This week's newsletter

Last week in Celebration Assembly, the children were introduced to the Global Reading Challenge. They will be rewarded with 500 reading miles for every 10 minutes spent reading. Everybody who completes the challenge will be entered into a draw with the chance to win prizes for both themselves and school! Please make a note of the number of minutes read in your planner. These minutes will then be converted into reading miles and recorded in a special reading passport which will help us to keep track of our journeys around the world. The journeys are in six stages-
Journey one: 3000 miles (1 hour) London - New York
Journey two: 4500 miles (1 and a half hours) New York - Rio De Janiero
Journey three: 6000 miles (2 hours) Rio De Janiero - Nairobi
Journey four: 7500 miles (2 and a half hours) Nairobi - Sydney
Journey five: 6000 miles (2 hours) Sydney - Beijing
Journey six: 4500 miles ( 1 and a half hours) Beijing - Athens
Journey seven : 1500 miles (30 minutes) Athens - London

Next Friday (10th February), each Year 5/6 class will be showing their Greek Myth drama performance in the afternoon assembly (2:30pm start). Everybody has contributed towards the performance either by writing the script, making the masks, creating the backdrops, composing the music or acting out the script. Parents and carers are most welcome to come and watch!

Next half term, our Topic will be on Japan, which we're very excited about! For one of the activities, each child will need a plain white pillow case. Please can these be brought into school for the start of the new half term. Thank you.    

Numeracy:

• This week in Numeracy, our focus has been on both imperial and metric measures. We've been practising reading scales and have also converted a recipe into metric measurements. We then measured out the ingredients for the 'Recipe of Disaster'. Look out for photos of us in action on our blogs! Next week we will be continuing with our fantastic measures learning and we will also be looking at fractions of measurements.
• Home Learning: The 3rd Times Tables Challenge of the year will be held on Friday 10th February. Why not practise your tables on apps such as Math Ninja, Eggs on Legs or Multiple Wipeout? There are also lots of interactive times tables games at http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/timestable/interactive.htm or see your class teacher for some resources to help you practise.

Literacy:

• This week we have been continuing to develop our own Greek myths with a particular focus on incorporating appropriate dialogue into paragraphs. We've focused really closely on ensuring that any dialogue is accurately punctuated with speech marks as well as capital letters, full stops, commas, exclamation and question marks. 
• Next week the children will be carrying out an assessed write to show us what fantastic writing skills they have retained this half term. The assessment will be around a Narrative stimulus in order for the children to apply their skills and give them the opportunity to shine.
• Home Learning: Please continue to read regularly and record the number of minutes you are reading for the Global Reading Challenge!
• SPELLINGS: The children will be tested next week on 20 random spellings from the spelling lists learnt this half term.

      Other areas of the curriculum:

• In Topic, we've been refining our fantastic outcomes which will form a part of the historical research presentations. These include written, ICT and Art outcomes. The masks are made, the scripts are written, the actors are learning their lines, the music has been composed and the backdrops have been created for the Greek Myth drama. Next week, we'll be busy practising our presentations and rehearsing the performance. Visit our Greek blogs to find out what we've been up to!