English – Pirates

We really enjoyed our topic on pirates. We found out lots of interesting facts as well as some rather salty pirate language from this great book, The Pirates Next Door.

We designed a pirate of our own and thought of adjectives to describe them.

At the end of the topic we wrote a story telling of all the terrible treacherous scandals that our pirate got up to when they visited our school.

In computing, we created a picture using of ourselves as a pirate.

‘Dress as a pirate day’ was great fun! We made pirate hats to really help us get in the swing of things, ate sea biscuits and drank grog (not real of course!)

History and DT - Castles

This topic was so much fun and the children really enjoyed learning about what life was like in medieval times.

There were so many different jobs in the castle including a ditcher, cook and knight.

We talked about which job we thought would be the worst and which would be the best!

The ditcher definitely seemed to have the worst deal!

In DT we learnt how to make a free-standing tower and how to join walls. We also practised making a drawbridge.

One of the DT focuses behind this was to make our castles as strong and secure as we could.

Once we had practised these skills individually, we worked in teams to create a larger-scale castle.

We were delighted to see how well the teams worked together, sharing ideas and being supportive, just like the Together Twins.

We finished the topic with a trip to our very own castle in Southsea!

We met Henry VIII, well, his statue and saw all of the cannons and cannon balls. It was very interesting to see how incredibly thick castle walls really are!

History - Victorians

We had great fun going back in time and finding out about what life was like 100 years ago.

We looked at Victorian household artefacts and tried to guess what they were used for.

We had a very exciting trip to Manor Farm. We didn’t think it was much fun to go to school in Victorian times and all agreed that life is a lot easier now than it was then.

We all enjoyed ourselves enormously and had great fun with the hands-on learning we experienced.

Sports Day

We had a really enjoyable Sports Day morning. There were a great variety of activities such as hurdles and ball balancing.

Thank you to all of the parents who came to cheer us on and support us.

DT - Sewing

All the children were tasked with making a purse using a running stich. It had to carry money, which wouldn’t slip out, be attractive and have a working button to close it.

We all created a plan and were very lucky to have lots of parents who volunteered to come and help sew, which they all enjoyed!

Everybody made an amazing purse which they took home to use.

Music

We had the most amazing experience in the school hall when ‘Playground Proms’ came to visit. They put on a spectacularly energetic performance with a double bass, two violins and a viola. The whole school was engrossed by the beautiful music that they played whilst still having so much fun!

Art - Andy Goldsworthy

The artist that we learned about this term was Andy Goldsworthy, who is a Scottish sculptor.

He only works with natural materials. We loved having a go at recreating and innovating our own Goldsworthy-style sculptures.

We focused our attention on the shapes and colours he uses in his work.

The children worked both individually and in small groups.