This week, Nursery found some strange footprints in the classroom which led outside. We discussed who they might belong to and what the creature might look like.
English
The Arrival by Shaun Tan
This week, Year 6 started their English unit based on the graphic novel, ‘The Arrival’ by Shaun Tan. A graphic novel is a story without words and it can still be just as powerful and detailed. We discussed how every illustration is included for a reason and that if you look very closely you gather a huge amount of information from a single image.
‘The Arrival’ is a migrant story. A man leaves his wife and child in a poor town, hoping for better opportunities in an unfamiliar country on the other side of the sea. He eventually finds himself in a mysterious city of different traditions, strange animals, unusual drifting objects and foreign languages. With only a suitcase and a little money, the immigrant must find a place to live, food to eat and some kind of employment. He is helped along the way by supportive strangers, each carrying the weight of their own past: stories of struggle and survival in a world of upheaval and hope.
Our Topic this term is ‘Tolerance’ and already Year 6 have been able to identify some of the key themes of the book as respect, diversity and multiculturalism. We look forward to seeing the work that the children will produce based on this powerful story.
Animal Footprints
Year 1 found a box in their classroom. There were animal footprints around the box! We realised that they were the footprints of an elephant, a camel, a lion and a frog. A message on the box said that the box had come from the zoo. Inside the box, there was a book called ‘Dear Zoo’. We figured out that the zoo had tried to send us some pets. We talked about whether or not an elephant, camel, lion and frog would make a good pet
Y4 Explorers
This half term, we will be learning about Ernest Shackleton and his expedition to the South Pole. To learn about a polar expedition and the things you might require, we took part in outdoor learning. Dotted around the outdoor classroom were cards with two items to choose between. The children had to decide which item they would take with them on an expedition and why.
Y5 English
This half term we have been reading the story ‘The Explorer’ by Katherine Rundell. It has been an inspiring book to our young writers and they have produced some amazing work.
They were disgusted to hear about the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest so wrote persuasive letters to the Brazilian Ambassador to encourage him to stop the clearing of the rainforest. We got so immersed in the story that the children wrote a descriptive setting piece about their own journey through the Amazon, concentrating on using their five senses. Finally, we ended the term on writing diamante poems about some of the animals we met in the story so far.
Reception and Y3 Buddies
This morning, children from Reception and Y3 met to share their learning. Y3 children shared their non-chronological reports on the Ancient Egyptians, while Reception children shared their learning about Iceland and New Zealand.
Year 3 then sang their song ‘Amazing Egyptians’ to their buddies, along with the actions. A great time was had by all!
Y4 Published Writers
Back in the Autumn term, year 4 wrote some kennings poems, which we entered into a competition. Our kennings were about Roman Gladiators. Today, the published books arrived with our poems inside!
Reception and Year 2 Author Experience
We had a fantastic time at Bookbugs and Dragon Tales bookshop this week, where some of our children in Reception and Year 2 got the opportunity to meet the author and illustrator of ‘Out of the Blue’ and do some fun activities. They also got to take part in a question and answer session and asked some brilliant questions. We all had a great time visiting this amazing bookshop!
Y3 Les Herissons’ Writing
Les Herissons (and all of Year 3) have loved learning about the Ancient Egyptians.
Look at these amazing non-chronological reports they have produced in writing!
They have so much knowledge and we are all so proud of them.
Year 4 Iron Man Poetry and Art
Year 4 have started the new term to an incredible beginning. We began the week by exploring our focus for this half term, The Iron Man by Ted Hughes. In Writing, we have discovered figurative language such as alliteration, similes, metaphors and onomatopoeia. We have found examples of this in The Iron Man and created our own examples to write short poems about the Iron Man.
In Art, we explored sketching techniques and practiced hatching, contour hatching, cross hatching and smudging. Our final piece, is a chalk drawing of The Iron Man. See some examples of our work below!
