Welcome back and Happy New Year! It has been lovely to welcome the children back this week, despite it being only a three-day week we are extremely proud of how Stingrays have all come back with a great attitude toward their learning!
Writing
In writing this week we have started our brand new text 'Journey to Jo'burg', written by Beverly Naidoo. The story entails how a thirteen-year-old girl (Naledi) and her younger brother (Tiro) embark on a journey to find their Mma to help their baby sister (Dineo), who suddenly becomes very sick. They don't come to understand the dangers of their country and the struggle for freedom that is taking place around them until they reach the city. We have begun this week discussing the context behind our text and how in South Africa during the apartheid era this historical novel was banned. We had a really interesting discussion on what life was like for black people during this time. On Wednesday we discussed key vocabulary to help us to understand the wider context in which the book was set. We also learned about Nelson Mandela who was a key figure in abolishing the apartheid system. On Thursday we focussed on the actions, emotions, and thoughts of specific characters in our novel creating two role on the walls to represent these. On Friday we wrote a postcard to Mma, as young children living in South Africa away from their mother during the apartheid era.
Maths
In Arithmetic this week, we continued to consolidate our knowledge of division involving both remainders and no remainders. On Wednesday during our Maths lesson, we completed our multiplication and division topic by looking at correspondence problems. On Thursday we began our new topic of Fractions, the children really took to this lesson enjoying the use of pictorial representations to help us with our work. On Friday we considered fractions beyond 1 and how we can continue to count in fractions past 1 whole.
Geography
In Geography this week, we started our new topic 'The Rhine and Mediterranean'. We were able to recall from our prior knowledge key information about the Rhine being located in Germany and having a temperate climate! We compared the length of the River Rhine to the River Severn in Wales and the River Thames in London. We were amazed at how long the River Rhine is in Europe and how many hours it would to drive from the source of the river to the mouth. We also found out that the source of the river is located in the Alps, in Switzerland and the mouth of the river empties into the North sea.
