Building Work

This week we've been constructing... with paper.  It's lots of fun, good for using up old Christmas cards, and you have to be very neat and precise.

Shaun Tan is an Australian author/illustrator we learnt about this week.  He turned his passion into a career and recently won a $750, 000 award for his work.  Not bad for a hobby! 

Below are links to some paper construction sites you might like to try at home.  If you find better ones, please post the address.

www.kawaii-style.net

http://www.tougui.fr

http://www.cubotoy.co.nr/

Fashion and Bling

The Greeks were very proud of their appearance.  We've read that men competing in sports events were always naked, so they could show off their bodies.  They did wear clothes everywhere else though and today we had a go at designing and making garments in the ancient Greek style.  Women loved to have elaborate pins, brooches and jewellery, so things haven't changed that much...

It wasn't as easy as it looked.  Some of the challenges were: clothes had to stay up and fastened, allow people to move, and just like today's clothes, they had to fit.  The colours of the designs on our models are a little bright, we did realise they would have been using natural dyes.  It was a good idea to use some of the Greek patterns we found on the pottery.  Well done, Kitty.

Euan pointed out that because his character was a housewife, she would definitely need her hair tied back or she'd get no work done.  Others became gods or characters from myths.

The use of patterns got Hamish thinking about letters so we searched for the Ancient Greek alphabet and tried writing words and messages to each other.



Digging up the Past

Very few Greek painted pictures have survived the 2500 years since they were painted, so most of what we know about Greek art comes from the pictures they painted on fancy pottery.  Pottery, even if it gets broken, can be put back together, and a good deal of it has survived and can be found in museums. 

We studied the patterns and images that were used, and had a go at painting our own plates.  It was tricky to get the detail with a paintbrush and one colour.  The Greek artists were very skilled.



Can you see which myths are depicted on our plates?



Online Maths Practise

Decide which part of fractions you need to practise and choose a game to help.  There's a few here ...

http://www.maths-games.org/fraction-games.html

Investigating Fractions

What a lot of Mathematicians there are in P5.  We've done quite a few investigations on equivalance, simplifying and adding fractions, so that pupils can discover the rules for themselves. 

To show what you know, explain to someone how to solve:

1. One quarter add two eighths add five sixths (I can't work out how to write fractions using numerals)
2. three fifths add four twentieths add 3 twentyfifths

You can practise comparing fractions here:


http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/teachers/ks2_activities/maths/fractions.shtml

Playing About

Writing a play this week proved to be tricky.  There are so many things to remember, like stage directions, no speech marks, setting the scene, giving it a catchy title, cast list... and then having to think about the story!

Our first attempts were pretty good for first attempts, but then we wrote another together.  Mrs Holt certainly enjoyed it.  We're hoping to so a little more work on it before it goes on the blog.

Fractions

Here are some games to help practise working out fractions of whole numbers:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/topic/fractions

http://www.mathplayground.com/fractions_fractionof.html




Have fun...

"... and create new texts using my own words..."

There are so many wonderful stories in Greek Mythology,

they have inspired many different types of writing in class. 

Parents will be able to read them next week,

and look at our writing targets.



November Homework Ideas

Here are some ideas for homework.  You don't have to do them all, but you can use your homework books to write down what you discover.

• How many words can you find which originate from Ancient Greece that we use today?
• Ask two adults to tell you when they use fractions in their everyday lives, and how they are used.
• Which words have the prefix "cent"?  What does it mean?
• Look through novels and books at home to find their opening sentence.  Which sentences hook you in to the story?

This week we will be:

• Simplifying Fractions
• Hearing the stories of Heracles
• Drawing the mythological beasts from the story
• Identifying characteristics of playscripts
• Writing playscripts (maybe next week....)

Although I haven't been hearing reading groups throughout the week, we have been doing lots of reading lessons in class.  I would expect fluent readers to be reading their own books at home and sharing favourite books, authors ideas etc with their classmates.  Next term, we will do Book Dectectives on a regular basis.

Well post some pictures later in the week.

Presenting Ancient Greece

Myths and Legends was the topic chosen by pupils this term to inspire learning.  For the past two weeks, we have been finding out about Greek Mythology, which has led to questions about how people lived in Ancient Greece.  To try to find some anwers, we used information books to find 4 or 5 facts we could share with each other.  It's the first time we've done this activity, and we were filmed...

There are some fascinating facts... and now we've watched ourselves, we know what improvements we can make next time.

If you'd like to do a bit more research at home, here's a good website:  http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/homework/greece.html