Algebrainiacs!

Our brains are feeling particularly tired this week! We’ve gone through some pretty tough and intensive lessons – but as usual Class 5 were able to meet the challenge!

Our week began with a bit of healthy competition with the year 5/6 class at Stebbing Primary School. As their teacher, Mr Crawley, is Miss Vidler’s fiancé we knew we had to really show them our writing skills – and we did Miss Vidler proud! We had to create a 100 word saga based on time travel, so either in the past and the future. Not only this, but we had to make our writing interesting, and we really impressed the other class!

In English this week we have been continuing our study of Non-Chronological reports. Miss Vidler was determined to make sure our final writing is interesting – factual doesn’t have to be boring! Firstly, Miss Vidler gave us the cruel task of creating an interesting introductory paragraph based on something boring such as sellotape or stairs (we did – in return – make her write about celery). We have also thought about how we can change the structure of sentences and include adjectives to make our writing sound more interesting.

An introduction to a report on slippers!

An improved paragraph

In maths we have continued to pursue our algebra work. We began by trying to discover all the different answers for equations such as (x + y = 8) by using systematic approaches and inverse operations. By the end of the week we were also able to write our own algebraic formulae and follow them.

Tricky Algebra!

Our 'gold' challenge for the week

In theme we found out about different types of human settlement. We used this knowledge to look at images of the Earth at night from the international space station. The light pollution from human settlements meant we were able to identify settlements both nationally and globally – giving us a chance to study the geography of our Earth.

In science, Year 6 had a chance to experiment with how changing a component of a circuit affects the brightness of a bulb. So far we have only looked at series circuits, however next week we will look into parallel circuits and how these differ.

We also had a road safety expert from Essex County Council come in to teach us how to stay safe on the road when we are out and about more independently as we get older. We had a chance to practice looking for good parts of the road to cross safely, and how to make sure we are seen by motorists.

Finally, as it has been friendship week, we had a chance to reflect on what it means to be a good friend. Mrs Martin led us in creating a friendship wall, showing all the different qualities that people need to be good friends.

Our Friendship Wall

Next week we have our whole school power down day – although there’s no way class 5 will be powering down on their hard work any time soon!

Miss Vidler