Week 13 and 14 (04-15 Dec)
Firstly, I have to congratulate ‘Magnificent Maserati’ for an amazing Autumn Term, you have all worked so hard during the term and produced some wonderful learning across the curriculum.
In English we have been looking at ‘Coming Home’ a popular Waitrose advert about a robin flying home for Christmas. We have enjoyed the audio version read by Michael Morpurgo and also watched the film clip Throughout the unit we have looked carefully specific language features, mapped out the journey the robin took and looked at fronted adverbials and expanded noun phrases to use in our own retell of the robin’s journey. A credit to everyone in class as they all rose to the challenge and enjoyed writing their final piece in pen as many children in the class would like their Pen Licence.
In Maths, we have finished our first multiplication and division units looking at different times tables using multiplication and division facts. Some of us have even extended our knowledge and been multiplying 3 numbers together. Within this learning journey we have been using TT Rockstar’s to improves speed and skills and working to become ‘Rock Legends’.
It has been a busy week completing our science topic Food and the Digestive system where we have look at ecosystems, animal habitats, food chains and food webs. Then we learnt about the process of digestion and the function of each of the parts of the digestive system and how food is absorbed. Everyone worked really hard creating labelled diagrams and either matched descriptions wrote some wonderful words and phrases about the journey of food. Finally, this week we have looked at teeth and understood why it is important to look after our teeth and have good oral hygiene.
In History we have learnt about major historical events of the past travelling through the Stone Age, Bronze Age and the Iron Age. This history unit has including changes to people and lifestyle caused by ingenuity, invention and technological advancement. We have looked at chronology, everyday life, houses and settlements, different jobs and monuments. This also included looking at significant people who help shaped the he times and using evidence and sources from the past to build on our learning. Our art unit linked alongside with the Bronze Age we made Bell beaker coil and pots from clay and added patterns using special tools to help to try techniques and add patterns in the style of Bell Beaker people.
In geography, we have been working hard on a unit all about the world. we have looked at essential skills and improved our knowledge to locate countries and cities, and use grid references, compass points and latitude and longitude. They learnt about the layers of the Earth and tectonic plates and discovered the five major climate zones. Maserati children have really thought carefully about presentation and have additionally learnt to draw tables and label diagrams during this unit.
PE this half term has been busy with some skipping skills, followed by hockey drills and skills and then our indoor unit has been looking at Boot Camp exercise to improve our fitness. Fantastic effort and challenge of skills from the whole class has been great to see how co-operative and competitive we can be.
With having the main art focus being the Bell Beaker pots at the beginning of
the term. We have continued looking and expanding our knowledge of Colour Theory. During this project it has taught children about colour theory by studying the colour wheel and colour mixing using water colours. It also included an exploration of tertiary colours, warm and cool colours, complementary colours, analogous colours and how artists use colour in their artwork. We have produced some wonderful colour compositions using colours.
Week 11 and 12 (20 Nov-01 Dec)
We have been working had with our learning in Maserati.
In English we have had a grammar focus looking carefully at expanded noun phrases, fronted adverbials and subordinate clauses writing different examples linked to the text. Everyone has planned their own portal story using the model and used this to write their own portal stories. Some are very similar to ‘Leon and the Place in Between’ where a little boy’s interest in magic comes alive when he enters a wooden box and other take use on exciting adventures into other worlds. After writing the stories and careful editing and up levelled the stories to up level. Maserati has some budding authors in the making.
In Maths we have been focusing on multiplication and division. It is not just learning times-table to 12 but using to solve times and division word problems, spot patterns to increase speed and improve times-tables knowledge. Everyone has rose to the challenge and is working very hard learning and use their times tables with regular practice on TT Rockstar. This week some of the class have really challenged themselves to solve missing digits and patterns. They even challenged Mrs Clark wo solve some tricky problems during the lesson.
In our History we have left the Bronze Age and Bell Beaker pottery and moved to the Iron Age where life changed for the people when they discovered iron. People’s everyday lives were changed as iron made farming more efficient and iron weapons were available for everyone. Tribes attacked each other to steal their land, food and possessions. People created art6, music and pottery.
In Geography we have been looking at the Earth by reading the book ‘The Street Beneath My Feet’ by Charlotte Guillain. We used the book to introduce the Earth’s layers and key vocabulary, such as crust, magma, mantle and core. We then made a 2 D model of the Earth’s layers and described the four layers. This week we re-capped the layers of the Earth from the previous session watched a video tectonic plates and how it has taken millions of years to change the Earth to how we know it today. At the end of the session we talked about ‘What do you think will happen to the Earth’s crust over time?
We finished off the week talking about ‘Colour Theory’ in Art looking at famous pieces of artwork.
Week 9 and 10 (6-17 Nov)
Well done Marvellous Maserati what a wonderful start to the term.
Last week we had a great time for STEM week. We looked at our Design and Technology Project Eat Well, Cook Well. On Monday we started off the week learning about food hygiene and safety in the kitchen. We then cooked potatoes six ways and tasted discussed cooking methods. We have practiced chopping vegetables and made Ratatouille and then were innovative and made different taco fillings to share with Parent during the open afternoon.
On Tuesday, Mrs Grady joined Maserati and we followed instructions to make a robotic hand using cardboard, straws and string. It was tricky to start, but everyone made a fantastic prototype and tested their hand trying out everyday task like writing your name and drink a glass of water.
In English we have started to read our new book ‘Leon and the place in between’ and listened to the magic un-fold as we turned the colourful pages. Leon went through a door inside a door and into the place between where he made a special little boy. This week Maserati pupils have had to learn a section of the story and created a detailed story map of events. We also have started our new Guided Reading text ‘The Iron Man’ and form the detail in the text have compared the description and mapped out his head was as big as a bedroom and he was taller than a house.
We have started our new math’s unit ‘Multiplication and Division’ looking at multiples of numbers, times tables including multiplication and division facts. Everyone has been working so hard practicing their timetables and this is been reflected in their maths. Congratulations Maserati you are all working very hard and should be extremely proud of yourselves.
In Science our new topic is ‘Food and the Digestive System’ and this week’s focus has been ‘Producers and the Ecosystem’ where we created our own glossary of words and built on our vocabulary skills. Everyone worked and researched a different ecosystem and found out about the landscape and climate. We will continue our research next week.
Our topic work is going well and we have completed the Bronze Age finding out about Amesbury Archer and the Beaker People. We have looked how they lives during this period of history and how living on the land and houses changed from the Stone Age. In Art we have sketched using a range of drawing pencils and learnt about how to use the pencils for different techniques found on Beaker pots. We have explored clay techniques using different tools and designed and made Beaker Pots using coil techniques.
Please keep this up over the term.