English: We have read a few more chapters of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this week and have got up to the part where Charlie finds the last golden ticket. We had great fun imagining what Charlie would have felt like by going on a hunt to find our own golden tickets that had been hidden around the school. The children then wrote a diary in character as Charlie, explaining how they found the golden ticket and how they feel about it.

Maths: We have continued with our fraction work this week. We have been learning about equivalent fractions using lots of visual images to help us. The Year 2’s have been learning how one half is equivalent to two quarters and have been proving this in different ways. They year 3’s have been using a fraction wall to help them identify equivalent fractions and then have been challenged to identify any patterns they notice in the fractions – for example, 1/2, 2/4, 3/6, 4/8  – identifying that the numerator is half of the denominator.

Science: We have begun our new topic of ‘Rocks and Fossils’. We spent some time exploring different rocks this week and discussing similarities and differences between them. The children then used pastels to draw some labelled pictures to identify what they are like.

History: We have been finding out about the countries the Romans invaded and when. We have been identifying these countries on a map and seeing how the Roman Empire expanded over time.

RE: The children have been writing about the story of Jonah this week.

Computing: The children have continued to develop and practise their programming skills this week through the programme ‘scratch’.

French: We have started to learn the names of the days of the week.

PE: The children have continued with their gym and games lessons this week.

English: We have begun reading our new book for this term ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’. We have had some fantastic discussions about what life is like for Charlie Bucket and how he feels at different points in the story. The children have loved learning about the characters within this story and have had a go at creating some of their own. They have been describing both their character’s appearance and behaviour by using similes, adjectives, expanded noun phrases and adverbs.

Maths: We have been learning about fractions this week – focusing on finding fractions of amounts. The Year 2 children have been finding half and quarters of amounts and have been problem solving and reasoning about their understanding. The Year 3 children have been finding unit fractions of amounts – one third, one fifth, one sixth and have moved onto finding non-unit fractions of amounts – two fifths, three sixths, two thirds etc.

The children have been realising how their times tables can help them with their fraction work. Please encourage and support your child to practise these at home regularly – Year 2 focus on the 2, 3, 5 and 10 times tables and Year 3 focus on those as well as the 4 and 8 times tables. Thank you for your continued support with this.

History: We have started our topic on the Romans this week. We have spent some time thinking about what we already know and what we would like to find out.

Art: The children have been researching and designing their own Roman Mosaics this week.

PE: The children have begun a new gym unit of work and have enjoyed the lovely weather playing games outside.

RE: We have started our new unit of work finding out what Christians believe about God. The children have enjoyed learning about the story of Jonah this week.