The children also designed a library card, which will be used when they visit the library to know where they got their book from so it can be returned to the correct place. The card will also act as a record of books the children have personally read and has a column for the children to record the genre of book too. The hope is for children to be reading texts from different genre; there is a competition in class to see who can read 16 different genres first!

In our English lessons, the children have been reminding themselves about the different word classes. They have also learnt about prepositional and expanded noun phrases. The children have used this understanding to start planning a poem based on sport stars, which uses specific grammar features in a set structure. To help their planning, they have also been learning about similes, metaphors, and imagery within poetry.

During our Maths lessons, the children have been learning about statistics; they have interpreted data from pictograms, bar and line graphs and solved problems; they will be moving on to pie charts next. The children have also gathered and recorded their own data from the other classes to assess their understanding of what it means to be healthy. They have done this because after Class 4 have learnt about health and wellbeing, they will then be teaching the other children in school about being healthy. They will then reassess the understanding of the other classes and see whether their input has had any effect.


Things to remember for next week:
*Forest school clothes need to be in school for Tuesday
*P.E kits will be needed for Friday afternoon
*Reading books and reading records - please initial and comment in your child’s reading record so we can sign off their karate bands 4*Homework books to be handed in on Thursday morning
*Please read the events diary on this website for dates

We had a fantastic final week in Class 4 before the Christmas break.
Throughout the week, we enjoyed different Christmas activities such as making Christmas cards, making and decorating salt dough and orange slices for the Christmas tree, making dolly peg snowmen, making snowflakes, and preparing and making shortbread. The children also had a math’s challenge where they had to make different 3d shape snowmen using their nets and once built, they had to match the 3d shape snowmen to the mathematical shape name.
Midweek, we had our Christmas lunch and Class party. The children enjoyed playing the games, dancing and eating the party food! Thank you to everyone who donated some food for the party.
During the week, the children finished planning and preparing for their ‘Victorian Christmas’ which we had on Thursday. They learnt about the traditions and foods eaten during a rich and poor person’s Christmas. They then experienced parts of both of these types of Christmases and compared them to each other and to a modern day Christmas celebration.
During their Victorian Christmas, the children sat at a long dinner table with boys separated from girls. They were then asked to line up to receive their gruel in character, where they then experienced a poor person’s Christmas meal. After that, the mood was uplifted and the table was laid out like a Victorian banquet. The children had to follow rules similar to that of a wealthier Victorian Christmas dinner table whilst they tried different Victorian foods. In the afternoon, the children were desperate to play some of the ‘parlour’ games, which they had previously learnt about. They also exchanged gifts from the Christmas tree with another classmate- including a kind note written for them. 
On Friday, we enjoyed watching a mini-film based on a poor and wealthier Victorian Christmas, which we compared with our festivities from the day before and the Christmas which we would be having next week.

Mrs McLaren and I would like to say a very big thank you for all of our lovely well wishes, cards and gifts. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and hope you have a great time relaxing and enjoying the festivities and look forward to welcoming the children back with their recharged batteries on Tuesday 7th January!

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*After school clubs have now finished- they will resume w/c 13th January*

We had a great time making Christmas crafts with Mrs Napper this week (thank you to those who gave the £1 contribution). The children made four different crafts: a Christmas keyring and three, tree decorations. Of which, one was stain glass and one was a felt emoji decoration, which they had to sew.

This week in our Maths lessons, we have been carrying on our learning focus of fractions. The children developed their understanding of equivalents, looking at the fraction, decimal and percentage relationship. They learnt various ways of converting between fraction, decimals and percent to compare, order and solve problems.

In English this week, the children wrote their diary entries from the perspective of Nicolas the Sweep, from the Sainsbury’s advert based in 1869 (during Victorian times). They used drama and film clips to develop their initial ideas and to get in character. Then they used their understanding of diary entry key features to write a historically accurate account.

To round off our Science learning about electricity, the children made predictions and then recorded data from online electricity experiments, which they carried out. The children then compared their predictions to their findings. Some children also finished their electricity games, which they started last week.

Don’t forget… we will be performing our Nativity on Monday 16th December at 2pm and 6pm. As this is a whole school performance, we would like all children to return to school for the evening performance between 5.30 and 5.40pm.

**Christmas dinner on Wednesday. We will be having a Christmas mufti day too, so children can wear Christmas clothes, Christmas jumpers etc to school all day, please remember to bring in your £1 donation. We shall be having our class party in the afternoon and would be grateful if a food contribution could be made. A small plate of party food would be fantastic such as biscuits, crisps, cakes etc. Any questions, please feel free to speak to myself or Mrs McLaren.

***Thursday- Class 4 will be having a Victorian Christmas. They have been doing their own research on how the Victorians celebrated and will finish planning their planning for this day at the beginning of the week***

Things to remember for next week:
*Forest school clothes need to be in school for Tuesday afternoon
*Homework books to be handed in on Thursday morning
*Please read the events diary on this website for dates

*Please note...THEATRE TRIP THURSDAY 28th NOVEMBER…forms and contributions need to be handed in asap, thank you*

This week we had another visit from Matt Douglas- the musician helping the children write a song based on climate change. We finished our chorus and wrote a new verse and added these to music, which we helped compose.

During our English lessons, the children have been writing their suspense stories; they learnt about speech punctuation and tried to use accurately punctuated examples in their writing. To help the writing process, the children wrote some of their story ideas on their tables, which they enjoyed because they found they could edit and improve their writing more easily than in their books. They also used internet research and further reading to help them with their story ideas.

During our maths lessons, the children developed their understanding of place value in decimal numbers. They learnt how decimal numbers up to three decimal places can be represented and that they can be partitioned in different ways. The children really turned a corner with their understanding that for example: 3.21 can, not only be written as 3 units, 2 tenths and 1 hundredth but can also be written as 1 unit, 12 tenths and 101 hundredths.

In our Science lesson, the children continued learning about electricity; they became more confident with the symbols for electrical components and how they can change electrical energy into other forms of energy, for example: sound energy (buzzer) and light energy (bulb). The children also recorded their observations when they added different components to their circuit.  

In our topic lesson, the children used their researching skills to find out about an aspect of history from the Victorian era. They chose an area, which interests them, ranging from what the Victorians ate, games they played to their sewage systems!

In our PE lesson, the children practised their dribbling skills in hockey and learnt how to shoot using a hockey stick; they aimed at targets, which ranged in size. The children definitely improved from the start to the end of the lesson!


*DON'T FORGET TO VISIT OUR BOOK FAIR IN THE HALL AFTER SCHOOL EVERY DAY UNTIL THURSDAY THIS WEEK. IF YOU WOULD LIKE A CHANCE TO BROWSE FOR CHRISTMAS GIFTS WITHOUT THE CHILDREN, PLEASE CALL IN FIRST THING ON MONDAY, WHEN THERE WILL BE COFFEES AVAILABLE UNTIL 9.30. ANY BOOKS YOU PURCHASE WILL BE MATCHED BY SCHOLASTIC FOR OUR SCHOOL SO YOUR SUPPORT IS GRATEFULLY RECEIVED. THANK YOU.

*THEATRE TRIP on Thursday 28th November- thank you to everybody who has returned their consent form and paid for the trip so far. There are still some outstanding, so please hand these in to Mrs Trevaskis asap, many thanks.

Things to remember for next week:
*Forest school clothes need to be in school for Tuesday afternoon
*Homework books to be handed in on Thursday morning
* PE kits in on Friday
* Reading books and records in daily 

*Please read the events diary on this website for dates

*Please note this half term, P.E will now run on Friday afternoons, with Forest School on Tuesday afternoons* 

This week in our maths lessons, we have been learning about mathematical vocabulary. We have improved our understanding of factors, multiples and common multiples along with squared, cubed and prime numbers. All children were able to answer reasoning and problem solving questions based on their understanding of these mathematical terms.

During our English lessons, we started a new learning journey; we learnt how authors manipulate language and how authors use figurative language to create a powerful image; we immersed ourselves with a variety of suspense stories and learnt the key features of these types of stories. We are having a large grammar focus this half term so will be learning key grammatical terms whilst writing our own suspense story.

On Tuesday, the children in year 6, travelled to Looe Community Academy for a STEM lesson, where they learnt the science behind fireworks. We had a session with the year 6 children from Duloe Academy, which was run by the teachers who our students will be taught by in year 7. This was a fantastic opportunity, not only science wise, but to get to know the secondary school, teachers and other year 6 children ready for the transition next September! The children had a great time using the Bunsen burners and burning salts which create the different colours in fireworks.

During our music lesson, the children wrote their own music piece and recorded their notes on a staff. They drew their notes depending on the pitch and tempo and tried to write it accurately enough that they could repeat exactly the same sounds when playing their piece of music again. 
For Remembrance Day, the children used their prior learning of poetry to write their own emotive poems giving thought and thanks to service men and women. The children practised speaking aloud to an audience when sharing in front of the class. A few children will be laying a wreath and sharing these poems at 11am on Monday.
This week we start our new topic, ‘Memories of the Past’. In a few weeks, the main focus of this topic will be, The Victorians, and what they did for us.

Things to remember for next week:
*Don’t forget to make an appointment for our parent consultations- you will find the sign-up sheets opposite Mrs Trevaskis at the office

*PE will be every Friday afternoon from this week so please ensure kits are in school
*Forest school clothes need to be in school for Tuesday afternoon. Please note that this is our new Forest School afternoon
*Homework books to be handed in on Thursday reading to be marked and returned on Friday

*Please read the events diary on this website for upcoming dates

Welcome to the first blog for Autumn 2.

On Tuesday, our first day back, we welcomed Matt Douglas into our class. He is a musician working with schools across the MAT to help us in our song writing for our Climate Change project. We enjoyed his vocal warm up games and the song writing activities, which he organised for us. When he left our class, we worked on our lyric ideas for when he comes back in a few weeks.
During a separate music lesson, the children learnt about different genres of music; they listened to examples of jazz, pop, rock, classical and reggae music. They learnt about tempo, pitch and the dynamics of the music and commented on each piece- including discussing how it made them feel. They then used these aspects of music to start planning their own piece of backing music to a scary clip, which links to their English work. They created a tool kit for the music and then used musical instruments, including keyboards, to start planning their ideas.

Our learning in English this week has been based on poetry. The children were focusing on poems with an eerie theme. They looked at how poets (and authors) create tension and build up suspense with their language and grammar choices. The children discussed the main purpose of each verse of their focus poem and summarised the key parts; they also practised their performance voices with some children sharing the poem in front of the class. They learnt how expression could affect how a piece of writing comes across and then they practised their best eerie voices in order for the poem to sound scary. The children then started developing their own ideas for a poem based on a character of their choice. They will continue these ideas next week.
In our maths lessons, year 6 children have improved their understanding of division with all children feeling more confident solving reasoning and problem solving questions. Year 5 children have been solving multi-step questions involving addition and subtraction including questions with negative numbers.

During Science, the children planned and carried out an investigation. Their key focus was making the investigation a fair test- thinking about variables and how they could accurately take measurements.

***Please note: I explained to the children on Friday, that I am keeping their homework books until next week. As we are starting a new topic, I would like all homework books in so they can all have the new homework grid  stuck in. If I have not received your child's pink homework book, please remind them to hand it in. If you wouldn’t mind back dating any homework that the children have completed, when you have the new grid this week, then the children can get their paper chains to add to their groups dragon. 
***Please note: From the week commencing the 11th of November, Class 4’s Forest School day will change from a Friday to a Tuesday. So to clarify, Forest school clothes this Friday and then the following Tuesday. P.E will remain in our Monday slot.

Things to remember:
*PE kits need to be in school for our lesson on Monday afternoon
*Forest school clothes need to be in school for Friday afternoon this week (then the following Tuesday)
*Please read the events diary on this website for dates

**Clubs will begin again on week commencing 4th November