The Nursery children have been concentrating on improving their counting skills since the Easter break. We have been playing plenty of number games and signing some counting songs to help us with this task. All children are now confident at counting from one to twenty. We are also going to start to introduce counting backwards to help improve the confidence and familiarity.

The Nursery children are also incredibly excited about our forthcoming trip to London Zoo! As well as seeing how different animals live and play together, we are also going to use this opportunity to help with our number work. How many animals will we be able to count at the Zoo?

You can watch a short video of the Nursery children playing some counting games above.

This is an incredibly busy time in the Michael Faraday Reception classes with many new topics and themes having started since the Easter break. One of our main topics is to look at different countries and culture. The children were thrilled to receive a personal postcard all the way from Italy! It was sent by our friend Anita and contained a wonderful picture of Venice. We have been finding out all about Italy, and in particular, the food that Italian people like to eat. We have held our own Italian food tasting session – the pasta was very popular!

Elsewhere in Reception and weights and measures are keeping us busy with our maths time. The children are learning the difference between an object that we describe as being heavy, and one that we would call light. We have been using the class scales to weight and compare different objects.

Our literacy work in Reception for this term will include a big push to help improve our understanding of phonics. The children have been learning how we can create different sounds by placing two different letters together. Examples of this include AI, OA, CH and SH. Working in small groups, we asked each class member to try and think of a word where we might here these sounds. This is also a great exercise in helping to improve our joined up handwriting.

Year 3 have been working incredibly hard on some complex mathematical operations. We have introduced to the pupils the idea of fractions of amounts. We already know about fractions such as a half, quarter and a tenth etc. We now wanted to use this knowledge and apply it to varying amounts. We set the children the challenge to try and test each other, as well as some of the adults in Year 3! We wanted to know what half of 20 is, or a fifth of 30.

To help Year 3 with these challenges, we have been using a number of different techniques. The fraction sheet has been a great resource. We placed the correct number of counting cubes in each space. If we wanted to find out what a quarter of 20 is, we would use 20 cubes, and then place them evenly in each quarter on the sheet. Counting the amount of cubes in one quarter will tell us the answer.

Year 3 have been working incredibly hard on some complex mathematical operations. We have introduced to the pupils the idea of fractions of amounts. We already know about fractions such as a half, a quarter and a tenth etc. We wanted to use this knowledge and apply it to varying amounts. We set the children the challenge to try and test each other, as well as some of the adults in Year 3! We wanted to know what half of 20 is, or a fifth of 30.

To help Year 3 with these challenges, we have been using a number of different techniques. The fraction sheet has been a great resource. We placed the correct number of counting cubes in each space. If we wanted to find out what a quarter of 20 is, we would use 20 cubes, and then place them evenly in each quarter on the sheet. Counting the amount of cubes in one quarter will tell us the answer.

We have been combining out maths and ICT work in Year 2 by learning how to programme the wonderful Michael Faraday roamers. These are computerised buggies that respond to a set of instructions that we can programme in. We can tell the roamers whether to move forwards or back, or to turn clockwise or anti-clockwise by either 90 or 180 degrees.

We set the children the task of writing down a sequence of instructions for the roamers. We then programmed this information in, and pressed the Go button. We observed the movements of the roamer, and plotted on our paper the route in which they were taking. We were able to conclude the exercise by matching up the original set of instructions with the diagram that we had drawn. You can find out more in the short video above.

We have been combining out maths and ICT work in Year 2 by learning how to programme the wonderful Michael Faraday roamers. These are computerised buggies that respond to a set of instructions that we can programme in. We can tell the roamers whether to move forwards or back, or to turn clockwise or anti-clockwise by either 90 or 180 degrees.

We set the children the task of writing down a sequence of instructions for the roamers. We then programmed this information in, and pressed the Go button. We observed the movements of the roamer, and plotted on our paper the route in which they were taking. We were able to conclude the exercise by matching up the original set of instructions with the diagram that we had drawn. You can find out more in the short video above.

We are incredibly impressed with the response that we have had from our Year 2 pupils as they prepare for their SATS assessment later in the summer term. As this is the halfway stage in the year, we decided to recap on the knowledge that we have learnt so far in the year. We asked all Year 2 pupils to think of a number up to 99, and then to write down as many sums, statements or facts that they know about this number. We encouraged the use of all four mathematical operations. We received a great response from this exercise and are greatly encouraged about the second half of the school year.

Elsewhere in Year 2 and the children are about to start their new class topic of the rainforest. This will also be linked in with their SATS work, as a large part of the literacy exercise will involve writing about this subject. As well as learning about the environment found in the rainforest, Year 2 will be learning about the many nocturnal birds that live in this type of area. To help with our work, the Year 2 book corner has been transformed into a magical rainforest area!

Year 5 have been learning all about income and expenditure, and how important it is to set a budget. We have linked this work to an International Woman’s Day, as well as our current class topic of Victorian Britain. The pupils have been viewing a weekly budget that was available to a typical woman poor Victorian woman. We wanted to know how she was able to provide for her family on such few resources.

We soon found out that saving and planning is an important part of setting a budget. Putting some money aside for a family illness, or even a funeral, were skills that women of this period had to apply. Year 5 have completed a maths worksheet on this subject, showing how important the type of calculations were for everyday survival in Victorian Britain. You can listen in greater detail to this work being explained in the podcast below.