Amethyst Class
Teachers: Mrs Kendall and Mrs Harris
Adults in Class: Miss Lyddon, Miss Grainger, Mr Green
Amethyst Class yearly overview 2023-2024
Amethyst Class pathway planning – Summer 2024
Amethyst Class Spring term learning pathway 2024
Amethyst Class Planning pathway Autumn 2023
Our PE days are Wednesday and Friday. Please make sure your child has their kit in school ready to wear on these days.
Learning update 5th July
We have been very busy in Amethyst class over the last few weeks. We had a visit from ‘Sir Dudley’, a friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, who told us all about Raleigh’s exploration and discoveries in America, and we found out lots of interesting facts about his life. 
We had a visit from Corey Samuels, a basketball player who plays for the Bristol Flyers. He showed us his amazing skills, then we were able to do an exercise circuit with him, before asking him questions and getting his autograph.
This week we visited Argentum Lodge, a local care home. We enjoyed painting, playing games (including some very tactical games of chess!) and chatting to the residents. It was great fun, and we are all looking forward to our next visit.
We had a drizzly day for the Year 5 and 6 walk to Tyntesfield, but it didn’t stop us having a lovely day. There were amazing views during our walk across the fields, and we spotted a buzzard and a kestrel on the way. When we got to Tyntesfield we had lunch, then went to the play areas in the woods before being picked up at the end of the day.
Learning update 13th June
In our English lessons we have been learning how to construct and write a discussion text. Last week we read a story about Mitch, who disobeys his mum and gets into real trouble because of it, and our question was ‘Should Mitch have been grounded?’ We had really good discussions in class about what the consequences could have been for this, and came to the conclusion that he had probably had enough of a fright to not do anything like that again, so didn’t need any further consequences.
This week we have been discussing whether Harry Potter and Ron Weasley should have been grounded for stealing the flying car and damaging the Whomping Willow. We are currently writing our arguments for and against this, and drawing our own conclusions from the discussions we have had.
Next week we will use all the skills we have learned about writing a discussion text to answer other questions about different aspects of life here at Kingshill. Watch this space to find out more!
In Maths we will be moving on to learning about algebra (making both sides of an equation equal) using missing number problems. We are also going to be revisiting how to read and write Roman numerals.
In Science we have moved away from teeth and we are now learning about digestion, and what food choices we can make to keep ourselves healthy.
We have also been busy outside the classroom. Before the holiday, we had a fitness session with Mr T and Mr Millard. Our favourite part was boxing, with boxing gloves and pads, and we could see a real improvement in our technique by the end of the lesson.
Some of the children from Amethyst completed Level 1 and Level 2 Bikeability qualifications, and shared some of their new knowledge with the rest of the class.
We enjoyed making our balloon fidgets for the enterprise stall at the family fun day last weekend – thank you to everyone who bought one!
Learning update 17th May
As scientists in Amethyst Class, we have been investigating the question “Do sugary drinks cause tooth decay?”
Using hard-boiled eggs in their shells to represent teeth we discussed what we thought would happen if they were left in a variety of different drinks – water, orange juice, sugar-free squash, Coca-Cola and Lemonade Prime – and made our predictions. Most people thought that Coca-Cola would cause the worst damage to the eggshells.
We worked together to set up the experiment and left the eggs in the liquids for 6 days. It was really exciting to come in each day and see how our investigation was progressing, and whether it looked like our predictions were correct.
On the sixth day we drained the liquid out if the jars and recorded the results. We observed that the orange juice and lemonade Prime had caused the most damage (in fact, the shells had softened so much that they had disintegrated and fallen off the egg!), and the Coca-Cola and sugar-free squash had not damaged the eggshells but the eggshells had been discoloured. The egg in plain water had not changed at all.
Our answer to the question “Do sugary drinks cause tooth decay?” is that they do, some more than others, and it reminded us how important it is to take care of our teeth by brushing them to remove the harmful sugars contained in food and drinks.
Learning update 3rd May
We have had a very busy start to the term in Amethyst class. Highlights include:
- a ukelele lesson, where we learned about dynamics (loud and soft) and played a simple tune
- a session on finance and budgeting where we looked at the difference between things we want and things we need, and we discovered how difficult it can be to decide what to spend money on when we are only given a certain amount
- visitors from Bristol University who brought some amazing robots for us to experience
We have been learning about Rangoli patterns and why they are important in the Indian culture – you might have seen some of our creations on the playground before they were washed away by the rain.
In PE we have been practising the skills we need to play tag rugby, including dodging and passing the ball to a partner.
Learning update 8th March
We have been continuing to refine our skills for writing to entertain this week, ready for our big Write next week. We have planned and written our own version of the story ‘The Cobbler and the Dragon’ while sticking closely to the text, and we are looking forward to creating our own versions of the story.
We have been continuing our learning about fractions in maths, focussing on finding equivalent fractions, and investigating the links between fractions and decimals.
We have been using our ICT skills of effective searching to help with our learning in Geography. We chose from a list of rivers, mountains, forests and islands of the United Kingdom and found out lots of interesting facts about them . We were also thinking about how humans interact with these features.
In Science we learned about metamorphosis. We looked at the life cycles of different creatures, and investigated the similarities and differences between these life cycles.
Learning update 1st March
Once again in Amethyst class we have been using our observational skills as artists. The poem we chose to learn from ‘The Lost Spells’ was about a woodpecker, so we looked closely at pictures of the two types of woodpecker we are most likely to see in our school grounds or our gardens, and we drew them using oil pastels. We also listened to recordings of their calls and the amazingly loud sound they make when they are using their beaks to find insects.
In Maths we have started our unit of work about fractions by revisiting what we already know so that is fresh in our minds when we begin our new learning.
We have been using the text ‘The Cobbler and The Dragon’ as a stimulus for our writing. This week we will be continuing to change certain parts of the text to write our own version, then we will be moving on to writing our own story with a similar structure.
Learning update 2nd February
We have been artists using our observational skills to look at the life and work of the architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser. We looked at lots of the buildings he designed, and made scrapbook pages in our art books using examples of his work and words and phrases we could use to describe it. This meant that we were able to draw buildings in the same style.
In Science we are learning about living things and their habitats. We have been using our skills of analysing information and asking questions to use classification keys to identify plants and animals.
Learning update 19th January
in maths we have finished our learning about decimals. We have used place value charts to add and subtract decimals within 1, and begun to find out about the relationship between decimals, fractions and percentages.
Our next unit is multiplication and division.
In our writing we have been practising using subordinating conjunctions (as, if, since, although, while, after) to form subordinate clauses, and looking at whether or not we need to use a comma in our sentence. We have been adding prepositions to expanded noun phrases – The big red car drove slowly up the hill by the woods.
We have started our first Art unit this year, looking at architecture. This week we were artists by using our observational skills to carefully sketch a house.
In Science we are looking at living things and their habitats. We have learned different ways of grouping living things using Venn diagrams, and using classification keys to identify them. We have getting much better at asking Yes/No questions to make our own classification keys!
20th December
This morning we created a snowy village. To make the buildings accurately we had to cut them out very carefully, and follow the instructions to stick them together.
Happy Christmas from Mrs Kendall, Mrs Polledri, Mrs Harris and Miss Youde.
We are looking forward to seeing you all in the new year.
Learning update 14th December
A couple of weeks ago we got another video message from the Head of the Elf and Safety Division of the Department of Mythical Creatures, asking for our help. The task he gave us was to write an explanation of why we think some mythical creatures have become extinct.
In Maths we have been learning more about decimals, and relating them to fractions.
We have started building our own games in ICT using a game creator application in Purple Mash. It was a challenge to make sure that we had included all of the elements we needed to – the background, sky, walls, baddies and rewards. Next we will be moving on to creating a multi-level game.
We enjoyed our Christmas lunch and a visit to Santa’s Grotto, and wore our Christmas jumpers for the day!
What a busy couple of weeks we have had in Amethyst Class!
In English we have been reading a text about a door that opens into somewhere very unexpected, and we are writing our own versions of this adventure. We are focussing on remembering to use our success criteria to make sure we have included all the features we have been learning about, and practising editing our own writing using our purple polishing pens.
In Maths we have started our learning about decimals and how these relate to fractions. We will be using place value charts and counters to support our learning.
We really enjoyed showing off our bridge designing and building skills during our class showcase on 16.11.23. Thank you so much to the parents who were able to come and join us – we hope you had as much fun as we did! The pictures below show our bridges under construction, as well as the finished articles.
We really enjoyed our class trip to Clifton Suspension Bridge. We learnt about the bridge and how it was built. We also visited the observatory.
We learned some valuable skills in our First Aid workshop on Wednesday 22.11.23, using dummies to practice CPR. We made some very colourful posters to show what we had learned, and feel more confident that we know what to do in an emergency.
In English we have been continuing our work for the Department for the Entrapment of Magical Creatures, and we have written instructions for trapping pixies, dragons and trolls, as well as other magical creatures. We shared our ideas for what we would need and how to use this equipment to trap the creatures, resulting in some really detailed and well-thought through instructions.
In Maths Year 4 have been revisiting and practising exchanging in subtraction and addition, with numbers up to 4 digits, and Year 5 have been finding out how rounding numbers can help us estimate what the answer to a question will be, and how that skill helps us check our answers.
In Science we have completed our work on Forces and Mechanisms, learning about simple mechanisms (levers, pulleys and gears) and we made parachutes to test our theories about air resistance.
Learning update.
In Maths we have been continuing our learning about place value, including working with numbers up to a million. We are now moving onto addition and subtraction, and we will be adding and subtracting numbers with 4 or more digits, using the column method when appropriate. We will use our knowledge of rounding numbers during this unit to help us check our calculations.
In English we have been writing a story based on our text, and we had some amazing ideas!
We are now helping the Department for the Entrapment of Magical Creatures to write instructions for how to catch magical and mythical creatures, following their example instructions of how to catch a pesky elf!
We have been looking at different bridge designs in our topic work, as well as learning more about Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s work, particularly the Clifton Suspension Bridge. We drew sketches of the bridge, as well as learning fascinating facts about other bridges around the world.
What a brilliant start Amethyst class have had! We used our ICT skills to research inventors for our History lesson.
