Our core text this half term is ‘Tidy’ by Emily Gravett.

This half term we will be considering the impact of human actions on the world around us - with a particular focus on litter and how we can help to keep Nelson tidy.

For our first week of learning in English, we looked at the poem 'What is Pink?' by the poet Christina Rossetti. 

We were inspired to write our very own poems about all of the wonderful colours in the world. 

In our DT topic this term, we will be learning about the inspirational life achievements of Zaha Hadid and will eventually be designing and making a model of a new mosque for Nelson. We had a look at the structures around our school, paying close attention to how the bricks in the wall were placed to make the structure strong and secure. We then had a go at drawing some of our own when we got back into class.

Our Science topic this term is materials. Our class were shocked at the amount of litter we found around our local area. So as a class, we decided to take action and go on a litter pick around the streets of our school. We wanted to make the streets around us and our local environment a cleaner, safer and tidier place for everyone. When we got back to class, we discussed what sort of materials we had collected and decided whether or not they could be recycled to help the planet. 

In maths this week, we have been looking at “position and direction”. We spoke about whether things were ‘on top of, next to, under, above, in between etc’ another object. We did some learning outside to try this new vocabulary out. 

In our DT lesson this week, we looked at using a range of materials to try and build some strong and stable structures. We discussed which materials worked better than others and why.

In History we have been learning all about David Attenborough and why he is such a special person. During our topic, we have created a timeline of his life and achievements. Then using all the information we have collected, we created posters about him and told our friends in class why we should be looking after our environment and the planet. 

In English, we moved on to look at some non-fiction texts all based on our topic of litter and the environment. We looked at the different parts of a non-chronological report and labelled them. At the end of the week, we wrote our own report all about the effects of the litter in and around Nelson. 

In Geography we discussed the effect that litter has on our environment. We used pictures we took from our litter pick earlier on in the term and wrote down some of our thoughts and feelings about the litter and the impact it has on our environment. Then we wrote down some for our ideas for ways in which we can reduce the amount of litter.

To end our DT topic this term, we designed and made our new mosques for Nelson. We worked in small teams to design our mosques, labelling what sort of materials we might use to make them strong and stable. We then worked in our teams to build the mosques out of recycled cardboard boxes and tubes. We used a variety of materials to join our boxes together including glue, sellotape, masking tape and split pins. We really enjoyed this topic and creating the mosques.