Week 1

English - The clockwork Dragon

This week the children started their latest writing journey by sitting in the classroom with the lights off listening to the noise of a dragon roaring. They weren't told what the noise was and they were asked how the noise made them feel. This generated amazing adjectives which the children then added to when they heard the story of The Clockwork Dragon and had the task of generating adjectives to describe the feelings of different characters and viewpoints in the story.

Maths - Rotational turns and measurement

The children started this week by developing their knowledge of fractions and time by exploring rotational turns. The children took it in turns to give and follow instructions and commands using rotational language including, quarter, half and whole turn and clockwise and anticlockwise. The children then moved on to develop their measurement knowledge by exploring estimating and measuring capacity to the nearest ml and temperature.

Art - Milliners

This week the children finished making their hats they had designed inspired by hats made by famous milliners such as Phillip Treacy and Eugenia Kim.

Computing - Algorithms

This week in computing we looked at what algorithms are and how they work. To fully understand how they work the children were set a challenge of drawing a picture by following simple instructions. All children were able to follow these instructions and produce similar drawings of a house.

PE - Dance and gymnastics

In dance this week the children developed the skill of cooperation and collaboration. The children listened to a piece of music entitled "friends" and had to identify when the music "walked" or "skipped" the children then worked with a partner to come up with different "friendship" movements to a 4 x 8 beat to create a friendship movement piece.

In gymnastics the children used their previous knowledge of balance and weight shifting to help them create controlled twists, turns, rolls and spins. The children combined their jumping knowledge along with what they had learnt about creating different pathways to move around the hall and change directions using spins, twists and turns.

Week 2

English - Features of instruction writing

After coming up with some really creative ideas on how they might possibly catch a dragon to help the town folk of Cranktown, the children learnt about the different writing features that are used in instruction writing and their different purposes. The children then looked at a set of instructions and highlighted all the features they recognised. The children then began to plan and write their own set of instructions, using these features, to help people catch Flamethrottle the dragon.

Maths - Addition, Subtraction and geometry

This week in maths the children developed their addition and subtracting skills by solving calculations that involved adding/subtracting two single digits, adding/subtracting two digit with a single digit and adding/subtracting two two digit numbers with a focus on breaking down numbers into tens and ones to help us. The children then applied these skills by solving problems. Finally this week we revisited and reviewed our geometry knowledge by comparing 2D and 3D shapes by their properties.

Computing - Beebots - Same but different

This week the children learnt how the order in which the same instructions/directions are given can cause different results. The children explored this first hand through using Beebots and maps. The children were given a set of directions and found out all of the different destinations they could arrive at by changing the order in which the directions were programmed in.

Science - Properties of materials - Waterproof

Following on from learning about Charles Macintosh and how he invented the first waterproof coat, the children tested out other materials to see if there were any other materials that had properties that would be suitable for a waterproof coat. The children ran fair tests by using the same amount of water each time and recorded their results. 

DT - Sewing - the running stitch

For our DT topic this term the children are learning to create a fabric face of themselves as part of a tapestry for Seahorse class 2024. This week the children learnt how to sew using the basic running stitch.

Week 3

Maths - The two, five and ten times tables

This week in maths the children developed their multiplication recall by focussing on how the 2,5 and 10 times tables grow and then using that knowledge to answer different multiplication questions.

English - Instructions and noun phrases

At the start of the week the children wrote, edited and published their own set of instructions to help people like the Mayor of Cranktown  catch, get rid or even kill problematic dragons. The children then learnt that the problem of dragons was a lot bigger than they thought when they watched videos of dragon sightings from around the world. This caused a lot of discussion on the different type of dragons there might be and led us into exploring how adjectives are used to not only describe appearance but personalities too. The children created word banks of powerful adjectives to describe different types of dragons before taking this further and looking at specific parts of the dragon and creating noun and expanded noun phrases.

Computing - predicting algorithms 

This week in computing the children put their knowledge of programming into practise by predicting the final location their Beebot would end up when starting from a given location and following a series of instructions they programmed in. When the results were different than expected the children were able to work out where mistakes had been made.

Music - Forte and piano

The children continued to develop their knowledge of pitch dynamics this week by playing a game called "Hunt the dragon egg". A golden dragon egg was hidden amongst the children and the children took it in turns to try and find out who had the egg. The way the did this was through the help of their friend - when the child was near the person with the egg the children clapped really loudly (forte) as opposed to when they were far away from the person and the classed clapped quietly and softly (piano). 

DT - Textiles - finishing techniques

In preparation for the children to create their fabric faces, this week the children explored different finishing techniques they could use to help them join other components to their work. The children explored using glue, sellotape, staples and running stitches to see what worked and what created the desired effect.

PE - Dance - Bubbles

This week the children focussed on collaboration and cooperation when creating paired and grouped movement pieces based on the stimulus of bubbles. The children has to explore and create different ways their balloons could combine by using different body parts and then show how their bubbles eventually shuddered and then popped by bursting. 

Final Straw Charity day

On Friday, we all dressed in blue to show our support for our new charity "The Final Straw". The children were also set the challenge of using plastic rubbish that they might find around our beaches and upcycle it by making a under the sea model. We were blown away with the amazing models brought in.