1.01.19

Happy New Year! Before we start a new term, filled with trips, new topics and learning it might be a good time to share some at the highlights from the academic year so far.

English 

We have worked hard on a range of genres, in particular non-chronological report writing where we designed our own dragons with the help of the Norwich Puppet Theatre and wrote non-chronological reports all about them. We included skills such as time adverbials, changing pronouns and coordinating conjunctions. 

Watching and acting out scenes from the model animation series Pingu has helped us create dialogue between characters and start to learn and use all the rules for speech marks. 

We have also been learning how to write five part adventure stories drawing inspiration from the writer and illustrator Simon Murray. We used his technique of using illustrations as a starting point when designing characters, settings and plans to help describe and shape our stories. We made sure they had a clear beginning, build-up, climax, resolution and ending. We used our newly practised grammar skills such as using onomatopoeia, expanded nouns phrases, prepositions, subordinating conjunctions and even used some inverted commas (that's speech marks!).  

During our work on poetic devices, we made moving metaphors and explored similes to help us write some thoughtful poems about World War 1 drawing inspiration and empathetic feelings from war time photography. We mixed this with art work using the marbling technique and silhouettes. 

Maths 

Autumn term has been all about place value and learning new methods for the four operations to help us calculate quickly, both mentally and when using a written method. If you would like more information on these methods, have a look at the calculations policy on the policies section of the schools website or pop in for chat. 

Topic 

Geography has been the main core of our topic work this term learning all about the U.K as we tackle using atlases and digital mapping software to learn all about the rivers, mountains, cities and changing populations of the U.K

Music 

Music has been super tricky, but we are now starting to feel more confident with our skills on the ukulele during our lessons with Miss Furnell. We have been learning chords, different strumming patterns and lots of new songs to showcase our new talents! We have already learnt some songs and tunes for our performance at the end of the year!

Science 

Science has been fascinating this term and jam packed full of experiments from creating super charged paper planes and making our own compasses in our 'Forces and Magnets' topic, to investigating mirrors and shadows during our topic 'Light and Dark'. 

Also...

we have enjoyed lots of visits from people such as Mrs Aide, our local Invictus Games medal winner, a professional poet and even The Dogs Trust dropped by to give us tips on how to socialise with animals safely. 

It has been amazing to see how far Seahorse class has come with their new skills already this year, due to their hard work and positive attitude. We look forward to spring term and our new tpoic 'Ancient Times' where we will first learn all about the ancient civilisation of the Egyptians before moving on to the ancient Greeks. In English, among other things, we will be writing diary entries and sets of instructions. Maths this term will bring lots on measure (capacity, money, length and time) using a wide variety of units whilst all the time practising those core skills. We will also tackle some fractions! If your would like to know more about the learning content of the Spring term, look out for the What's Happening newsletter or check the website for the digital version. As always, you are more than welcome to pop in for a chat. 

Finally, with the blog now fully operational, check back to see what has been happen in the Seahorse class soon.