We have also been rehearsing for our end of year 'movie'! Check out our trailer for the movie 'Memories'.
Summer Term Learning
We have been really busy in Swallow class over the last 2 weeks. Alongside rehearsing for our play, we have been learning about Black Lives Matter and the recent protests all over the world.
On the 8th June we created a rap, inspired by Fleur East. We also created posters about Black Lives Matter and made a video to show what we have learned.
Spring Term Learning
This term, Swallows will be learning about the many different countries, cultures and beliefs that fit together to form Africa! There will be some really exciting trips, visitors and experiences to help immerse the children in learning about this incredible continent!
On Monday 16th March we experienced a forensic workshop! Gavin the Science Boffin took our fingerprints, and we carried out a chromatography test to find out which pen the culprit used!
Today, 9th March 2020, we had a visit from Mr. Wanangwa Jere, who grew up in Malawi. Mr. Jere gave us a fantastic talk all about life in Malawi! We have used this information to create a script for a short news interview.
We have been looking at different African patterns and creating pictures and patterns inspired by Africa.
On 24th February we started our RE focus week. We have been answering the question, why is there suffering in the world? We have been learning about the Christian and Buddhist perspective about suffering and thinking about what suffering is.
Instead of our trip to the woods on 28th February, we did some partner reading and maths with Robin class. Everyone worked really hard with their partner!
We have been busy thinking about the problems that Africa faces today. We have chosen 2 countries as case studies - Ghana and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We created a list of the main problems that we feel they are facing: Education, healthcare, foreign aid and civil war.
On 14th February we joined Jay class at the Wishing Woods and made dream catchers and worry dolls! See some photos here.
We've been looking at the problems faced in Africa and on 10th February we worked in groups to help our understanding of the repercussions of different issues faced.
In Geography on 4th February, we tackled some of our misconceptions about Africa. We looked at pictures and videos of the capital of Ghana - Accra. Everyone was very surprised to see how developed parts of Ghana are!
In Maths this week (27th January) we are looking at multiplying, dividing and simplifying fractions.
In History on 22nd January, we started thinking about the history of Africa. We focused on some key events and times in the history of Africa and started thinking about how different events were significant. We have started our focus on the Ancient Kingdom of Benin (900AD-1300AD).
We have started reading a book called The Island, where a mysterious stranger washes up and the islanders have to decide what to do with him! We re-wrote character descriptions to describe the stranger and we came up with sentences to describe the stormy seas. We have some fantastic, descriptive writing from our work so far.
On the 24th January, we went to the wishing woods with Robin class. We had great fun helping Robin class with a walk through the woods, pretending to be Goldilocks. Afterwards, we created pictures using natural resources around us.
13th - 17th January
We have been busy researching and writing about different countries across Africa. We were inspired by the beautiful work of 'Letters from afar' and used ideas from here, to create our own fact files.
We've started our topic by learning about the location of different countries in Africa and some of the ecosystems found there. Additionally, we have started to learn about the history of the Kingdom of Benin.
We are really enjoying our new class book: Gorilla dawn. An inspirational story set in the rain forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 2 children work together to save a gorilla's life.
On top of all this, we have also been revising long multiplication and solving multi- step word problems!
Well done to the children from Swallows class who won a writing competition, and will have their work published in a book!
On Friday 17th January we went to the Wishing Wood! We imagined we had been abandoned on an island and had to work in teams (tribes) to survive! We built shelters, defences, fires, foraged for food and sourced water - we also robbed neighbouring tribes of their food!
