Our core text this half term is The Big Baby by Jeanne Willis. 
 

Welcome to the summer term! We hope you enjoyed the Easter break and that you had a chance to spend some much needed time with friends and family.

This half term our topic is ‘Growth’. We will be engaging in a variety of learning experiences to develop our knowledge and understanding of growth in the natural environment. 

We began our topic by making our very own Bog Babies! We then planned and wrote a character description as part of our English learning. 

In Science we planted our very own Sunflowers and discussed what they needed to help the, grow - sun, soil and water. We are excited to observe them grow over this half term. 

As part of our History topic we have started to learn all about the life and achievements of Wangari Mathaai.  We looked at recalling information we already knew about her and then chose some questions we wanted to find out the answers to. We then had a look at some evidence about her life. 

In Art we are learning about the life and work of the artist Georgia O’Keeffe, who is famous for her paintings of flowers. We used viewfinders to focus on a small section of a piece of her art and then carefully sketched the lines and shapes we could see. The children used a variety of sketching materials, pencils, pens and whiteboard markers to see the different marks they created. 

In our English this week, we created habitats for our Bog Babies in Forest School. We then discussed them as a class and described them using nouns and adjectives in our English books. Later on in the week, we created a setting description for Bluebell wood again using adjectives to describe the nouns. 

In our Geography topic this term we are looking at human and physical features. This week, we went for a walk to and around Victoria Park. We discussed the different human and physical features we could see like the river, trees, houses, roads etc. We all really enjoyed our little afternoon out. 

This week in maths, we have been looking at capacity. We have been reading scales and using jugs and cylinders to measure our specific amounts of liquid to make some drinks. We have also worked together as a class to estimate which container would hold the most amount of water (in litres). Our estimations were very good! 

As part of our Science learning each week, we have been observing and recording the growth of our sunflowers we planted in the first week. They have grown so tall in just 3 weeks! 

In Science we have worked with local scientist Steven Lewis Neille. We learnt all about the body structures of snails and slugs and how they use camouflage to survive. We then made a habitat for a snail, thinking carefully about what snails need in order to be able to camouflage from predators. We also learnt about the key differences between a frog and a toad and a moth and a butterfly. 

As part of our growth topic, we have been watching some caterpillars grow. We have observed them from tiny, little caterpillars, to fat, fluffy ones. Then we watched them turn into a chrysalis and finally we saw them emerge into beautiful butterflies. Once they had all emerged we went into the playground and set them free. We loved watching them fly away into the open air!

Over the last few weeks in our Art lessons, we have continued to practise the skills used by Georgia O’Keeffe. We have tried to match colours to paintings by mixing and blending colours. The children practised sketching their own flowers by copying a piece of Georgia’s work. To end the topic, the children painting, coloured and blended their flowers to create beautiful pieces of art for our display. 

During our last week in school, we decided to plant our sunflowers in the planters in the playground. We knew that for our sunflowers to grow nice and tall, they needed sunlight, water and space to grow. The children all helped to dig a nice deep hole, and then watered them once they had been planted. 

As part of our English learning this week, the children learnt all about butterflies and used verbs to describe how they move. They then used these verbs to write their own butterfly poems. The children also used adjectives and joining words to write some butterfly descriptions. They enjoyed moving like butterflies in the playground using floating scarves to show their movements. 

In our maths this week, we have been looking at 2d and 3d shapes. The children identified the different shapes and described their properties. They then also categorised them into diagrams, working together in groups.