It has been another fantastic week in 5/6B as we near the mid-way point of the half term. The children have really been enjoying their learning and I have been so impressed with their hard work and the questions they have been asking. It has got to the point where I am now having to do a bit of reading up on the Tudors to make sure I am prepared for the barrage of questions about wives, lineage, succession and just how many Mary's there were during the Tudor era!

This week in shared reading we have been focussing on the poem The Listeners. This atmospheric poem is packed full of figurative language and really gets you thinking about what exactly is going on. The children have been discussing their ideas, answering questions and also ordering events from the poem. In English the children have been absolutely loving The Executioner's Daughter. It really has been a delight to see how much enjoyment the children have been getting from the text. This week we have challenged the children to write a continuation of the chapter with the focus being on figurative language and also trying to keep to the style of the author. There have been some amazing ideas from the children and they have really been concentrating on the finer details of their writing. In maths we have been revising addition and subtraction with the children developing their fluency and reasoning by looking at more complex multi-step word problems. In science the children got to look at different parts of a flowering plant. The children got to dissect flowers which the thoroughly enjoyed (the poor flowers really had a rough time of it). In art the children sketched some of the works of Alexander Calder. It allowed the children the chance to look in more detail at his sculptures. In history I have genuinely been blown away by how much they have enjoyed learning about the Tudors! This week we looked at the different Tudor monarchs, in particular Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. The children were given a range of sources to help them put together a fact file about their chosen monarch. In RE we took a closer look at the Ten Commandments and their relevance to the lives of Christians. Finally in PE we continued with gymnastics. I have discovered that I am no longer the flexible athlete I once was and have been handing the demonstrations over to the children. 

This week's song choice is a song that I can't believe I haven't put on the playlist before! Save Tonight by Eagle Eye Cherry. This is an absolute nineties classic with nearly 100,000,000 views on YouTube. Enjoy. 

Thanks, 

Mr. H