Week 2 is over and we've plunged headfirst into the curriculum.


We spent the week looking at time in maths this week, both in reading the clock in terms of 'minutes past' and 'minutes to' the hour, and it translating that into digital time (e.g. 3:45). Whilst a lot of the children were pretty good with the digital time, saying it in words has proven harder for them. We spent the last two days working on word problems involving different measurements of time to round off the week.


In English, we're continuing with our unit on 'stories with a theme.' For the last two weeks the children have been using an exciting story about a young boy saving a girl from a kidnapper to explore using emotional language, telling stories in order, and most recently learning how to write a story at the most exciting place and then filling in the start of the story using 'flashbacks.'


In science we're looking at the scientific classification of living things, and we've spent time now on different types of plants and fungi. We're exploring the different ways that life forms work, how they produce seeds or spores, how and where they live. We've also been developing our 'scientist's eye,' learning to describe and draw what we actually see, rather than what we expect to see.


We've been exploring Ancient Egypt in our Topic work. Last week we looked at Egyptian artefacts and pictures of daily life and used the clues to tell us about Ancient Egyptian civilisation. This week we looked at timelines and why they are important and useful in keeping historical ideas sorted in our heads.


In PE we've been learning the Haka with Mr Thompson and football with Mr Clark.


In Art we celebrated Roald Dahl's 100th birthday by reading Esio Trot and working on some artwork related to tortoises and their special language.


So it was an eventful week, and the kids were real troupers during the very hot weather.