In today’s school newsletter, Mr. Smith announced he is going to try to read a book a day during the half term holiday.  He will start tomorrow, Saturday May 25th and finish on Sunday June 2nd.  To meet the challenge he will have to read 9 books.  Keep visiting this post to see how he is getting on.  You can leave comments on his progress and if you too have read the same books you can tell the blog readers what you thought of them.

What will he start with………….?

Day 1 Book 1: Diary of a Wimpy kid – The Last Straw

This is the third book in the series and it’s been a while since Mr. Smith read the first two.  Greg is up to his usual tricks of trying to do as little as possible, such a lazy boy!.  The best features of these books are the way that the author (Jeff Kinney) brings all the themes in the story back together at the end for a big finish.

Harry, Nathan, Chloe and Neve told everyone about their SATs experience and explained that it was easier than they had expected and that they actually quite enjoyed it.

Euan was praised for his attitude and resilience in what had been a difficult week and that he had worked really hard.  One word summed him up – BRILLIANT!

Lucy’s stunning painting of her mum.Ayla’s super independent setence work.Jessica is making super progress in Read Write Inc with both her reading and her writing.Abigail has learnt lots of action words, working hard both in school and at home.Mia brought a fantastic character description of the infamous Miss Trunchbull.Toby is trying really hard to use his sounds to help him write his ideas.Owen had created two great pieces of writing.  An argument about Shark Fin Soup and a diary entry for a passenger on The Titanic.Bevan has thrown himself into his rivers and oceans topic.  He has begun a good persuasive argument against the eating of Shark Fin Soup and included technical vocabulary.This week both our Year 4 and Year 6 boys rugby tag teams won competitions. 

Very well done boys.Not to be outdone the Mixed Year 5/6 cricket team won the Oakbank Quick Cricket festival.  Great work children.Ebony brought 3 pieces of work based on her weather work.  A windmill, a pastel tornado picture,and a chalk storm picture.This tornado picture was created by Oliver and Ethan with a little adult help as today was our annual Men to School Day. 

Can you spot the sheep and cow that have been dragged into the vortex?Cameron and Alastair have spent the day creating house frames and covering them to produce these models of Tudor Houses.

Ellis, Sky and Zoe solved Monday’s assembly puzzle of joining three rows of three dots together with four straight lines and not removing the pen or pencil from the paper.  They showed they were “thinking outside the box”.Harry showed his scientific skills, he has a good attitude to his work and he presents it very well.Aleesha’s work on “Wind in the Willows” amazed us not only with its neatness but also with the range of vocabulary and historical detail.Yasmin is working extemely hard to use describing words and to write her ideas clearly.Keeron was representing his class because of the hard work and perseverence he had shown in this character description of Miss Trunchbull.Alex was runner up in a Young Writer Competition and he captured the attention of the whole school by singing his reworked version of “Walking in a Winter Wonderland”.Bronwyn has written a lovely postcard based on the book “Meerkat Mail”.  Her class had been thinking about extreme climates and had been focussing on deserts.The Tongo Lizard is back! Neve’s version uses fantastic vocabulary and eye catching sub-headings to create a convincing and entertaining non chronological report on this (fictional) creature.Hannah has written aFantastic Night Time report.  She has organised her writing with headings and used some fantastic vocabulary.  Her teacher was so pleased with the effort she has put in and with how much her writing has improved.Bobby, James, Harvey and Chris have carefully constructed a Tudor Village.  They have shown attention to detail on the smaller buildings.  As a group they worked well together.Lewis has made massive improvements with his reading.  He is reading much more regularly, taking more quizzes and passing the majority of them.  Keep it up Lewis and you’ll soon be top of the leader board.

I came across this list today and was shocked to see that some of my favourite titles were not in the list!

Here is the list I found:- 

1. Charlotte‘s Web by E.B. White,  9,899,696 copies sold

2. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton 9,695,159 copies sold

3. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume  7,131,648 copies sold

4. Love You Forever by Robert Munsch 6,970,000 copies sold

5. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls  6,754,308 copies sold

6. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell (Dell, 1971) 6,636,267 copies sold

7. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling  6,631,807 copies sold

8. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume  6,478,427 copies sold

9. Shane by Jack Schaeffer 6,397,270 copies sold

10. The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks  6,394,587 copies sold

What do you think of this list?

How many have you read?

What other titles would be in your top ten list?

What would be the Nessfield Primary School top ten list?

Post a comment and let us know.

Heena wrote a letter to Queen Elizabeth I asking her some very interesting questions.Mysti has independently produced a report about wolves and has included all the success criteria she was asked for including a glossary.  Abigael shared her character description of Captain Abdul.Kerry consistently works hard and tries her best.  she is making great progress in read write Inc.  She is also very thoughtful and helpful in class.Mazar has used his maths knowledge to help him solve tricky problems.  He has recorded his working in a systematic and clear way.  His teacher is really pleased with how hard he is working. Rimsha created a picture in the style of Kandinsky using abstract art and colour to represent different climates around the world.Bradley has worked really hard and has mastered all 4 written calculations.  He can now use them to solve complex sums.Morgan has been working really hard in his maths tests and has gone up a level.

Ellis also worked hard in his maths test and scored full marks this week.Jade brought an excellent piece of writing about the rare Tongo Lizard.

Saad was his class superstar.  He is reading fluently and with expression.  He is trying really hard to write his sentences. he has also worked really well in maths to learn his facts about capacity.

Joe has found story writing challenging, but in the past few weeks he has pushed himself to use adjectives, adverbs and dialogue with action sentences and imperitive verbs.  Great work Joe!Katie was chosen to be star of the week because she is more focussed in class and is demonstrating some good features in her writing such as full stops, capital letters and some describing words.Danni’s class have read lots of stories from different cultures over the last 2 weeks.  Danni has written two good pieces of independent writing.  One is about Handa’s Hen and one is about arriving at a pyramid in Egypt. 

 Danni is making good progress in her writing.  Well done.Husna and Tyler worked co-operatively in ICT to produce this information booklet on dogs.Louis brought this really interesting sheet on spelling shapes.  Why not follow his example and draw a shape to put a spelling inside?  Or did he spell the word and then draw a shape around it?Mohammed was Year 3 and 4′s Accelerated Reader of the week and he brought his latest book along to show us.

Joshua has brought another fantastic pastel picture of a famous Tudor. 

 It was Henry VIII last week, do you recognise this week’s famous royal?

Casey was selected for good work assembly for her PE work.  She works with care and creativity on the apparatus, each time she completes “a section” it is something different.  She showed brilliant perseverence on the balancing beam.

Brandon spent ages learning his spellings this week and came top of the class in his test.  A great example to set, well done.

James told us that he had learnt and remembered lots of interesting facts about night time and why we need to sleep.  He was joined by Sophie who also has shown her class that she has

a fantastic knowledge about the need to sleep.

Safraz was his class star of the week as he is becoming more focussed with his work and completing activities with independence.  He has remembered some of the fruits from “Handa’s Basket” to create this lovely picture.

Georgie is showing a real motivation to improve in all areas of work.  This is particularly evident in maths where as a result of hard work at home and in class she is working more independently, more accurately and at a much better pace.  Super attitude Georgie!Ben is beginning to show a more mature and responsible approach to his work and a motivation to extend himself to more challenging tasks.  Keep moving forward Ben.Taiba used her phonic knowledge to write this sentence independently.Charlie and Harisah have taken up the challenge to win an iPad in the latest competition where children have been asked to nominate their favourite outdoor place for lunch.Adele and Lucy brought samples of their independent writing.Ruby was her class star of the week for a super non-chronological report on wolves. She remembered lots of facts and was able to write these in sentences under the correct headings.Lucy worked independently on this report.  She has retained a lot of information and is very keen and  enthusiastic to complete her report.Jessica created this very detailed and annotated diagram of the water cycle.Muhasib has worked really hard to produce an excellent piece of descriptive writing with adverbs, imperative verbs and a simile.Harry brought two pieces of work, his well constructed bar chart about mini beasts and a great information sheet about Africa.Jasmine is very enthusiastic about her weather topic and has made a cloud identification chart.India tried hard to use scientific vocabulary in her explanation of the water cycle.  She drew a detailed diagram to go with it.  She has shown great enthusiasm for the weather topic this half term.

Subhaan has worked really hard in maths recently.  He has impressed Mr. Bell with the strategies he uses for both mental and written calculations which he then applies to problem solving.  He scored an impressive 24/25 in this week’s maths test – his best score yet.

He also produced this super pastel drawing of Henry VIII.Four of our Year 3 children, Grace, Amy, Jed and Husna went to Oakworth Primary this week for a Spelling Bee.  We are very pleased to report that Jed and Husna won, their trophies are below.Rysa did not bring any work this week because she was chosen for knowing all her times tables except the 7s and is the child in her class that can recall these facts the fastest.  She is now working on the tricky 7s!

Adam demonstrated great balancing skills in his PE lesson today.Liam had been working very hard on his reading.Bradley scored 100% on his weekly maths assessment.Mason shared his creative poetry, he had described ‘night’ using a good range of adjectives.Class 9 had been learning about the mystery of The princes in the Tower.  Jasmine drew a super line drawing of the Tower of London.Erin brought two pices of work – a variety of similies and a report on Richard III’s discovery.Joe segmented his sounds for “chip” based sentences independently.  Well done Joe.Meia’s class have been learning about London.  Meia concentrated really hard to create this fantastic picture of a London landmark.  Do you recognise it?Mr. Whiteley’s note says it all about Megan’s recent achievements.Tania has written a description of a haunted house using complex sentences, conjunctions and adjectives.Isabel thought of a super alternative ending to the book “Wolves” as her class didn’t like the original ending where the rabbit gets eaten.Maariyah worked hard to solve problems involving fractions.  She knows that to find a fraction you need to use division.

What do you plan to do and what have you done over the Easter holidays?

Leave a comment so we can keep up with your family activities.

Harrison was Class 5′s star of the week for persevering with his maths work and finally succeeding.  What a great attitude!Alhough he found it hard at first, Alex has worked really hard to learn to read scales.Lee demonstrated good reasoning skills to solve these mathematical problems.Megan has been getting to grips with the puctuation involved around direct speech.Phoebe was her class star of the week for consistently working hard and getting on with her work independently.  She has written a lovely piece of writing about her World Book Day character.Year 1 have been learning about castles.  They have found out why Mott and Bailey castles were so important.  Harry produced these very detailed drawing which everybody thought was fantastic.Gemma has worked independently to reflect images in a mirror line.  She asked for help with the diagonal line but continued to push herself and reflect the shape.  She also made sure her work was neat and well presented and she used a ruler for each question.Dominic drew this picture on World Book Day, his class were studying the artist Quentin Blake who illustrated Roald Dahl’s books.  Can you identify the book character he has drawn?Hannah can tell any time on a clock.  She has solved time problems in class and her teacher was very pleased with the extra ‘time homework’ she has completed this week.

Harisah did not have any work to show but was selected from her class because she has been working incredibly hard to learn all her times tables.  She knows them all up to the 10 times table and is now working on the related division facts.