Autumn 1
DT
We really enjoyed the end of this half term by designing and making our own Iron Age inspired griddle cakes! We learned about different foods that were available then, and tried a number of them including fennel, honey, parsnips and blueberries, and even tried some onions which we dug up from the school garden! Then, we chose which ingredients we wanted in our cakes and got into groups. We tasted plain griddle cakes on the fire pit, then chopped and prepared the ingredients for our own dough. Finally, we fried our griddle cakes on the hob, and got to taste our delicious creations!
Science
As part of our longitudinal study, we are seeing how the pond changes throughout the year. We drew pictures of what the area looks like in Autumn, and did some pond dipping to see what interesting creatures we could find.
Outdoor Learning
We enjoyed a rainy afternoon making the most our grounds and creating a scene from our class novel using natural items!
English
We talked about how the main characters would be feeling in each section of chapters 1 and 2 of The Boy with the Bronze Axe. We worked in groups to create freeze frame scenes from the texts, with a focus on showing the characters' emotions. We also enjoyed using our senses for description. We pictured ourselves on a beach in Orkney and borrowed Junipers class's sand tray to help us write about the feeling of sand between our toes!
History
Maths
In maths we have learnt different strategies to help us add and subtract numbers mentally. We then applied these strategies using Teach Active games outside.
Science
In Science we learnt about fossils. We discussed how scientists use fossils of all kinds, not just bones, to learn about the past. We looked at fossils (some children in the class bought fossils in from home!) and we learnt about the difference between bones and fossils. Then we completed a range of activities including ordering fossilisation process cards and matching the dinosaur with their fossil.
Maths
We love our Teach Active lessons! Today we had to get ourselves in number order without stepping off the bench. Miss Lilly was very impressed with how well we worked as a team!
Science
We have been experimenting on granite, chalk and sandstone this week to decide 'Which type of cliff would be best for a caveman's cave? We recorded the rocks mass before and after being placed in water for 30 minutes, we tested their hardness by scratching them with a clay scraper and we looked at their reaction to acid by putting the rocks in lemon juice. We then presented our findings to Miss Lilly and concluded which cliff we thought the caveman should move into.
History - Stonehenge Trip
Swallowtails had an amazing trip to Stonehenge...even if it was a little bit wet! We took part in a workshop at the stones, where we learned about how they were moved to the site and ideas for why they are there. We then recreated a Bronze Age burial for the great warrior Matilda, and explored the exhibition and the replica Neolithic houses. All of the adults were really proud of how well we all focused, despite the weather, and we look forward to building our learning into our Stone Age explanation texts.
P.E.
Swallowtails had a fun gymnastics session showing Mrs Clark the different ways that we could show five key shapes on various pieces of equipment. Check out the range of tucks, pikes, straddles, stars and straight shapes that we made!
Outdoor Learning
We made the most of some September sunshine by enjoying our school grounds. We completed a scavenger hunt to find different types of leaves, and tried outdoor meditation activities including searching for shapes in clouds.
History
Swallowtails enjoyed an archaeological dig at school! We discovered lots of Stone Age historical artefacts, including flint, wool, leather and replica bones, along with some from other time periods such as ammonites and a mobile phone! We talked about what these historical sources told us about the Stone Age, and we looked at images of cave paintings to see what we could learn from them too.
We also learned about BC and AD, and created Stone Age timelines ordering events from as far back as 2,500,000 BC!
P.S.H.E
Swallowtails brought in toys that used batteries - we were amazed at the variety! We talked about what they all have in common, and how batteries show positive and negative symbols. We shared as a class how we work better when people treat us positively, and we thought about how we can show positivity to others.
Science
Swallowtails have been rock detectives in Science this week! We looked closely at samples of rocks, identified them and drew detailed, labelled drawings. Some of the rocks that we identified were chalk, slate, sandstone, granite and limestone. We talked about what some of these might have been used for in the Stone Age.
R.E.
Our R.E. topic was the Christian Creation Story. We have been appreciating God's Creation by going out into our school grounds, and making a rainbow from items we found outside. We also drew pictures of our favourite parts of creation.
Reading
We will read on a train,
We will read in the rain!
We will read with a goat,
We will read on a boat!
We will read here or there...
...we will read ANYWHERE!
Inspired by 'The Cat in the Hat' by Dr. Seuss
English
We started our class novel Stone Age Boy by looking at illustrations from the text and making predictions about what would happen. We then enjoyed some September sunshine and shared the story, before identifying features about each character.
Getting to know Team Swallowtails
We enjoyed our first day back at school, and spent the day getting to know each other. We used string to find how we are all linked, and we managed to find links with everyone in the class!
We are looking forward to a really positive year as Team Swallowtails.
