Welcome back to Term 1!

The children have come back to school with fantastic attitudes to learning and have dived right into their learning for this term. 

Check out our amazing learning below. 

How can a sculpture tell a story?

We have had a great start to our Art learning this term, beginning to explore our Big Question.

We have been exploring our artist Edgar Degas and his inspiring artwork.

We have begun our focus on his drawings and sculpture of ‘The Little Dancer’. This week the children have created amazing sketches and mixed-media art of Degas’ Little Dancer.

Well done everyone.  

Hidden Figures

We have begun reading our book, that we are focussing on in English this week: Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly.

It tells the true story of four inspirational African-American women, who helped launch the United States into space.

We explored the original meaning of the word computer and have started to develop a toolkit for a biography. I cannot wait to read Tolerance class’ biographies.  

The Race to Space

In History we began our space topic.

We understood how World War 2 ended and how the Cold War begun with the USSR and the USA falling out. After a incredibly interesting class discussion about the space race, the children were asked to complete a task. We then had photographs of the ensuing race to space and ordered the events chronologically. It helped to highlight the small timeframe in which the space race occurred and how quickly technology progressed.

Dharma

Today in RE, we explored the question ‘Is Dharma useful in society?’. We identified the different types of Dharma and discussed the different duties that everyone has in the community. From police officers to doctors.

We then examined both for and against arguments and discussed this as a class.

Mixed-Media Artwork

In Art this week, we explored and interpreted the media used by the artist (wax and fabric). We know Degas used unorthodox media in his sculptures. We looked at how found objects were used in his sculpture as well, each adding to the texture of the artwork. Hair was mixed in with wax to create texture. We then created a collage of different textures from found objects in our sketchbooks.

Fitness

We began our PE this term with Fitness. In today’s lesson we developed an awareness of what our bodies can do. We explored that there are different components of fitness. We discussed that everyone would have their own strengths in different areas and all areas of fitness can be improved over time.

We took part in six challenges; each measured a different component of fitness. We recorded our results down on our own trackers. We can then review our own fitness at the end of term.

Sputnik 1

We have explored the details of Sputnik 1 and its successful orbital mission around the Earth on the 4^th October 1957. We wrote a diary entry to explore the emotions that might have been felt from a variety of people involved in the race to space.

Church School Council Elections

This week we heard speeches from our two Church School Council candidates.

We then took it in turns to ask them questions relevant to their roles.

We then went to the voting station and casted our private ballots, these were then counted, and results announced the next day.

Football

In Football this week, we learnt how to dribble with control under pressure and how to show respect towards those that we play with and against.

We built up our skills and practiced with our learning partners. We accelerated out of the turn into space, looked up so that we could see space to move into and we used all parts of our foot to control the ball.

Music

This term in Music we are exploring the big question: Does a music’s texture influence our likes and dislikes?

Today we listened to two pieces of music, we then commented on the texture of each piece. Was it thick or thin? How many instruments could we hear? Can we name them? How does it make us feel?

Piece 1 was a beautiful melody on a flute, which has a thin texture as one line is being played by one instrument.

Piece 2 was a wonderful piece of music, which has a very thick texture because there are lots of different parts or musical ideas playing at the same time and many different instruments with contrasting timbres.

Our favourite piece was number 2. Gustav Holst’s Jupiter. We found it both hectic and exciting. We also recognised that his series of music ‘The Planets’ have been used in films we have watched, like Toy Story 2.

The First Man on the Moon

After investigating the Apollo 11 mission, we reviewed the pieces of information presented to us. Evidence was displayed around the classroom, and we worked with our learning partners to decide which is the strongest piece of evidence and the weakest. We discussed our thoughts and noted them down on the evidence sheet.