Welcome to Otter's Class Page

Teacher: Mrs Marie Bird

               Mrs Chantelle Clarke (maternity)

Teaching Assistant: Mrs Sue Evans

                                  Mrs Rosie Bradbury

Some things to note:

• P.E. will be with Ryan every Monday afternoon. Please come to school in your P.E. kit on Mondays so you can wear this all day ready for your session in the afternoon!
• Homework will be sent out on Fridays and will be due back on the following Tuesday.  Pleas encourage your child to complete their homework at home.  Let me know if you have any difficulties.
• You will always need to have a reading book from school to read at home. When you have finished reading your book, please bring it back to school and let us know so we can help you to choose a new one.
• Make sure to log all of your reading (both independently and with someone at home) on Go Read!
• Please make sure you have a water bottle in school EVERY day.
• Please put sun cream on before school if the weather is set to be warm.
• Don't forget our PE kit every Thursday.

SUMMER

The children have returned this Summer Term full of determination.  During the run-up to SATs they all worked super hard and we were all so proud of how they tackled SATs week :-)

We are looking forward to finishing their last term in primary with lots of fun learning and many of our children will take part in transition days in their new schools this term. However, we are mostly looking forward to our residential in July!

As the weather is getting warmer, please remember water bottles, sun cream and hats.

As always, if you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me.

Marie Bird

Reading

This half term, we are reading Skellig by David Almond.  We are intrigued as to where this book will take us.  Michael and Mina have discovered a man in the shed, and what will happen to the baby?

We loved our previous class book, Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell.  

We are enjoying the adventures of the young girl, Sophie, and her carer, Charles.  We can't wait to hear where their adventures take them!

We have finished The Island by Armin Greder, where we looked in depth at the meanings behind the text and illustrations.  Such a powerful book which hooked every reader.  A much recommended story.

Writing

This half term, we will be focusing on writing stories with a moral in the first person and also adventure stories.  I wonder where our stories will take us?!

Past writing...

In writing, we are developing our skills in extended narrative writing in the third person.  We will continue to develop our grammar knowledge to support us in our writing.  Watch this space for some examples of our work!

In writing, we will be studying autobiographies and focusing on the changing of tenses; the children will learn to write in the present and past progressive (continuous) tenses.  They will finish the unit by writing their own autobiography in the eyes of a superhero!

Maths

In Maths, we will be developing our knowledge of ratio.  We will also be working on statistics where we will develop skills in reading and creating tables.

We will be consolidating our learning fractions - equivalent, simplifying, adding, subtracting, multiplying, proper fractions, improper fractions and mixed numbers.  

Science

The unit this half term is Evolution and Inheritance.   the children will be looking at how the earth has changed, our genes and how we have inherted features from our parents.

History

This half term, we will be looking at local history in Barnham and Euston.  The children will find out how their local village has changed over time.

Geography

In Geography, we will be learning about settlements and how the land is used.  We will also develop our knowledge or migrants, refugees and the Atlantic Slave Trade.

Layers of the Earth

We started our Geography topic off with making layers of the earth.  The children learnt about the inner core, the outer core, the mantle and the crust; we then made our own earth, with layers, to consolidate our learning.

Art & Design

Our focus this half term is printing and textiles.  The children will learn to draw using a vanishing point and print using polystyrene tiles.  They will use their work to create batik on textiles using wax and a tjanting tool.

Design and Technology

This half term, we are focusing on Food and Nutrition.  the children will be learning about healthy foods and different skills in cooking.  They will all have the chance to taste the foods they make.

Religious Education

In RE, we will be learning about Hinduism.  We will be focusing on how Brahman and Atman influence the way a Hindu lives.

This week, Otters have been deepening their understanding of Hinduism. They linked their RE to their PSHE learning and talked about how we should care for each other and the world around us. Otters were given the challenge to look after their new 'egg friends' for 24 hours and to keep them safe and happy. We all loved seeing the egg-cellent new faces, which joined us in Otter Class this week!

Computing

This half term we will be learning about 3D modelling.  They will develop their skills in 3D modelling using a specialised programme.

Music

The children will continue to develop their singing and performing skills during Collective Worship.  Our focus will be based around A New Year Carol by Benjamin Britton and will give the children the chance to look at other songs composed by him.

PE

PE will be with Ryan every Monday afternoon.  the children will focus on target skills, movement and games.

Autumn

Our focus text for the next two weeks is: 

Reading

During our reading lessons for two weeks, we will be reading a number of extracts and 'All Aboard the Empire Windrush'. Within these lessons we will be focus on the following reading strategies: summarising, retrieval and inference. 

Literacy 

Within our literacy unit, the children will be learning how to write an autobiography. They will be learning the compositional and grammatical aspects of the text type; focusing specifically on chronology; adverbials, prepositions and conjunctions that show time, cause and place; relative clauses, past progressive tense as well as identifying facts and opinion. I can't wait to show you their final written versions of their own autobiographies!

Science

The topic this half term for science is, 'Living things and their habitats'. So far, the children have learnt about the scientist, Carl Linnaeus. They all know that he created the Taxonomy System for classifying living things. The children have analysed this system and have learned about specific parts of it; in particular, Kingdom, Phylum and Class.

Our focus text for the term:

War horse, written by: Michael Morpurgo

Literacy 

This week the children will be writing a pamphlet that persuades members of the public to requisition their horses to support war effort during World War One. To prepare for this writing task, the children have identified compositional and grammatical features of a persuasive text. 

A real artist...

Otter class were fortunate enough to receive a visit from Nicola Marray-Woods (a real life artist); she showed the children her amazing drawings and Otters were just in awe. As a class, we made a start on sketches that will contribute to our whole school history timeline - what an exciting project!