​Beginning in February, all of the literacy groups have started new class novels.  Our third class group has started The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and are loving it so far, we’ve just finished the part where Lucy makes her first trip to Narnia and all of the students are really excited to see what happens next!  The fourth class group have started Prince Caspian, the next book in the Chronicles of Narnia series (following on from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe).  The fourth class students read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe last year and are delighted to be back in the land of Narnia.  Where we last left off, the Pevensie children has just realised they’ve traveled back to Narnia but hundreds of years have passed and their old castle is in ruins!  In fifth class, we’ve been reading Goodnight Mister Tom, the students are really enjoying it, and have had some very interesting conversations in class about the themes and concepts that the story deals with, for example, war, family, and friendship.  

We've had a great month here in Learning Support, with all the groups working so hard in the run up to Christmas.  
Our 5th class literacy group have just finished 'Rockstar Granny' by Sam Hannigan, and we've all had such a laugh reading it.  In the story, the main character Nanny Gigg gets an amazing opportunity to go and see her favourite band 'The Roaming Scones'.  The story is full of great characters who find themselves in some very funny situations, and the group all agreed that Nanny Gigg was hilarious!  
In the other literacy groups, we've been getting into the festive spirit by learning all about Christmas.  Our 4th class group have been reading all about different Christmas carols, and learning the history of some of the songs, including 'Silent Night' and 'O Holy Night'.  With the 3rd class group we've been reading some Christmas poems and stories, including 'Dear Santa' by Keen Nesbitt, and 'The Little Fir Tree'.

This week our 4th class maths groups did some fantastic and fun work on fractions.  We started our class with a warm-up colouring activity, before moving on to a fun fraction game.  The group matched the pictures to the fraction, and from looking at the photo we can see that they did an amazing job!  Then we moved on to some fractions works on everyone’s favourite topic – pizza!  They organised some pizza pictures according to the size of the fraction they showed, and then we did some quick questions on fractions, using different pictures of pizza to help us.  The group really did some excellent work, with everybody working so well together, and all having some fun while doing it.  

Wow, we have completed so much work over the last term, it's been hard to keep up with everything!!
Fourth class have been flying through their reader Danny the Champion of the World.   This book is set in England in the 1960s and it is based on the life of a nine-year old boy, Danny, who's being brought up by his father William   They have lots of fun together and go on lots of adventures!! We are at a really exciting part in our story where Danny and his dad are about to try and poach all of Mr. Victor Hazell's pheasants the night before Mr. Hazell's annual shooting party!   We have been doing a lot of work on this book such as completing character studies, making predictions and questioning story-lines!
Fifth class have been just at busy with their reader Mr. Stink.    Mr. Stink is a homeless man who Chloe has invited to live in her shed.   Her mum hates homeless people so the book took an interesting twist when Mrs. Crumb was praised in a national newspaper for giving shelter to Mr. Stink, even though she knew nothing about him!   We've just learned that Mrs. Crumb's snobbish behaviour and rudeness has cost her place in running for a seat as an M.P., we cannot wait to see what happens next!!   This book has been great for our vocabulary development, we are learning so many new words.   We've also been able to do a huge amount of writing based on the characters in this book, writing our own policies for change or questions that we would ask our local candidates.   

All of the Maths groups have been working very hard over the last term!   We have spent a huge amount of time practising our times tables, as well as addition and subtraction.   Practising our tables every night really helps us when we complete sums in class as we know some of the answers straight away!!
In third class we have been concentrating on addition and subtraction of 2- and 3- digit numbers with and without remainders.   We have also been learning how to do short division. 
In fourth class a lot of time has been spent on fractions over the last few weeks.   We now know that 4/8s is the same as 1/2 and we're also able to figure out whether one fraction is bigger than another.
In fifth class we have been concentrating a lot on short & long multiplication this term as well as short & long division.   We can sometimes find it hard to remember to put in out "magic 0" or to add on any figure that we've carried over.
Sixth class have also been practising their long multiplication and division, but they have spent a lot of classes concentrating on time.   It can be hard for us to figure out the difference between two times so we have been coming up with different techniques to try and use.