Hello Fir Class!

We hope you are all safe and well and having a good time at home. We have loved hearing from some of you about how you are getting on. We do miss seeing you all, so thank you to those who have touched base. Please remember that you can send us updates and examples of the work you are doing via our class email which is: firclass@manea.cambs.sch.uk

The work for this coming week will be added throughout the course of today. Please check the class page tomorrow morning (Friday) just in case work gets added after you have looked on Thursday. 

We are attempting to set fewer worksheet tasks, to ease the volume of printing at home. There are some tasks where you will still need access to a computer, but we will try to make sure that not all tasks are computer dependent. Some questions/activities you can jot down in a notebook to complete on paper at a later point. It is up to you (and your parents) how and when you decide to carry out your work across the week. If you have any questions you can always email them to us, but please don't worry if there is a lesson or activity that you find confusing or are struggling to access. We do not want you to feel overwhelmed or upset by the tasks that we set. Try to have some fun learning, as we know you would do at school :-)

Take care and stay safe,

Miss Miller and Mrs Causer

English 

Please write a biography on a family member or friend. This will be a lovely opportunity for you to catch up with someone you have not seen for a while. You can find out all the information over the phone/Skpe, etc and then write it up. Why not phone a grandparent or aunt or uncle? I'm sure they would love to hear from you and answer your questions. You will know what a biography is from last week when you read the biographies of some famous people - it is a description of another person's life. You will need to find out lots of information about your person by asking questions. I suggest you find out the following things:

Full name

Date of birth

Place of birth

Their parents

Siblings

Their early life - where they grew up

Games they played

Friends

School

Jobs

You could even ask them other questions such as, 'What is your favourite memory?' or 'What are you most proud of?'

You will find out so much about them and you can be as creative as you want with your questions. I suggest that you write a list of questions first and run them past your parents to make sure they are suitable. Then, speak to your person and ask them the questions. You will have to make notes on their answers. You only need to jot things down. You can add in the detail after. Then, I would like you to write this biography in full. 

I hope this will be an enjoyable task for both you and the person you are interviewing and I bet they will enjoy reading their own biography written by you! 

Geography

Please write the words 'rivers' 'mountains' and 'lakes' in the middle of three separate pages. I would like you to add as many UK rivers, mountains and lakes as you can over the coming weeks. You don't need to research these, I just want you to add them as you hear them. You might know some from previous holidays or day trips, so add these to start and you could ask members of your family if they can add any. Over the next few weeks, when you hear the name of a UK river, mountain or lake, add it to your brainstorm. 

Music

Your parents will love this! Please go round the house and collect at least four instruments (you can add more). This can be anything - saucepans, books, sticks, tubs, whistles, crinkly paper, etc, etc. Be as creative as you want. I then want you to perform your own piece of music. You are all really good at this in class. You won't be expected to perform it when we return, unless you want to. Please do draw your 'instruments' on a piece of paper and write a brief description of your piece of music. You can add lyrics if you want!

I suggest that practising a piece of music should take at least twenty minutes. You can then show someone in your family and then sketching the instruments and writing a brief description will take another twenty minutes. 

Maths 

This week, for your warm ups, I would like you to work on telling the time. Ask someone at home to give you some examples of your daily routine. Organise them in time order and include the times that you complete the various parts of your routine. Practise telling the time on both a digital and an analogue clock. Questions such as, 'It is five o'clock now, what will the time be in half an hour?' here and there will help to keep the time in context throughout the week.

Home Learning

https://nrich.maths.org/14579

The nrich website has a great selection of Maths activities and investigations which have been created specifically with home learning in mind. You can choose your own age range and level of difficulty easily and they have plenty of tasks which involve no resources, except for maybe pencil and paper! You are not expected to complete any particular investigation or activity, but these are good brain stretchers.

White Rose Maths 

https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/year-2/

Follow the link to this website. Please start on Week 1, Summer 1, which will give you videos demonstrating how to complete the five lessons for that week. I have directed you to Year 2 here, however it is very easy once you are on the website to explore the lessons in the other Year groups (for example Year 1 or 3) and choose the one which you feel will give you the best level of challenge. 

Topic 

LO: To investigate what life was like for Tudor children.

What do you think the biggest differences might have been for children living in the Tudor times and children today?

Please make some notes on the following information provided below:

Life as a Tudor child depended very much on whether you were born rich or poor, male or female. Men and women had very specific roles at that time; the men would go out to work and the women would take care of the home. If you were a poor boy, you would go out to work from the age of six. Lots of boys became apprentices. This meant that they worked for someone, such as a tailor or blacksmith, for free. In return they would receive food, shelter and be taught the trade. After the age of 10 they would get paid for their work.

Poor Tudor girls would work as maids and servants until they were old enough to get married and look after their own household. They would take care of the children and the house. Neither boys nor girls from poor families went to school, as it was expensive and it was better for them to learn how to make money in order to survive. Sometimes they would attend dame schools, usually in a teacher's home. The teacher, usually female, would teach the children letters and how to read. 

When they were not working, poor Tudor children enjoyed playing with toys such as balls (made from pig's bladders) and wooden hoops. They didn't have many toys and their houses were usually cramped, so they spent most of their time playing outside.

Rich children did not have to go out to work, but only the boys could go to school. Girls were taught at home how to read, write and do other practical things for the household, such as embroidery or sewing. Boys were taught Greek, Latin, Maths and religion. They copied the alphabet and the Lord's Prayer from a hornbook, which was a slate covered with a layer of clear horn. Teachers were very strict and used lashes of a birch rod as punishment. Rich children still didn't have lots of toys, but they would be of good quality, for example a doll carved from work, with moveable legs, arms and outfits. Rich boys often had wooden boats or horses. They would be taught how to ride horses and hunt from a young age. When the weather was bad they would play cards, dice or marbles inside.

Whether rich or poor, all children had a much higher chance of dying as a child than they do today. Up to 60% (so six out of ten) babies would die at birth. Around 20% (two out of ten children) would die before the age of fifteen. This was partly the reason why people had more children, to stand more chance of having a child reach adulthood. This was especially important to rich families who wanted to pass their land and titles down to their sons.

Activities

Please choose an activity or two below to complete for Topic this week.

- Add some additional research notes to the information above to create a non-chronological report about Tudor children. We have worked a lot on non-chronological reports this year; remember that non-chronological reports are formal in style and laid out in paragraphs with sub-headings.

- Research some games which have been around since the time of the Tudors and play one. Chess, for example, was a very popular game.

- Research some of the reasons why so many babies and children did not survive until adulthood during the Tudor period. Think about aspects such as hygiene, nutrition and disease.

- Use a teabag to stain a piece of paper and then (when dried) copy the alphabet and Lord's prayer from this picture of a Tudor hornbook in the Tudor style. If you have ink to hand at home, you could even fashion a feather quill and write with that. Be warned, it is trickier than it looks!

Mrs Wordsmith

The answers from last week were...

Word One: Lush 

Word Two: pot-bellied

Word Three: drenched

Word Four: hearty 

Word Five: affluent

This week I would like you to pick your favourite word from the five and create a poster for it. This poster needs to contain examples of using the word, some decent word pairs and synonyms to go alongside the word at least one picture.

Guided Reading

This week I would like you to find 8 words from your reading book which you think are good vocabulary choices. Alternatively, choose words which you do not know the meaning of and look them up in a dictionary beforehand. Once you have chosen your words, make a wordsearch for someone at home to complete. 

PE

We are so pleased to hear how many of you are keeping active and making the most of your daily exercise. We also know that many of you have been spending lots of time outside in your gardens. This week, I would like you to make an obstacle course around your garden. Think of obstacles and challenges which will target different areas of the body and utilise a range of skills. These could include hopscotch, skipping, throwing and catching, balancing an egg and spoon, using stilts... I am sure you can think of plenty more!

Science – Outdoor learning - recap of last term's work

Last week I asked you to find different habitats in your garden and investigate the creatures living there and the conditions they were living in. Some of you might have looked under rocks or slabs or dug into the soil. You might have found insects such as ants or worms and realised they liked cold, dark and damp spaces. Now you have seen where some creatures live in your garden, I would like you to try to build your own habitat that creatures can live in. You will build this habitat. You can use any materials from inside your house, for example, boxes, paper, plastic, glass, material, etc. Then, I would like you to fill your habitat with things that might attract the creatures – I will leave this up to you to be creative. Please place your habitat outside. Each day I would like you to visit it and make a note of any creatures you find living/crawling around there.