Autumn term
Celebration day
Geography
We have been learning about Shackleton and his expedition; using four-figure grid references to map his route to Antarctica. We moved onto becoming familiar with the eight points on a compass and used these to plan our own expedition around the school. Working in groups we followed each others instructions to get to a certain part of the school. We used compasses to help us.
Science
Here we are using ourselves to create a working circuit. Can you guess who is a battery, bulb, wire or switch?
We have further developed our understanding of circuits by carrying out scientific enquiries, ensuring we did comparative and fair tests. This included experimenting by adding switches into our circuit as well as finding out what happens as you add more bulbs. We made discoveries about insulators and conductors by testing a variety of materials, recording our results in a table.
More art…
We experimented with using scratch marks to add contrast and tone into our art work on these wax resist pictures. We found different tools to use to see how we could change the effects. I’m sure you will agree, the final results are really quite striking.
DT
Our DT project this half term has been focused on fastenings. Our brief was to design a book sleeve that met certain criteria, one of which being that it must have a fastening. We spent some time designing a template to ensure proportions were correct before transfering that to fabric. We had to use lots of different skills, especially perseverance when it came to threading the needles! I think everyone was happy with their final creation, it is lovely to see them being used on reading books in the classroom.
Art - drawing with scissors
As part of our Power Prints art project we looked at the work of an artist called Henri Matisse who began making paper cut outs when he was no longer able to stand to paint. We had a go at making our own paper collages, thinking carefully about composition - where we would place certain elements within our picture. We took into consideration contrast by including different shapes, sizes and textures as well as using scissors with precision.
Science
Our topic this half term is electricity. We have been thinking about electrical appliances and if they are mains powered or battery powered. Here, you can see we are making our own circuits, we had lots of different combinations to try and predicted if they would work or not before making them. We were able to follow circuit diagrams and draw our own scientific diagrams.
Maths
We have been learning about area and had fun using an interactive website to help us.
Outdoor learning
During outdoor learning we took the time to look at the positive parts of our environment as well as notice things that we could improve to make the area even better. We recorded these and have set ourselves some tasks for future outdoor learning sessions.
Scratch
This is us using coding skills to create our own animated quiz on the programme Scratch.
The Library of Wonders
An exciting visit to see the new books added to the school “Library of Wonders” this morning! So many good books to get lost in!
World Apple Day
Here we are celebrating World Apple Day just before half term. We had to crush the apples before pressing them to collect the juice using equipment kindly lent to us by Mrs Fenwick. It was hard work but we were pleased with the results, although we decided that it doesn’t taste like the apple juice we buy in the shops! We also tried a variety of different types of apples to compare the taste and textures, who knew apples could be so different!
Music
Working in small groups, we finished our compositions based on the structure of the rainforest. We used the skills we have been developing throughout our music lessons, focussing on tempo, dynamics, texture and structure. Each group performed their final composition to the rest of the class.
Food chains
We have been identifying producers, predators and prey in food chains. During our science lesson last week we became predators and prey in a game to help us learn about feeding relationships between animals and the effect this has on population size. Some of us took on the role of the lynx (in bright bibs) and the rest of us were hares. It was a great visual that helped us to analyse prey-predator graphs later on.
Our pneumatic toys
Here they are, our finished toys! We thought hard about the whole process when we wrote our evaluations, identifying things that went well and things that we found tricky as well as thinking about anything we would change or do differently next time.
RE
We have been looking at the ways in which religious worldwide views are connected and thinking about the ways we can be respectful towards these views. We have discovered that there is more than one way to understand God and that we should be tolerant of and respect different faiths and beliefs.
Pneumatic toys
Here are some pictures of us beginning to make our pneumatic toys. Our design specification was to create an eye-catching toy, suitable for younger children that must have a pneumatic system to make it work. Watch this space for our finished products…
Science
To help us better understand how to keep our teeth healthy we did an “eggciting eggsperiment” involving, you guessed it eggs! The egg shells represent the enamel of our teeth. We wanted to see the impact of a variety of liquids, including water, orange juice, milk, vinegar and cola over a period of a week.
We also made some eye catching posters to give advice about keeping our teeth healthy.
Maths
Learning times tables is fun! We are developing our skills, using games and TT rockstars to improve our fluency.
Music
In our music lessons we have been finding out about and having a go at creating body percussion. We listened to a piece of music that sounded like rain, it began with a gentle pitter, patter before building up to torrential rain and thunder. As a group, we discussed the structure and texture of the music which allowed us to identify the different layers that were playing at the same time. We then had a go at creating our own version of the rain storm using our own body percussion.
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Science
We have started exploring the digestive system during our science lessons. We all enjoyed a rather messy but fun practical lesson as part of this! Can you guess what we are doing?