5 years ago
Posted on 19th Mar 2020 by Ms Mullock

Activities to complete at home

Firstly, I think it is helpful for you to know that in an average school day, the children in class 4 would normally do about an hour and half of Maths and at least an hour and a half of English. This would include both writing and reading. The afternoon is spent largely on topic work, art, DT and sport. In order to support you at home, I have complied a pack of activities for the children to work on at home. We have talked through the list in class, so the children have an understanding of my expectations.

Here is a list of activities for you to do at home. If you come up with other ideas, I’d love to see them!

Read the History of Chocolate timeline. Using the facts on this sheet (along with other things we have discussed), write an explanation about the history of chocolate. Use all the appropriate features of this text type. You will need headings, subheading, statistics, technical vocabulary and mostly formal language. You could then produce a simplified version for a younger child to find out where this wonderful stuff came from!
Look on www.cadbury.co.uk/ourstory for ideas.
Draw a comic strip to show the reactions of people when they first tasted chocolate.
Write a chocolate based recipe – you could even create a recipe book- using all the features of instructional writing.
Design and make a 3D package for a chocolate bar. Remember to include the ingredients, weight, nutritional information and a barcode to make it realistic.
Design a special Easter treat that involves chocolate.
Research facts about chocolate – what is the biggest chocolate bar ever made? What is the most expensive chocolate ever sold? Etc
Find out what happened to the great Maya civilisation.
Make a holiday brochure, persuading people to visit the famous sites in Mexico and Guatemala.
Make a model of a Maya temple or city.
Draw a map of your local area, using symbols, a scale and a key. Use google earth to help you.
Draw a map of a place in the world you would love to visit. Explain about the physical (natural) geography and the human (man-made) geography of the region.
Write a letter to a character in your favourite book.
Write a letter to your favourite author. Find out how to contact them and email / send the letter. You might get a reply.
Write a letter to me telling me about how you are keeping yourself busy and what kind things you are doing for your family.
Do a piece of art work that could be an illustration for a favourite moment in a story.
Make a short animation based on your favourite book/film/game.
Make a film trailer.
Design a new game. Include instructions.
Write a letter or draw a picture to post through the door of any elderly neighbours. It’s important to let them know we are here.

All children in Year 6 have also been sent home with a SATs pack. They have several practice papers to work through. There are more papers available on line and the marks scheme are also freely available.

Go to https://www.satspapers.org.uk for these. I have shown the children how I use this website so they should be able to access what they need. You do not have to print papers out, simply download them and they can write their answers on paper. We have covered all elements in class but if your child is stuck, there are brilliant explanations available on YouTube and also on www.twinkl.co.uk where you can find PowerPoints to explain everything on the curriculum. Simply type into to the search bar the topic and the year group, eg. fractions year 6.

They also have their CGP books to complete. Several of these books have the answers in the back. If your child is stuck on a question, it is helpful to look at the answer and try to work backwards.

The children all have access to Spelling shed which is a great resource. Twinkl is another brilliant website that is making access free. If you go to the home page and type in the year group or subject, you will find lots of brilliant activities that are free to download. Also Hamilton Trust is now making resources free and BBC Schools has lots to choose from.

During this very challenging time, we are seeing real acts of kindness and generosity as people pull together to help each other. For the children, it is important to keep busy and try to keep going with school work. This will maintain a level of normality that we all really need right now.

6 years ago
Posted on 24th Oct 2018 by Ms Mullock

Forest School at Millichope

Exploring the stream.

Crossing the dam bridge.

Fetching water to have near the fire.

Traversing the balance beams!

We’re never too old for playing pooh sticks….

The boys gathered chestnuts, shelled them and then roasted them over the fire they had made. Some us had never tasted chestnuts before. They were delicious!

6 years ago
Posted on 24th Oct 2018 by Ms Mullock

George’s letter to Sir David Attenborough

Longnor Primary School

Sir David Attenborough Frodesly Road 5 Park Road Longnor

Richmond Shropshire

Surrey SY5 7PP

TW10 6NS

Dear Sir David,

I am a student at Longnor Primary School I am writing to inform you about the devastation caused by palm oil. Palm oil is a type of oil that is found in lots of food we eat and other products. It is destroying homes of animals and the rainforest.

Therefore I think it would be really helpful if you could spread the word. In my opinion, it is horrible, because every hour 300 football pitches of forest are destroyed. The big problem is that we can not destroy the palm oil industry because of people’s jobs. It is also good because it is cheap to buy and it grows faster than any other oil.

However, 1000 orangutans are killed every year and 6000 are left because of the deforestation. I am writing to you because you love wildlife. I have watched Blue Planet, that is how I know.

Eventually, all of the animals in the rainforest will be killed by us destroying their habitat and I know you will want to change that. I hope you can turn this around.

Yours sincerely,

George Payton age 10.

6 years ago
Posted on 24th Oct 2018 by Ms Mullock

Troy writes to David Walliams

Harper Collins publisher Longnor Primary school

The News building Frodsley Road

1 London bridge street Longnor

London Shropshire

SE1 9GF SY5 7PP

Dear David Walliams,

I am here to inform you about the Amazon rainforest and other rainforests. I am a 9 year old in year 5 and a student at Longnor School. Now the rainforests has 6,300 arrogatangs left and 1,000 of them die every year. Every hour 300 football fields worth of rainforest is cut down.

You might be wondering why I’m writing to you. It is because you have a giant audience for your books, even I read your books! The rainforest is being cut down and replaced with palm oil trees and they take 4 years to grow and can be harvested up to 30 years. But 4.5 million people will lose their jobs in Indonesia and Malaysia and palm oil produces 10x more than other oil. This means that we should carry on using it, but it should come from sustainable places.

Please can you write a story about this awful problem.

Yours sincerely

Troy Lloyd

6 years ago
Posted on 24th Oct 2018 by Ms Mullock

Finley Hughes writes to Chris Evans

Longnor Primary School

Frodesly Road

Longnor

Shropshire

SY5 7PP

Wednesday 24^th October

Chris Evans

BBC Radio 2

London

W1A 1AA

Dear Chris,

My name is Finley, and I am a year five pupil at Longnor School. I am writing to you about the palm oil issue. Green peace have sent out a video to try and help the world realise what we are doing to the rainforests; it is just not enough. Some believe that three hundred football fields of rain forest are cut down every hour. This is definitely not a laughing matter.

It would be very helpful to the world if you could mention this in your Radio Show because of your massive audience of over 80,000 a day and 9.43 million a week all over the world.

We cannot stop using palm oil because palm oil industries provide work for aver 4.5 million people in Indonesia and Malaysia. So this means it will be very hard to stop using palm oil completely. However, it would help if you could convince your listeners to use sustainable sources of palm oil. Would it be possible to speak to them?

Yours sincerely

Finley Hughes

Age 10

6 years ago
Posted on 24th Oct 2018 by Ms Mullock

Scarlett’s letter to Blue Peter

Blue Peter

CBBC

PO Box 9989

Salford

M5 0DP

Dear Lindsey and Radesy,

I am a 9 year old year 5 pupil at Longnor Primary School and we have been learning about the consequences of palm oil. I am almost certain that all adults want to hand down the earth to the next generation as a clean and green planet. The outcome if we do not do anything would be devastating. So a suggestion would be to make an episode on palm oil. The reason I choose to write to you was because you are such an inspiration to me and you can spread the word world-wide. I am a very big fan of blue peter because I love all the adventures and challenges you take on. Also I am astonished that blue peter has been a TV series for 60 years.

It is absolutely crazy that 50% of all deforestation is for palm plantation. Palm oil companies are in the top 4 worst industries for … using child labour personally that is horrendous. I am 100% sure that if we do not move fast and clean up this problem the people that say in 100 years there will be no rainforests left might be true. But if we do make it illegal to use palm oil 4.5 million people will lose their jobs they’ll lose everything. The rainforest is an important part of everyone’s lives including you; at the moment we are not looking after it as well as we should be.

Did you know that Bornean orangutan numbers more than halved between 1999 and 2015, with the loss of approximately 150,000 individuals. We really need to start to be more ethical with what we are buying. In the past decade brands including Nestle, Unilever and Mars have promised they would clean up the palm oil in their products by 2020, but with less than two years to go, forest destruction in Indonesia shows no signs of slowing down. An area the size of a football pitch is being torn down every 25 seconds with palm oil demands driving the destruction. This is mind blazingly devastating, please can you help? Thank you for reading.

Yours sincerely,

Scarlett Hurrell

6 years ago
Posted on 24th Oct 2018 by Ms Mullock

Ben Low’s letter to David Walliams

Longnor Primary School

Frodsley Road

Longnor

Shropshire

SY5 7PP

Wednesday 24^th October

David Walliams

Troika

10A Christina Street

London, EC2A 4PA

Dear David,

Hello, I am a student at Longnor School and I am in year 6. We have been doing some research on palm oil and we found that it is effecting our forests and wildlife. It is a major problem because it is causing deforestation; that means 1000 orangutans are dying each year because of the use of palm oil trees. On the other hand, palm oil has good uses like you get 10x more oil than sun flour, rapeseed and soya. This is why it has become so popular. It is found in lots of different products.

If you would not mind, could you make a book about palm oil and how damaging it can be to our nature and wildlife? The reason I want you to is because you have a massive audience and you are also very famous. I think you could influence children who read your books and maybe we could see a good change.

I hope you get this and I will be keeping an eye out for a reply.

Yours sincerely,

Ben Low

6 years ago
Posted on 24th Oct 2018 by Ms Mullock

Emma’s letter to Sir David Attenborough

Sir David Attenborough Longnor Primary school

5 Park Road Frodesley Road

Richmond Longnor

Surrey Shropshire

TWIO 6NS SY5 7PP

Dear Sir David,

I am a year 5 student from Longnor Primary School. Over the last couple of weeks we have been learning about the horrible issues that palm oil has been making. You are probably familiar with this problem.

In fact around about 300 football fields of rainforests are cleared every hour. I understand that on the other side of the argument, palm oil is a great product because it grows in 4 years’ time and it can be harvested for 30 years and the result of that is that it is very cheap. As a result, 50% of all deforestation is for palm plantations. Consequently, 1000 orangutans are killed every year and only 6300 are left.

I am writing to you so you can tell the people around the world (on your TV programs) only to use sustainable fields.

I do hope you have a solution on how to fix this situation. If you do not, you can at least stop buying products with unsustainable palm oil in.

Thank you for reading this letter. If you get this please write back to me.

Yours sincerely,

Emma Burke

AGE 10

7 years ago
Posted on 10th Sep 2018 by Ms Mullock

Untitled

Welcome back to everyone, I hope you all had a lovely summer. A special welcome to Finley and Scarlett who have just joined the school. It’s hard to imagine where the time has gone, but here we are at the start of new school year. We’ve got a busy term ahead, getting back into our routines. There are some changes this year. We were extremely sorry to say goodbye to Mrs Barnes – she has left us to train as a qualified teacher, which we know she’ll do brilliantly! Class 4 is now lucky to be supported by Mrs Davies and Mrs May, who will work alongside me Monday to Thursday. Mrs May will then take the class on Fridays.

There are few changes to our timetable this year. PE lessons will be on Monday and Wednesday. In addition, we are planning on running a daily mile. To avoid interruption to the rest of the curriculum, we will aim to leave our desks, change our shoes, run for 10 minutes and then be back our desks ready to carry on. This means that suitable footwear needs to be in school every day.

We are also changing the day we do Forest School to a Thursday. Please do remember that we need suitable clothing and a change of footwear is vital. The weather is unpredictable, so waterproof coats are a must. As the temperature drops, we will need thick socks, hats and gloves too.

Homework will usually be given out on Wednesdays and will be due in the following Monday. This will usually be a spelling/grammar activity. There is the expectation that all children in Class 4 know their times tables up to 12 and can recall them in any order in 5 seconds. This is obviously really challenging for some children. Constant practice at home is vital; just asking for an answer to odd times tables as well as practising the whole set is incredibly helpful.

Our topic this term is Crime and Punishment through the ages. Hopefully, this will be a fun and inspiring concept that will help secure our chronological knowledge of different periods in time. We will cover the full range of maths objectives this term, revisiting them each term and taking our learning to the next stage. In Literacy we will produce a range of text types and the children will all take part in a weekly guided reading session. This will involve a follow up activity to be done at home. Your child may need your support with this.

In addition to work being done in class or sent home, please don’t hesitate to let me know if you feel your child needs extra support with a particular area. In those situations, if we work together as team we can get the best results for the child.

The first date for your diary is 24^th September, when KS2 children take part in the annual cross country race at Millichope Hall. We will be back there later in the term to enjoy a very special Forest School session. Finally, I’d like to say well done to everyone in the class – they have already made a great start to the term, settling back into school life really quickly.