Rowan Class Home Learning Week beginning 11th May
Home Learning Week beginning 11th May
Each week, I will post lots of suggestions for home learning. You aren’t expected to do everything. Please pick out the things that will work best for your family. We are covering similar topics across all classes so that siblings can work together – feel free to also have a go at activities set by other class teachers or help your younger brothers and sisters with their learning too.
For those of you who prefer to print work for the children to complete offline, you will find downloads below. For those who like online activities, there are suggested weblinks.
Spellings: more prefixes
This week we are learning some more prefixes and how they change the meaning of the root word they are added to. We are specifically focussing on: sub (meaning below or nearly), anti (against), re (again), pre (before), semi (half or partly) and auto (by itself). Explanation & example words can be found in the powerpoint below. How many words of your own words can you collect? Can you use them in both the root word and the word with the prefix added to show the different meanings?
You can also find more activities on letterjoin if you click on ‘Rowan’ after logging in.
Arithmetic: finding fractions of amounts
Multiplying & dividing decimals by 10, 100 or 1000. You can do this quickly by moving the digits along and putting 0s in any empty places. Write yourself a list of 10 questions and see how quickly you can answer them all. Can you improve your time each day?
Japan: Arts & Crafts
This week we are going to get crafty. The pictures give you a few ideas, but if you research Japanese crafts you will find lots of other ideas. Check out the gallery too – there are lots of photos of what others in the class have done throughout the Japan project that might inspire you.
Katsushika Hokusai is a Japanese artist and The Wave is one of his most famous pieces. You can find out more about him here or watch a video tutorial of how to recreate the wave here. Can you have a go at creating your own wave picture? You could draw, paint or even make a collage. Hokusai’s was actually a wood block print, so perhaps you might like to try some printing this week. Printing can be done by dipping any objects in paint and then using them to create patterns on the paper. You could try using the ends of toilet rolls or scrunched up plastic bags. You can make your own print blocks by gluing wool onto cardboard or cutting shapes into potatoes (please ask an adult for help before you try this).
English
This week’s English is all linked to The Wave above.
Download the reading comprehension below, or answer these questions about the picture:
– Why do you think the artist made the painting?
– Imagine you are in the picture somewhere: describe what you can see, hear, smell & feel.
– If the picture has sounds to go with it, what would they be?
– How does the picture make you feel? Why?
– What shapes and colours can you see in the picture?
Writing Challenge for the Week: Write a poem inspired by the picture. Here is one approach to get you started or try downloading and using the poem generator below: which has different ways of creating poetry:
1) Make a list of words associated with the picture under the following headings: nouns, adjectives (including colours, shapes and feelings), verbs, adverbs.
2) Organise the words into lines of three.
3) Play around with the order until the poem has a good rhythm.
An example:
Blue triangle sea
White cloud calm
Grey sea spray
Three wooden boats
Great crashing destruction
Immense wave power
Wash ancient Japan.
Other English Activities:
– Write a story set in the picture.
– Research the artist Hokusai, practising your note making skills from last week and deciding how to present what you find out (e.g. through a poster, factfile, biography).
Grammar Activities:
– Use a thesaurus to find synonyms for words you have listed when creating your poems. I recommend Collins for an online dictionary & thesaurus suitable for children. (e.g. big: large, immense, grand, colossal)
– Sort the words from least to most powerful. (e.g. big, large, grand, immense, colossal). NB: There is not right or wrong to this, it’s your opinions but it’s a good way to get you thinking about the effect of using slightly different words.
– Use a dictionary to explore the subtle differences between the words. (e.g. colossal means something that is very large in size, whereas grand means something that is impressive)
Maths: Multiplication & Division
Suggested Activities:
- What objects can you use around your home to create rectangular arrays? Can you record the multiplication & division fact families for each array? Can you surround it with all the related facts that you can work because you know those facts? I made mine with pasta.
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Choose one of these statements to investigate. Are they always, sometimes or never true?
– All prime numbers are odd.
– All multiples of three are also multiples of 9.
– Every square number can be made by adding two prime numbers together.
– Division makes a number smaller. - Look at recipes and practise scaling: e.g. if the recipe is for four people, how many of each ingredient would you need for two people? A harder challenge would be to convert a recipe for four people into a recipe for three people.
- Find something that comes in a multi-pack (e.g. crisps or cereal bars). Use division to work out how much each individual item costs.
- Create a Maths dictionary with definitions, explanation and examples for all these words: factor, multiple, square number, odd, even, remainder, product, prime number.
- How many hours did you spend asleep last night? Can you use multiplication to work out how many hours you sleep in … a week? … a month (make sure you specific which month – February would be different to April) … a year?
- Printable problem sheets can be downloaded below.
Fun ways to practise your times tables:
- Make Waldorf multiplication flowers (see picture above).
- Use bottle tops to make a times table game (put the questions on one side and the answers on the other).
- Find times table songs on youtube or have a go at making up your own.
- Create a times table bingo game: make cards for each player with a mixture of times table questions on then, then make the ‘balls’ with the numbers on.
- Multiplication War: using a deck of cards, turn over two at t time, the first player to call out the correct product (made by multiplying the two numbers) wins the cards, the winner has the most cards at the end of the game.
- Turn twister into a times table challenge.
- Use the PIXl times table app.
Downloads
- Spellings Prefixes
- The Great Wave Reading Comprehension
- Poetry Generator
- Maths Problems Year 4
- Maths Problems Year 5
Useful Links
Japan Activities