Polar Bears

This week in Maths we have concluded our work on geometry. The children expertly found missing lengths and angles in quadrilaterals and were able to match 3D shapes to their nets. We have begun work on calculating with decimals and are already feeling very confident with this! In English, we have been writing the story of 'How the Ladybird Got its Spots', taking inspiration from the Just So Stories we have been reading. The children were very reflective and aspirational when creating these - well done Polar Bears! In Topic, we have looked at the life cycle of butterflies and frogs. We discussed the similarities and differences between these and made posters to represent our findings.

We have been channeling our creativity in Polar Bears this week. We used Paint on the laptops to design exaggerated cartoon mini beasts, some of which were quite comical and book-worthy illustrations!  The children had continued to enjoy exploring the 'Just So' stories and had great fun performing poetry where the class had to explore a rather disgruntled camel... They have planned their own stories for how mini beasts obtained their distinguishing features which they will write next week. We have been super proud of the class in Maths this week. We have experimented with new types of activities, including Silent Teacher and Reflect, Expect, Check. The children have listened carefully and secured their methods for calculating missing angles before attempting some tricky quiz questions and reasoning. Keep it up Polar Bears!

What a wonderful first week back the children have had. We launched our new topic - Beast Creator - by conducting a mini beast hunt on the common. The children found numerous species of creepy-crawlies, including spiders, woodlice and centipedes. When we returned to school, we created a key of where these were located and analysed our findings. On Thursday afternoon, we were visited by some mini-monsters. Ed shared his knowledge of them, expertly answered our questions and enabled us to get close to these magnificent creatures. In our other Topic work, we looked at the different groups of mini beasts and used their characteristics to make a flowchart to help us classify some of the creatures we found on the common. In Maths, we have begun to explore angles. We have learnt about the different types of angles and have mastered using a protractor to measure them. In English, we have looked at a range of stories which explain how animals got their signature

Polar Bears have been learning all about the Hakka in PE. Today they had a 'HAKKOFF' with Penguins class!!!

Our English work this week has continued to focus on balanced arguments with the children writing a balanced argument for the question 'Have books become obsolete?'. In Maths we have finally finished our unit on fractions, decimals and percentages. The children have grasped the relationship between these and produced some aspirational and collaborative work on their equivalences. Following our outdoor exploration lesson on Thursday, we are looking forward to some work based on the geometry of shapes next term. We have had some Easter fun this week with egg and spoon races and various Easter crafts. We hope you all have a wonderful holiday and come back ready to work hard for the final term in Year 5. As part of our English work next term we will be making story pebbles in the first week back. Please can you help your child to find 2 large and flat-ish pebbles that a small picture can be painted on, we need the children to bring these in on the first day back

Firstly we would like to thank all the parents who were able to attend the Maths cafe on Thursday this week. We hope you all enjoyed working with your child and learnt some new games to help the children to continue to learn their times tables at home.  We have also sent home some slips with ideas for online games involving times tables and included a copy of your child's login to Education City  with this. In the feedback for the Maths cafe it was mentioned that it would be useful to know the calculation methods the children use in school so parents can support at home. Below are the main methods used and more detail can be found in the calculation policy which is on the school website   https://mulbartonprimary.norfolk.sch.uk/Newsite/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Calculation-policy.pdf   In English this week we have been discussing: Have books become obsolete? The children have thoroughly enjoyed debating this question and have begun to look at balanced arguments so th