Summer 1

Our driver subject this half term is History. We will be asking the question  ‘What’s revolutionary about the industrial revolution?’

The children will start this unit of work by thinking about what they already know about the Victorians and the Industrial Revolution. They will then start the unit by investigating who the Victorians were and will draw on knowledge they learnt previously in Year 2. The children will then learn what the Industrial Revolution was, what steam trains are and what changes they made to our world, how the demand for coal changed during this period, how iron was made and at this point the children will learn about the history of Ironbridge in preparation for our residential trip. Next, the children will learn about the living conditions during this period in history and what life was like for children working in factories.

Finally, the children will learn about famous inventors and inventions before answering our overarching question, ‘What’s revolutionary about the industrial revolution?’.

English

In English this half term, the children will continue their work on The Tempest by writing a diary entry from a character's perspective from The Tempest. The children thoroughly enjoyed their trip to Stratford for Shakespeare Week, I know this will have given them plenty of ideas for their writing.

They will then explore the book 'Journey to Jo'burg' by Beverley Naidoo. The children will start the unit by making predictions about the text and and will learn about the historical context of the story before reading this fantastic thought provoking narrative. They will then explore one of the main characters, again to write a diary entry from their point of view, ensuring they consider the characters feelings and view points. 

We will then move onto formal letter writing, the children will write a letter from a characters point of view to the local government, putting forward a very important persuasive case.  The children will then move onto informal letter writing, finally followed by fable writing. 

We will make the most of every writing opportunity to explore grammatical devices used and also revise those grammatical devices they are still unconfident with. Please encourage your child to visit Spag.com at least twice a week to revise.

Maths

In Maths our first new unit will be, ‘Fractions, Decimals and Percentages’. During this unit, the children will learn to:  add and subtract fractions with the same denominator and denominators that are multiples of the same number, multiply proper fractions and mixed numbers by whole numbers, solve problems involving multiplication and division, recognise the per cent symbol (%) and understand that per cent relates to ‘number of parts per hundred’ and finally write percentages as a fraction and as a decimal. We will then start our next unit, ‘Transformations’ where the children will learn to identify, describe and represent the position of a shape following a reflection or translation, using the appropriate language, and know that the shape has not changed. Finally, will then start our next unit ‘Converting units of measure’ where the children will learn to convert between different units of metric measure (for example, kilometre and metre; centimetre and metre; centimetre and millimetre; gram and kilogram).

Science

In Science, our new unit of work will be, ‘Marvellous Mixtures’. We will be answering the following questions:

How can we separate mixtures?

What happens when we mix liquids and solids?

What makes a difference to how fast sugar or salt dissolves?

Are all the changes that happen around us reversible or non-reversible?

What happens when a candle burns?

RE

In RE, we will be focusing on Sikhism and will be exploring this enquiry question:

What is the best way for a Sikh to show commitment to God?

PSHE

In PSHE our new topic will be, ‘Relationships’. During this topic the children will: learn how to keep building their self-esteem, recognise when an online community feels unsafe or uncomfortable, understand there are rights and responsibilities in an online community or

social network, learn there are rights and responsibilities when playing a game online, learn to recognise when they are spending too

much time using devices (screen time) and finally recognise and resist pressures to

use technology in ways that may be risky

or may cause harm to themselves or others.

Computing

Our new unit will be, ‘Spreadsheets’. The children will: create a formula in a spreadsheet to convert m to cm, learn to use the ‘how many’ tool, use a spreadsheet to work out the area and perimeter of rectangles, create simple formulae that use different variables and finally use a spreadsheet to model a real-life situation and come up with solutions.

ART

In Art lessons, the children will be preparing for their ‘Tube Lining Decorating Tile’ workshop at Ironbridge. They will begin this unit by learning about William Morris and his influence on the Victorian era. They will make observations about his artwork using key vocabulary. The children will then learn the history of the Jackfield Tile Museum and learn the technique (for when they visit) of tube lining a design onto a tile, using liquid slip, which they will then infill using coloured glazes. They will also discover how this process was popular in the Art Nouveau period (1890-1910).  After this, they will recap primary and secondary, warm and cold, complementary and contrasting colours. Using this knowledge, they will explore different colours to create a desired effect using only the primary colours. Finally, the children will design their tiles ready for the workshop at Ironbridge.

    PE

This half term, the children will be learning the skills to support them to play tennis in their Wednesday PE lesson. Children should come to school wearing a white T shirt, black shorts/joggers, school sweatshirt or cardigan and trainers on these days.

For their second PE session  (day to be confirmed) the children will take part in a Forest School afternoon. Please see email/class letter for further details regarding appropriate clothing etc...

Useful Links to Practise Key Skills

English:

Oxford Owl- provides access to free e-books (you have to create a free account to view them) 

Your child has an individual log-in for this website. They can play spelling games based on lists of words. 

Use these links to find an interesting image. What do you think is happening? Can you describe what is happening in your exercise book? Can you write a story about it?

On the Pobble 365 website, there is a different image everyday for you to use. If you click on 'Pick a Day' in the right hand corner of the Pobble 365 website you can select an image from any day. 

This blogger has compiled a list of children's authors with great books to read, each author has a few reading based activities on their website. 

Audible has lots of free audiobooks for children while you're learning at home.

KS2 Bitesize English is a fantastic resources to revise SPAG, different types of text and reading.

Maths:

This website has lots of age appropriate maths resources and they have produced home learning packs for each year group with helpful videos and activities for each day of home learning. 

Maths Mastery have produced lots of fantastic free resources for children to use at home.

This website has lots of interactive Maths games. 

This website groups games together well and you can search by subject.

Times Table Rock Stars - your child has an individual log in for this.

This is a story based maths game which your child can log into with their TT Rock stars log ins.

Other Subjects:

This is a fantastic website with lots of videos, interactive activities and printable resources around all the subjects as well as current events. Great for exploring if you want some extra material in your home learning. Children you can watch the '60 Seconds News' following this link (the same as we watch in class!). 

Once clicking this link, choose 'Espresso' from the drop down log-in menu in the top right hand corner. You have been given, in the front of your exercise books, a username and password for this website. 

With this link you can take a virtual tour around the British Museum, London. 

This website has lots of activities you can do in the garden, as well a lots of information about animals and plants for research tasks.

Find out information and take quizzes using this link.

These games are the first steps of computer programming, they are very engaging for children. 

This is a typing game for children.

Joe Wicks 'The Body Coach' has a series of 5 minute videos aimed at children. He is also running a 30 minute PE session every morning at 9:00 on his YouTube channel (The Body Coach).

This website has fun movement videos for children