Here we are, at the end of yet another busy, busy week in Elm Class! It was wonderful to receive homework from some of you this week - thank you to the grown-ups that emailed it in. If you didn't send any homework in this time, don't forget that it is uploaded onto this page every Friday (see below!), and we would hope to have either photos or a little summary of how your child got on by the following Friday at the latest. The email address to send it (and any other questions, queries or comments) to is elmclass@manea.cambs.sch.uk. You can also let us know how your child has got on with their weekly reading book at this address. 

This week in Literacy, the children have completed two pieces of independent writing - one fiction, one non-fiction - based on our core text of 'Beegu', to help us get a real feel for their current strengths and areas for development. We have had some lovely pieces of writing and it will be very useful in helping us to plan for each child's 'next steps' going forwards.

In Maths, we have continued to work on addition and OH MY GOODNESS have we been absolutely amazed by the children's efforts and achievements! The Year 1s have tried really hard with adding on a number line and using a hundred square, both of which are brand new methods for them, and they've made a brilliant start. Meanwhile, the Year 2s have been working on something exceptionally tricky - using the tens and ones equipment to support their addition of amounts to 100, and learning how to 'exchange' their ones for a ten when it is appropriate. 

In the afternoons, we have continued with our daily phonics sessions, with the Year 1s working through Phase 3 phonics and the Year 2s recapping on Phase 5. After that, it has been time for Science and our learning about materials has continued for a second week. This week, we have all been working on an experiment to see if we could make a small piece of fabric waterproof. We tried various coatings on the fabric, including wax, PVA glue, pencil and sticky back plastic. Why not ask your child what they found out? 

In the latter part of the week, we started to design raincoats for Beegu, thinking carefully about what materials we would use to make the coat waterproof, warm and cosy. We also watched a funny program about which materials would work when trying to repair a leaky pipe and Mrs Johnson was amazed when one of the Year 1 children said, 'Well, those ones wouldn't work because they're not waterproof... they're absorbent.' Wow! Fantastic vocabulary!

Have a look below to see some photos of our learning adventures this week (as well as this week's homework), and we hope you have a fabulous weekend.