What we are doing this week in Lilac Class for the week beginning 11.3.24

For Maths this week in Lilac Class, we are recognising thousandths as fractions and decimals using partitioning and by exchanging place value decimal counters.  We will also be ordering and comparing decimals with up to 3 decimal places.  We will be learning that 0.41 has more tenths than 0.365 and that it does not matter that 0.41 has fewer decimal places, it still has the greater value.

In English this week in Lilac Class, we are planning and drafting a historical report about education during the Victorian period.  As a class we will read You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Victorian Schoolchild! Lessons you’d rather not learn written by John Malam. This text will serve as a basis for our writing.  We will be writing about a pupil’s experience during a typical school day at St Barnabas School in 1896, the year the school was built. 

For Whole Class Guided Reading Lilac Class are reading Chapters 15 and 16 of Berlie Doherty’s Street Child entitled ‘Josh’ and ‘Boy in Pain’. We are finding evidence in the text that tells us whether Grimy Nick likes Jim and why we think Jim wished he had a brother and how he felt when the dog was given a bone.  We are also predicting why the next chapter is entitled ‘The Monster Weeps’ thinking about who might the monster be and why might they be crying. 

For RE in Lilac Class, Father John will be coming in to talk to us about The Stations of the Cross and his visit to Via Dolorosa.  He will be showing us photographs of the 14 Stations of the Cross and the route Jesus took from the place he was arrested to his place of crucifixion (Golgotha’s Rock).  For Time and Place, in Lilac Class, Dave will be coming in to talk to us about what St Barnabas School was like in 1896 reading from log book entries written by different Head Teachers. We have the original log books in school and Dave gets them out to show the public during our Heritage Day. 

For Science in Lilac Class, we are investigating the rate of evaporation.  Our main question is ‘Does the surface area of a measuring container affect the rate of evaporation?  We will be recording the level of hot water in containers of different sizes. Lilac Class will then be conducting an experiment that demonstrates a reversible change by investigating how a mixture can be separated.  We will be boiling a saucepan of salty water for 30 minutes.  What happens to the water and the salt?  What has evaporation done to the solid and the liquid?  

For Design and the Arts this week, we are continuing with printing our wallpaper inspired by William Morris using our printing blocks.  We are using a selection of colours and have given our designs names based on the theme of nature, just like William Morris did.