Pixies

We welcomed the children back this week to a colourful and sparkling week of learning about celebrations.  The children have been busy exploring two different celebrations and festivals that take place at this time of year, Diwali and Guy Fawkes Night.

We began the week learning all about Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Light. The children discovered how Hindu families prepare their homes for the celebrations by cleaning, decorating, and lighting diyas (oil lamps) to welcome goodness and light.

The class enjoyed creating their own beautiful rangoli patterns using bright colours and shapes, and they designed intricate mehndi (henna) prints on paper hands. We talked about how Diwali is a time for family, sharing food, and celebrating kindness and good triumphing over evil.

Later in the week, we learnt about Guy Fawkes Night and why it is celebrated every year on the 5th of November. The children listened to the story of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot and learnt why we have bonfires and fireworks to remember this event.

We had some fantastic discussions about firework safety and created colourful firework art using paint and glitter to finish off our week with a sparkle!

The children really enjoyed comparing the two celebrations and thinking about how different people celebrate special times in different ways. It’s been a lovely opportunity to explore light, colour, and celebration in many forms.

Next week we will be diving into our new topic ‘We are Imagineers’ where the children will become creative thinkers and makers who dream, design, and build a magical winter world.
 

Elves and Griffins

In our first week back, we have been excited to learn what we will be doing in our Winter Wonderland topic.

After spending last term studying Antarctica we are moving to the North Pole where the Shire will be imagining, designing and building a theme park based on the wonderful world of Father Christmas. All the children enjoyed sharing their ideas and we now have an extensive list of experiences they would like to visit in a Winter Wonderland. To map out the various attractions, the children will be building small models to add to our large 3D relief map in the classroom, so we can begin to understand the importance of locality and even distance. The children will also be programming robots which will simulate how visitors to our Winter Wonderland can move around the attractions. We’re hoping our classrooms will soon be a winter wonderland, all very exciting!

To support our model building, we have been working on 2D and 3D shapes in maths and the children really enjoyed making 3D buildings in villages and 2D firework rockets. It was a lot of fun.

 

Dragons

In launching our imagineers topic, we have immersed ourselves in our new book by Ben Miller, 'The Day I Fell Into A Fairy Tale'. In English, we have looked at a range of Grimms' fairy tales, including 'Hansel and Gretel' and 'Little Red Cap.' The children have shared their experiences of fairy tales and well-loved characters and settings that they know. This term, the children will be designing and making the fairy tale world of Ben Miler's story in Design and Technology. In Maths, we are learning new strategies to tackle addition and subtraction problems. We have started our Science topic on electricity by classifying everyday household appliances and will go on to apply our skills in creating the witch's fairground rides featured in our class book.

Please remember PE kits on Tuesdays and Fridays!

Wizards

Wizards Class have been immersed in the world of Harry Potter, experiencing the Warner Bros Studio Tour. We explored the journey from book to screen that brought the story of Harry Potter to life, including concept art, elevations, white card models and a rich array of sets, models, costumes and animatronics. We have looked at the different approaches taken in both book and film to portray how the 'muggle' and magical worlds collide in the opening of 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'. 

This half-term, the pupils in Wizards will be designing a pop-up adventure golf experience, based on the story of Harry Potter. We will be focusing on skill development in STEAM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths). 

Spade to Spoon

The Jerusalem artichokes have now been harvested. We are busy preparing the garden for winter and imagining what it will be like next year, so that we can decide which crops to plant.