Hello, and happy new year! We hope that you had a pleasant and restful Christmas break. We discussed with the children on Tuesday about the importance of ‘hitting the ground running’ in Term as it’s comparatively such a short term, and we’re happy to report that broadly this has been the case!

This week, we have been up to the following:

• In literacy, we have immersing ourselves in lots of Greek myths. In particular, we have been focusing on the stories of Prometheus and Pandora.
• In maths, it’s been fractions and multiplication!
• In history, we learned about the development of the Ancient Greek civilisation.
• In art, we started to learn about being architects! This week, we were doing observational drawings of houses.
• In science, we learned about the difference life cycles of insects (like butterflies) and amphibians (like frogs).

Spelling words

This week, we’ve been working on words ending in -able, where the ‘e’ from the root word remains. They are: agreeable, changeable, replaceable, irreplaceable, knowledgeable, manageable, microwaveable, noticeable, rechargeable and salvageable.

PE

PE will be on Monday and Friday this week, and they will both be outdoors, so please make sure your children wrap up warm on both those days. In addition, Friday’s session will be on the field so please make sure your children come to school with a spare pair of footwear.

Life in Ancient Greece day

Our Ancient Greek day will be on Wednesday 21st January. You should have received some information from the school via email, but we just wanted to remind you that costumes for the day are encouraged! However, in no way do we expect you to spend any money on it. Hopefully you will be able to fashion something from what you already have. Here are a couple of ideas from the company running the day:

Tunic for boys/Chiton for girls: This can be a simple white dress for girls or a large white T-shirt for boys and girls. You can also make one from a pillowcase, or even an old sheet: fold it over, stitch up the sides and cut a hole in top for your head. Boys can wear with a belt, cord or sash around the waist, while girls may wear with a simple thin apron.

Himation: Fasten a rectangle of coloured cloth with a brooch or button on the left shoulder.

Please do not come dressed as a specific person (e.g. a god or goddess), as all the children will be regular Greek workers.

We hope you have a lovely weekend, and we will see your children bright and early on Monday morning.

The Year 5 team