Rowan Class

Rowan Class Home Learning Week beginning 29th June

Rowan Learning Week Beginning 29th June

Spellings: ie and ei

Last week we learn the rule ‘i before e except after c when the sound is ee’ and you were challenged to look out for words that don’t fit the rule. This week we are looking at the second part of the rhyme which might help explain some of the exceptions: when the sound is ay, go the other way. This means that the e goes before the i when making a long ay sound: neighbour, sleigh, weight, eight.
– Suggested Year 4 words: (ay sounds = ei) reign, eight, weight, neighbour, sleigh, (ee sounds = ie) chief, thieves, believe, grief, achieve.
– Suggested Year 5 words: straight, foreign, neighbourhood, weight, height, leisure, sufficient.
– As always, you will find a word bank for this on letterjoin in the word animator, where you can practise joining the words as well as printing a wordearch or spelling sheet.

Arithmetic: Finding percentages of amounts.
– Year 4 should be able to use their knowledge of fractions to find 50% (1/2), 25% (1/4) and 10% (1/10). E.g. Find 50% of 26, 450, 32 or 528. Find 25% of 32, 20, 48 or 62. Find 10% of 300, 50, 460 or 34.
– Year 5 should also be able to find 20% (1/5) and 75% (3/4). E.g. find 75% of 32, 20, 48 or 62. Find 20% of 35, 300, 60 or 425.

Mexico Theme: Culture & Language

Research Suggestions
– Find out how to play La Gallinita Ciega (Blind Hen)
– Can you find some traditional Mexican foods or recipes?
– Research the origins of the pinata.
– Who were the Aztecs? What can you find out about them?
– We learnt about the Ancient Maya in the Autumn Term. What can you remember? How are they connected to Mexico?
– Research the history of chocolate. How does it trace back to Mexico?

Things to do:
– Design and make your own pinata.
– Ask your parents if they can get some Mexican foods to try.
– Learn Spanish here.
– Make a model of an Aztec temple – you can download one way of doing this below, using your knowledge of square numbers from Maths.
– Download instructions for playing an Aztec ball game in the garden with your family.
– Make an Aztec headdress.

English: Narrative

For the next two weeks, we are going to be looking at story-writing based on the Maya myth from Mexico of the hero twins. If you are unable to access the download of the story or the video, then you should be able to do all the activities below but just base them on a different story – pick a short story or book that you have at home.

Monday: Read the story of the Hero Twins (see downloads below). You can also watch an animation of the story, which goes into more detail, here.
– Once you have read it, you could try: answering the comprehension questions below; acting it out; writing a book review or practise reading it aloud with expression. Could you perform the story to someone else in your family?

Tuesday: Story-Mapping
– A story map is a series of simple pictures to help you remember the main points of a story.
– Miss Brown has drawn a story map for the 1st twins to remind you how to do this.
– Can you draw a story of map of the 2nd Hero Twins adventure?
– Once you have drawn your map, test it out by trying to retell the story to someone using only your story map (and without reading from the original story).

Wednesday: Fronted adverbials
– Adverbials describe where, when or how a verb happened.
– Can you use your story map to tell someone the story, focussing on using different fronted adverbials?
– Time Adverbials: One sunny/dark/rainy day/night … Long ago … Suddenly … After a while … In the morning/evening … Later … Before … After … While … Without warning …
– Place Adverbials: In … At .. Around the corner … Nearby …
– Manner Adverbials: Nervously … Hastily … With a shaking hand … Thinking carefully, …

Thursday: Describing settings 1
– What do you think it was like in the Underworld? Can you draw a picture of it? What would you see? What would you hear? What would you feel? What would you smell? What would you touch?
– Can you create some expanded noun phrases to describe the Underworld? Take a noun (e.g. river) and add adjectives in front of it (fiery, blood-red) to create a noun phrase (the fiery, blood-red river).
– Can you think of some similes to add to your description? A simile compares something to something else using the words as or like (as sharp as a sword, hot as an oven). Year 5 could use these to add relative clauses to their noun phrases (e.g. the fiery blood-red river, which was bubbling like a volcano) – don’t forget the commas between clauses!

Friday: Describing settings 2
– Today you are going to use all the words and phrases you collected yesterday to write a description of the Underworld. Can you write one really good paragraph that will make me feel like I am there when I read it? You don’t need to write the whole story – just the section when the hero twins arrive in the Underworld.
– This will be your first sentence: The hero twins accepted the invitation and descended into the Underworld. …
– If you need some help, try some of these sentence openings: It was … All around they could see … The boys felt … As they approached the _________ bench, they …

Maths: Revisiting Shape

The activities are organised into days so that those of you attending school don’t repeat anything. However, if you are home, please feel free to do these in any order – especially if you have brothers and sisters who are also learning about shape so you can work together on similar topics.

Monday: 2D Shapes
– How many 2D shapes can you name?
– Can you describe their properties?
– Go on a shape hunt around the house or garden: can you find examples of each type of shape?
– Play the yes/no game: think of a shape and your partner has to ask you yes/no questions until they can work out what it is.
– You could go outside and try and make each shape: e.g. laying out skipping ropes or collecting sticks to make the shapes from.
– Key vocabulary to try and use: pentagon, hexagon, quadrilateral (any shape with 4 straight sides), equilateral triangle (all sides & angles the same size), isosceles triangle (two sides & angles the same), scalene triangle (all sides & angles different)
– Year 5 should also recognise the different types of quadrilaterals: square, rectangle, trapezium, parallelogram, rhombus & kite.

Tuesday: 3D Shapes
– How many 3D shapes can you name?
– Can you describe their properties?
– Can you find boxes for different 3D shapes? If so, you can take them apart and see the net that makes the shape. You could also try and build your own 3D shapes by drawing the net.
– You can try making 3D shapes using spaghetti & marshmallows or with sticks or straws & playdough.
– Play the yes/no game: think of a shape and your partner has to ask you yes/no questions until they can work out what it is.
– Key Vocabulary: sphere, hemisphere, cone, cuboid, cylinder, cube, prism (e.g. triangular prism or hexagonal prism), pyramid (e.g. square-based pyramid), face, edge, vertex (plural = vertices)

Wednesday: Angles
– We used angles a few weeks ago when we were giving directions. They are used to measure turns and are measured in degrees. A whole turn is 360, a half turn 180 and a right angle is 90 degrees.
– Acute angles are smaller than 90 degrees, obtuse angles between 90 and 180 and reflex angles are greater than 180 degrees.
– Play a Simon Says game with angles: e.g. turn one right angle clockwise, turn 180 degrees anti-clockwise, show me an acute angle.
– Look at the 2D shapes you have drawn or collected over the course of this of this week. Can you find examples of each type of angle?
– Create an obstacle course in our garden – can you direct your family around the course telling them how many degrees to turn each time they need to change direction?

Thursday for Year 4: Symmetry
– Can you draw a picture with a vertical line of symmetry? Can you draw a picture with a horizontal line of symmetry?
– Look for things around your house that are symmetrical.
– How many lines of symmetry does each of these shapes have: square, rectangle, equilateral triangle, scale triangle, trapezium, kite? A good way of testing this out is to cut each shape out of paper – you should be able to fold it exactly in half along any line of symmetry.
– Paint a symmetrical butterfly: paint half of a sheet of paper with one wing of a butterfly and a body down the centre fold, fold it over and press down, when you open it up you should have a symmetrical butterfly.
– If you have access to a camera & printer, you can get someone to take a photo of you, then cut it in half. Stick it on a piece of paper and try to draw the other half.

Thursday for Year 5: Angle Sums
– Today you are going to take your angle knowledge a bit further.
– You will be using these facts to help you: The angles in a triangle always add up to 180 degrees. The angles in a quadrilateral always add up to 360 degrees. You should already know what the angles in a right angle and along a straight line are (check yesterday’s learning again if you’ve forgotten).
– Can you use this knowledge to solve these problems? If you want to print a copy – see the downloads below.

Friday: Area & Perimeter
– Perimeter is the distance around the edge of a shape. You can find the area by adding up the length of all the sides (it is measured in metres or centimetres).
– Area is the space inside a shape (it is measured in square units, e.g. cm2).
– Can you find the area of your bedroom or your garden?
– Which room in your house has the largest area? Which has the smallest?
-A puzzle: If a rectangular box has a perimeter of 24cm, what different dimensions could it be? What is the largest area it could enclose? What is the smallest area it could enclose? (Try using a piece of string cut to 24cm long or square paper to explore this puzzle).

Downloads

Useful Websites

National Geographic for Kids

DK History Aztecs

Letterjoin