What we are doing this week in Lilac Class for the week beginning 17.4.23

For Maths this week in Lilac Class, we will be continuing exploring the idea of thousandths, by representing numbers with up to 3 decimal places on a place value chart.  Lilac Class will then move onto ordering and comparing decimals with the same number of decimal places and then ordering and comparing any decimals with up to 3 decimal places.  This will be followed by rounding to the nearest whole number where we will be using a number line to support understanding of rounding as this helps determine which whole number is closer.  Lilac class will also be learning to round to 1 decimal place.

In English this week in Lilac Class, we are writing sea poetry for a class book for our reading area.  We will be reading a range of poetry, for example selected poems from Under the Moon and Over the Sea edited by John Agard and Grace Nichols.  We will be analysing these poems focusing on examples of personification (where the sea has taken on human characteristics). In Lilac Class we will be using the poems as stimulus for our own poetry writing. 

Our new Whole Class Guided Reading text is Shackleton’s Journey by William Grill. This week we are reading pages 1-6 developing out retrieval and inference skills.  We will be explaining what Ernest Shackleton’s background was and locating in the text evidence that tells the reader that he did not enjoy school.  In preparing for his journey we will be thinking about why he found it difficult to raise money and why we think no women went on the journey. 

For RE in Lilac Class, our new unit of learning is Islam and our ‘Big Question’ is ‘What do Muslims believe about the way they should live their lives and why?’  Lilac Class will learn what the Five Pillars of Islam are and we will be thinking about the ‘pillars’ that hold us up in our lives.  For Time and Place in Lilac Class, we are labelling a world atlas identifying significant position of latitude and longitude as well as the seas and oceans of the world.  For Science in Lilac Class, we are learning about how flowering plants reproduce and the difference between insect and wind pollinated plants.  We will be categorising a selection of plants based on their characteristics.  For Design and the Arts, we are singing songs about the sea and accompanying them with pitched and unpitched percussion.  Lilac Class will be learning traditional musical notation, for example crotchets, quavers, minims and semibreves. 

Please see attached my letter to parents and the Wider Curriculum Matrix with optional activities.