Spring term 2021

DT - March 2021 - Free standing structures

 In our DT lessons we have been learning all about free-standing structures. We first explored a variety of structures focusing on the materials that were made from, how they were joined together, what their purpose is, who uses them and how they work. We chose some of our favourite structures to sketch and label using the technical language involved in structures such as; framework, joins, stability, shapes, materials etc. We then used a variety of construction kits to try and build a free-standing structure, our main aim was to build any structure that would stand alone. We made a few errors along the way and begun to reflect on the 'How' and the 'What' to make it stronger and more stable. 

We then received a letter from Baby Bear. He was so upset because Goldilocks had broken his chair. He asked us if we would be able to make him a new chair that was fir for purpose so we first thought about how this could be done. We experimented using paper to make a prototype first. This forced us to think about appropriate shapes and joins that would make it stable.

All of this experience enabled us to plan, make and evaluate a chair that was suitable for Baby Bear. We labelled our plan; ensuring that we labelled our materials and the shapes that we were going to create so that this would keep us on track. We made a fair few errors along the way, but with teamwork and perseverance, we achieved what we had set out to do. When we came to evaluate our finished product, we were able to reflect upon what we liked and what worked well with our chairs as well as thinking about what we could do to improve our work. We are extremely proud of our hard work! Who knew what budding designers we have in our class!!!

RE - March 2021 - All about Easter

In our RE lessons we have been learning all about the Easter story and how Christians all around the world celebrate Easter. First, we listened to and discussed the events that occurred within the Easter story. We have learned lots of new vocabulary such as Christians, crucified, celebration, resurrection, and betrayal and used this vocabulary to retell the story through both ordering the events and role-playing parts of the story in groups. During our role-play, we explored and used the emotions involved in each of the scenarios. This was a lot of fun, we even performed our role-plays to the rest of the class. We now have a better understanding of why we have hot cross buns and Easter eggs - The cross on the bun represents Jesus dying on the cross and the chocolate eggs represent 'New Life'.

Art - February 2021 - Land Art - Andy Goldsworthy and Henry Matisse

Andy Golsdworthy

We have been studying the work of a famous artist called Andy Goldsworthy. He is famous for using nature to create wonderful art and sculptures. The children have particularly enjoyed learning about how he used cow dung and human hair within some of his work. The children have been creating a fact file all about Andy Goldsworthy and have been to the forest to collect some natural materials ready for them to study and sketch. We have been exploring texture, tone, shape, rough and smooth.

We then had a discussion and explored the idea of land art as art that is a part of the landscape that is left to erode naturally. We observed some of Andy Goldsworthy's work and identified the materials that land art sculptures could be made from. We went back to the forest to use the natural materials around us to make our own miniature land art in the style of Andy Goldsworthy!

Henry Matisse

We have been learning a lot about the work of Henry Matisse. Similar to Andy Goldsworthy, he creates art using natural materials also. Henry Matisse used leaves to create paper cut out collage and printed images, paying particular attention to contrasting colours and shapes. We began with exploring his work and learning all about him to create a fact file. We then used the leaves that we collected from our woodland area to observe their shapes in order to create some paper cut out collages and printed images in the style of Henry Matisse.

After all of this exploration, we used all of our skills to create leaf sculpture using our collected leaves and clay. We had great fun manipulating the clay. What we did find tricky was sculpting the clay to recreate the  shapes and textures of our real leaves. However, we think we did a fantastic job! 

Maths - numbers and place value.

This term in maths, we have been practising our counting forwards and backwards to 50. We took our learning outdoors to revisit adding and subtracting on a number line with a friend; This was "super fun" because we had to try and beat our classmates in solving the addition and subtraction problems, location the answer within the playground which revealed a letter! We then needed to crack the code to find out the secret word!

We have also been practising counting in 2s, 5s and 10s by playing Ping Pong with our teacher, singing songs, passing a bean bag around a circle and going head to head to say the next multiple. We have been learning to count, read, write and make numbers to 40. We have practised using the