Our topic for this half term will be EXPLORERS.

Here is a copy of our knowledge organiser for this half term.

Weekly Updates

There were some fantastic entries for our pumpkin competition!

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With the weather so horrendous on Friday we had wet play all day, which the children love, and the board games came out - the most popular choice was chess!

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We had a great day on Friday cooking our Indian Bombay potatoes. The children practised their cutting and measuring skills to prepare the potatoes and tomatoes and add all of the Indian spices. They then got to try their creation alongside some chapattis. Some enjoyed the spice others found it too spicy but most gave it a try. 

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In science we have been thinking about thermal conductivity and looked at an experiment to see whether heat travels up spoons made from different materials to melt butter. The children focused on drawing scientific labelled diagrams and concluding the findings. 

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The children worked really hard in their last week of term to write up their biographies on Captain Robert Falcon Scott. They really thought about their presentation and layout. 

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On Friday we celebrated black excellence, as part of black history month and we explored three influential black British people. Working in groups, the children researched information about Stormzy, Eniola Aluko and Malorie Blackman, using their skills of writing a biography to decide what information to collect. Then we heard the first couple of chapters of ‘Pig Heart Boy’ by Malorie Blackman. The children loved the start of this book and we are excited to purchase the book for our class. 

We then looked at the work of Stormzy by listening to a clean version of ‘Superheroes’. We learnt about how to structure a rap and then had a go t writing our own on the topic of diversity and inclusion. I was very impressed with the children’s efforts and some were even confident enough to perform their raps for the class.

Finally we created some sketching artwork portraits of our three influential black British people. We tried to focus on the shape of the face and its features by mirroring one half.

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On Wednesday we had a visit from the NSPCC to remind the children of the importance to speak out to stay safe. They showed great respect and loved participating in the activities to create a  chatterbox to help them remember the most important information.

We also joined in on another national virtual internet safety assembly this week to think about what we share and comment on when we are online.

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In D&T the children had a great time making their own version of a Greek pasta salad. We learnt some good cutting skills and got to eat our creations for our lunch!

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This week in geography we have been looking at time zones and 

the children had fun creating clocks to show the different times in different places around the world.

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In English, we have been starting to write our biography detailing the facts of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s life and legacy resulting from his polar expeditions. I am looking forward to sharing some photos of their hard work once it is completed. 

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In RE the children have really enjoyed creating our own mini books of the Easter story.

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In D&T we continued our learning about foods, thinking about different cuisines around the world based on the local produce of the area. The children worked in pairs to research different cuisines.

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In Science we performed some experiments to look at properties of different materials: transparency, durability (hardness), magnetism, flexibility and permeability. We then collated our results to compare different materials. We found that, depending on how the material had been processed meant the same material could have different properties, for example some metals (a metal tin) are rigid and hard, whereas others (aluminium foil) are flexible and not durable.

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In maths we have been looking at comparing and rounding numbers by looking at the numbers in the place value positions. To round we learnt a rhyme: 0 to 4 down to the floor, 5 to 9 continue to climb. This can be represented with a ball on a hill between 2 numbers on a number line divided into steps of the place value position we are rounding to and thinking about which way the ball will roll. See this video for a basic explanation: 

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In PE this week we focussed on defending, thinking strategically where we would be best positioned to defend from attack - this could be marking the ball, defending a space, or marking a player (photos to follow).

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In Science last week we looked at some key vocabulary for describing the properties of materials. This week we created some cards to use for a matching game to reinforce our knowledge and understanding!

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In RE we have started looking at Christian celebrations and, although it’s early to be thinking about it, we started with Jesus’s birth - Christmas! The children compared the different accounts of the Christmas story in the bible. 

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In PE this week the children have introduced a ball into their attacking and defending games working on strategies to pass the ball to their team mates avoiding the defender (photos to follow).

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In our Jigsaw lesson this week the children learnt about all the rights they have according to UNCRC and then thought about their responsibilities to ensure the rights are all children can be met.

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This week in geography, the children have been using knowledge of latitude and longitude coordinates to locate continents on a world map.

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The children enjoyed their first PE lesson of the term on Monday when we looked at attacking and defending skills. They started thinking critically and using strategic movements and improving their agility.

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We started our D&T topic on food and nutrition by considering the diet an explorer in the Arctic would need and how different foods have different calories. The children then built their own menu for a day in the Arctic to provide them with the required number of calories to give them the energy they would need to survive in those conditions. Its quite a lot!

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We also started our geography lessons learning about the key features of a world map. The children created their own balloon representation of a globe showing the main lines of latitude and longitude.

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We have had a great first full week back and have dived straight into our new learning topic.

In English we started looking at our new book 'Great Adventurers' by Alastair Humphreys and the children have been focusing on building their vocabulary and descriptive techniques, including using hyphenated descriptions to write about the equipment the explorers needed.

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On Thursday we had our Wow day to introduce the children to our new topic - Explorers.

Linked to our science topic this half term, where we will be looking at properties of materials (including insulators), we looked at how to keep warm in the arctic using ‘blubber’ (lard) and found that some children could keep their hands in the ice water for a very long time when covered in fat!

As an introduction to our geography topic this term we then made our own compasses by magnetising a needle and allowing it to float freely in water so the north pole end could align with the Earth’s North Pole, before taking some real compasses outside to practise following the cardinal directions (Never Eat Slimy Worms).

In the afternoon, we focused on our D&T, where the topic will be food and nutrition, and we got hands on making some sledging biscuits. The children got to try their creations at the end of the day and the class were decidedly split on their opinions of them.

We finished our activities by painting an arctic landscape. I was very impressed with their artistic skills and look forward to displaying these on our topic wall!

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We also had another go at signing a song we practised back on our transition days. I chose this song to represent my belief that we can all TRY and mistakes are part of learning that are essential and therefore expected so I want all children to give things a try even if they are not sure if it’s right as we can all learn from mistakes. (The video is actually from our transition day.)

We have had a fantastic first week back! We have created our class charter, thinking about how we want to feel in class and what we need to do to achieve the sort of classroom environment that will make us feel positive. All the children have signed it to say they agree to try to keep our classroom a great place to be!