Our day and this Weekend's Homework

Hi Folks,
What a weird day, two fire drills, some visitors to our class... all very out of the ordinary.

We had 4 more presentations today, leaving only Aqilah to go. She has an extra week as she came to school later than everyone else. Today we had Ryan, Nouri, Luke and Riad...
Ryan really impressed me today with the fact that he was so well prepared for his presentation. He was very familiar with his slides, he had obviously worked hard practising and so he was able to deliver a slick presentation about Newport Beach. His Powerpoint Presentation was very well laid out with large images and not much text, this enabled him to explain the slides without too much reading out. Ryan was also able to answer questions about his presentation. Great job!

Nouri had experienced technical difficulties at home, and so delivered his presentation about Aleppo in Syria using a sheet of paper with notes written down, and he had no images. He did appreciate that he would have found it a lot easier if he had made a slide show of images or a poster. He did say he went to buy some card but couldn't find any...Nevertheless his notes did respond to the focus questions and he did explain the facts he had found out well.

Luke made a poster about Preston in Lancashire, UK. (This is a place near where I trained to be a teacher, so I was quite keen to hear about it!) Luke presented his information on a large poster board. His information was neatly laid out in nine sections, and Luke read out his information confidently. Again, with a poster, this is tricky, as he felt he had to read out the text, so that the audience could get the benefit of his research, but as we know, reading out is not ideal in many ways. I was impressed with the fact that after he had finished, he was able to answer some tricky questions about the information he presented which showed that he had a good understanding of the material. Well done Luke!

Finally today we had Riad. What a lovely way to end the week! Riad was so enthusiastic when talking about his home city of Jerusalem. He had made a two sided poster which was very original in its layout. He was very animated when he told us the information and even used a volunteer from the audience to demonstrate the difficulties of having a huge wall built, separating you from your friends on the other side of the city. A lovely touch at the end of Riad's presentation was the fact that he gave everyone braids to make a friendship bracelet from the colours of the Palestinian flag. Lovely work Riad.

As I have already commented, I have been very impressed with most people's presentations. The standard has been very high this year.

What a surprise though, as you will see: NO PUPIL OF THE WEEK. The part of the week when we talk about who is pupil of the week is a special time, when we have finished our work for the week, and tidied up, we should be able to sit together, reflect upon the week and recognise each other's achievements. Unfortunately, Y5.5 seem to be taking WAY too long to get themselves organised. Too much chatting, too much mess, not listening and acting quickly enough. All this equals: NO TIME LEFT FOR THE FUN STUFF. I feel very sad about that because I not only love the idea of you recognising each other's good points, but also, I keep not having time to READ the class novel....... I am really hoping for a better week next week.
We will TRY and do 'Pupil of the Week' on Saturday morning, so come with some sensible ideas.
Have a good weekend,
Mrs. W.
X
PS The homework this weekend is only Daily Maths 5. As a clue there are only 12 possible sums you can make, so it's not as tricky as you may think. Read the task carefully. Apart from that, remember reading, and HAVING FUN with your families.
XXX