Thursday 7th January
06 Jan 2021
Well here we are again 
back into lockdown which means we'll have to do remote learning until the schools reopen. Anyway, we'll talk more about that in a minute.
How was everybody's Christmas? I hope you all had lots of exciting presents and had a lovely time.It was a very special one for me of course as it was baby Olivia's first 
; she didn't seem as excited as us about it and spent most of it asleep. Can you see her buried in a very large pile of presents people had kindly bought for her?
I thought we could play a game each morning... if you'd like to, you could send me one baby picture of yourself for me to upload on our class page each day and we've to all guess who it is. It's just a bit of fun and should brighten up our day.
Any e-mails can be sent to abreckon@gfschools.co.uk
Right on for the learning for today....
As from tomorrow I'll be ringing you all on TEAMS at 9:30am. I'm not very knowledgable about how teams works at all so the idea is that we'll all be on mute (except me obviously 
). This call should last no more than 30 minutes and is really just to say hello, have a quick chat about the day and a chance to ask any questions. In your packs you should have a list of passwords and one username for teams: It'll end in @gfschools.co.uk
You might remember the day before we broke up where we all changed our passwords to Gclass4 and then whatever your sumdog password is.
Example: Gclass4table32
I seem to remember one or two of you didn't change it to your sumdog passwords and I'd told you I wouldn't remember... and I don't so I'd like you all to log on and check they work. There's not much to see but it should look like this
Click on the orange picture; it should bring you to a screen that looks like this...
If you scroll to the bottom of the page and TOMORROW there'll be a meeting saying January 8th at 9:30. You should be able to click the purple banner and join the meeting TOMORROW. When you click join, you may have to wait in the lobby for a short while.
Also - Please don't send any comments on any of the posts, just e-mail me :-)
Please check that you can all log on and see that page. If you haven't been able to log on let me know, but it may be some time before ICT can fix the problem.
Click or copy/paste this link to logon to TEAMS.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/microsoft-teams/log-in
Your packs:
You should have all collected a pack from school and some reading books.
In this pack should be:
A reading pack
An English pack
A maths pack
some reading books
We'll use these most days. I will always write instructions and sometimes include video explanations on our class page. Please complete the tasks and remember, e-mail me if you have a problem :-)
So as for today...
Reading
I'd like us all to complete a reading plus. (We'll be doing these twice a week) your reading plus details are on the front of your pack if you don't already know them. I'll check online later to see how we all got on, remember the password for everyone it qwerty
P.S - this is the AR link if you want to take any quizzes on completed books within your range. https://ukhosted116.renlearn.co.uk/2245402/
Geography challenge
Glued into the back of your packs is a blank world map. I'm going to give you a country to locate every day and to colour it in. Today I'm going to start off with one that hopefully you've never heard of and therefore won't know where it is straight away. Can you find Nepal and colour it in light green. Use a key on the fold over part of the map and draw a little square in light green and write Nepal.
I don't mind how you find it, whether you use Google maps or an atlas but be sure to look carefully and the shapes and sizes of the country, look at the coastlines etc and then when you're sure, colour it in.
Clue: It's part of the largest continent on Earth and it's between two very large countries
Maths
Just before Christmas we were doing some co-ordinates work. Remember co-ordinates are used to find the position on a page. You have two co-ordinates for the verticle line (Y axis) and one for the horizontal line (x axis). You always plot the first co-ordinate along the horizontal line.
"Along the corridor and up the stairs"
Play this game to test your co-ordinate accuracy. You need to type the co-ordinates in to hit the target. https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/469/Coordinates-Alien-Attack
Play this to find the hidden treasure by looking at how far off your co-ordinates were and altering them https://nrich.maths.org/6288
I know some of you are very familiar with this and won't need to hear any support to plot them but if you're not sure or want a reminder, I've made a video below so please watch it.
If you're ok then you can complete the loose co-ordinate sheet in your packs. There's 2 sides, one where you need to plot the co-ordinates to identify the shape and another where you've been given lots of co-ordinates to reveal a helicopter shape.
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For those who'd like an extra challenge then see if you can answer this question and e-mail in your answer. I'll get back to you if you were correct.
English
We're going to be reading a story called 'The Nowhere Emporium'. Here is an image of the front cover.
Do you know what an emporium is? It means a large shop selling a variety of items. It's quite a mysterious title, I wonder why it's called the 'NOWHERE' emporium. Is it in the middle of nowhere? Seems an odd place to have a large shop don't you think?
Where would I go to discover more about the book without having to actually read it? No, not Google... it's found on the backcover it's called the.... rlubb (can you unscramble that)
Blurb!
Let's look at what the blurb says....
'This mysterious shop from nowhere can appear at any time, in any city.
Its magical labyrinth of rooms contains wonders beyond belief.
But to enter you must pay a price...'
Wow - this does sound intriguing. It still hasn't revealed what it sells but it is very odd that it can appear in different places without any warning.
I want you to think of 2 weird but wonderful items (they can be made up) that you could find to buy within this mysterious shop. Hmm, I wonder if you could buy invisible oil, where just 3 drops of this liquid will turn you invisible for 5 hours. Or maybe a pair of 'monkey mits' where when you put them on, you suddenly have the ability to grasp objects in such a way that you can climb them with ease.
I'm looking forward to hearing what mysterious items you come up with which could be purchased in this store. Draw them and write a sentence explaining what it is and what it does. If you'd like, send them in to me.
Tomorrow we'll read the first chapter.
That's it for today. You're welcome to try any of the other logins.