Investigator Class joined in the fun when the whole school took part in National Fitness Day's 10@10 initiative. We did ten minutes of physical activity at 10am.

We usually try to build in 'brain breaks' throughout the day and on Wednesday we turned it into a whole school event, with music and dance moves!

History Topic

Over the coming two weeks, we will turn our attention to the Spanish Armada. We will learn more about the background of this important event and research it's significance in British History.

English Writing

Using the animal character descriptions in War Horse as inspiration, we will write character descriptions based on animals from one of Aesop's well-known fables. The Hare and the Tortoise is known for its moral at the end of the story. We are going to use our imaginations and 'flesh out' one of these characters with some brilliant descriptions.

Maths

Year 4 will consolidate and extend their understanding of rounding numbers to the nearest ten, to the nearest hundred and to the nearest thousand. We will also take a further look at roman numerals.

Year 5 will begin a unit on addition and subtraction.

Homework

Nearly everyone managed to complete their maths homework on Atom Learning and it seems that the time limit set was achievable. We will continue to monitor and make sure that this approach to maths homework serves our purposes. Please do email with any questions or queries on: investigatorsclass@nettlebed.oxon.sch.uk

Please make sure that English Skills homework books are handed in on time. I am going to make a slight change though to the timetable. Originally I asked for them to be handed in by Friday. Handing in day will now be Thursday (at the latest) in order to allow time for marking before the books are sent home again.

Both year groups have been busy in our Science lessons over the last couple of weeks. Find out what they have been up to in the gallery below.

Y5s investigate gravity in their Forces unit of work.

• Gravity defying water - why did the water stay in the glass?

• Do heavier objects fall more quickly?

• Is there a mathematical relationship between weight and mass?

• Investigating planetary gravity

Year 4 got quite messy when they recreated the human digestive system.

Can you work out which parts are represented by the bowl, the fork action, the tights, the cup and the hole in the bottom of the cup? I wonder what the substance on their hands represented? I hope the children can tell you!

Next week in Science, they will write a lab report describing the experiment that showed how digestion starts in the mouth and is both a mechanical and chemical process.

Have a great week!