Week Commencing March 31st

The final week of the term had been a busy one in Eagle Owl Class as our mountain topic comes to a close.   We've completed and reflected on our moving models, enjoyed watching the Hawk Owl play and have been busily writing mountain poetry and non-chronological reports on our mountain creatures.  In maths, we've have been revising division methods as well as adding and multiplying fractions.  We also explored the features of Ordnance Survey maps and after learning about how to use the map scale, worked with our learning partners to calculate the distance we would be walking on our hike!

On Wednesday, we headed out for our class hike, completing an 8.4km (approx) loop of the beautiful Manuden countryside in glorious sunshine.  The children had a lovely surprise with the arrival of Mrs Ellice and baby Eloise, who accompanied us on our walk.  A very big thank you to Mrs Cooper and Mrs Hastler for walking with us.  Well done to all the children who tackled the hike with great enthusiasm and spirit - it was a lovely afternoon.

We'd like to say a very big thank you to all the children for their hard work this term and we wish them a very restful and rejuvenating break ahead of what is certain to be a busy and exciting summer term.

Mrs Fox and Mrs Jarmain

 

Week Commencing March 24tWe've had a busy few weeks in Eagle Owl Class.

In English, we have been exploring story openers and investigating different ways we can begin narratives.  This week we have been looking at the features of biographies and have been researching the life of the famous explorer, Sir Edmund Hilary, in order to write a biography of his achievements.  With Mrs Jarmain, the children have been creating their own mountain creatures and writing descriptions of their creatures using a range of language techniques.

After completing our termly assessments last week in maths, we have been exploring coordinates and have been learning how to read and plot points in all four quadrants and have been translating and reflecting shapes and have also been learning how to find the mean of a set of data.

We've been making the most of the sunny weather in our PE lessons and the children have been enjoying playing basketball as well as playing a series of games aimed at developing leadership skills.

In DT, the children have been working very hard to construct their moving models. Lots of problem solving skills have been required to explore how best to get out cam mechanisms working and the children have demonstrated great teamwork and resilience. A very big thank you to Katy Cooper, Sopie Goodman, Leni Croker and Jenny Graves who came in to lend us a hand; your help was invaluable and very much appreciated.

 

 

Week Commencing March 3rd 

Eagle Owl Class had an activity-filled week with CPR training taking place in year groups at the start of the week, a successful netball tournament for our year 6 netballers on Monday and the excitement of World Book Day on Thursday.

 

 

 

 

 

Week Commencing February 24th

Eagle Owl Class have had a busy start to the half-term.  We began our week using our class text, "Touching The Void" as inspiration for our writing and explored what literary techniques we could use to add suspense to our writing. We began writing our own versions of chapter 5 continuing Joe's  perilous journey down the West Face of Siula Grande - a journey fraught with danger and impending tragedy.

In maths, we have been reviewing decimal, fraction and percentage equivalents and also practising multiplying and dividing numbers by 10, 100 and 1000's.

We also began our new DT project on mechanisms and looked at examples of toys with cams  to help us understand how cam mechanisms work.  Following our investigation, we drew our designs for our own moving mountain-themed models.

Week Commencing February 2nd

Eagle Owl Class have had a busy week five of the term with one of the highlights being two very special visitors... read on to find out who!

In English, we have been continuing to explore the illustrations and text of The Dam as inspiration for our writing and have been listening to examples of Northumbrian folk music and watching clips of  traditional dances to help us with our descriptive writing about the dance scene. We've also been thinking about how we can incorporate a wider range of punctuation into our writing with a focus on using parentheses in our yeti-inspired writing with Mrs Jarmain.

Our main focus in maths has been algebra and we've been busy formulating, writing and solving equations.  Tuesday morning saw a rousing start to our maths lesson as we took to the playground to put our rounding skills to the test with some "rounding  races"!

On Tuesday, we also received a visit from Mrs Ellice and her new baby daughter, Eloise.  We all loved seeing her and hearing how they are getting on - everyone concluded baby Eloise is absolutely gorgeous! 

 

In other areas of our learning, we have been learning about plant reproduction in science, considered how we identify and manage risk in PSHE, have been developing food-related vocabulary in French and also preparing our story boards for recoding our videos in Computing next week.  In PE on Tuesday we had lots of fun and activity playing benchball!

We finished the week exploring mountain-themed art and used the Japanese artist's piece, "A Clear Day on Mount Fuji" as inspiration for our artwork.

Week Commencing January 27th

Eagle Owl Class had an active start to the week.  On Monday afternoon, we took part in the USSP Stansted Year 5 and 6 Indoor Athletics competition.  All the children had the opportunity to take part in track and field events and everyone showed great enthusiasm for competing and cheering their teammates on.   A number of children placed in the top 3 in their field events and the relays were extremely close closely fought battles !  A very big thank you to Miss Grant and Mrs Cawsey for accompanying us to the event - your help is greatly appreciated.

In English, we've been continuing our work around the picture book, "The Dam" and have been learning more about the Kielder Water scheme which the book is based around. After examining Ordnance Survey maps of the area and watching sections of a Northumbrian Water film about the scheme, we explored the advantages and disadvantages of the project and considered what the views of different stakeholders in the project might have been. Finally, we held a town hall meeting with representatives from Northumbrian Water taking questions from the members of the local community and interested parties.  Well done to Immy, Thomas and Edward who took on the Northumbrian Water roles and demonstrated quick thinking in their responses to an audience who had strong view to express about the project and so many questions for our panel.

Week Commencing January 20th

Eagle Owl Class have had a busy start to the new term and have enjoyed beginning our learning about mountains (our topic for this term).

In English, we have been using the Rudimental music video of the song, "Free" as the starting point for our writing.  Using the song as inspiration, we wrote setting and character descriptions and considered how we could compare two settings in our writing.  This week, we have begun exploring the beginning of the picture book, "The Dam".  Using the initial illustrations as clues, the children made inferences about the characters and setting and thought about how these images might help us make predictions about possible events in the story.

Over the first few weeks in maths, we have been revisiting negative numbers, fractions,decimals and percentages and have also been learning how to solve ratio and proportion problems.

In Geography, we began our learning about  mountains by considering the different ways mountains are formed and also made 3D world maps showing the major mountain ranges of the world and their tallest peaks. We've also been considering features of the mountain environment and how different animals adapt to live in these challenging conditions.

We've also been busy getting reading for the upcoming indoor athletics competition,n organised by the Uttlesford School Sports Partnership, where the children will compete in a range of field and track events.