The Environment
Key Vocabulary for the Half Term
- Pollution – The introduction of harmful substances or products into the environment.
- Climate Change - Warmer temperatures over time are changing weather patterns and disrupting the usual balance of nature.
- Global Warming - A gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth's atmosphere attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide, CFCs, and other pollutants.
- Crisis – A crisis is a time of intense difficulty or danger.
- Impact – To have a strong effect on someone or something.
Our final outcome
This half term our final outcome was to hold an exhibition of our learning.
It was wonderful to open the school to our families and share all the fantastic learning that has happened over the past half term. Class 3 have worked extremely hard towards this outcome across all their subjects. What a super sight it was to see all the beaming smiles and hear the fantastic discussions as the children shared their highlights with their families.
English
Writing an explanation text
We began our sequence of learning by unpicking the features of an explanation text. We then learned how to use subheadings, diagrams, the simple present tense and technical vocabulary in our writing.
Here are some of our explanation texts based on the water cycle.
We are very proud of them 😀.
Happy Easter
We have been making Easter cards today in class 3!
We hope you enjoy them 🐰
Art
Impressionism art
We have been studying Impressionism art and our focus artist 'Claude Monet'. We have used his famous piece 'Water Lilies' as inspiration for our own water lily creation.
We have started to create our final piece of art on canvas. Using Impressionism style brush strokes, we blended our colours to create the background. We look forward to adding on the rest of our detail in our next lesson.
Science
Parts of a flower- flower dissection
(Explanation by Darcey)
We worked in pairs to dissect a flower (daffodil) and learned all of the scientific names for the parts of a plant. When dissecting we found the petal, leaf, stem, stamen, stigma, style and ovary. We have also learned the different functions of each part of the flower.
Geography
Water pollution
Today we have been learning about water pollution. The children begun with discussing what the ocean means to them and the ocean's role in our world.
The children discovered pictures showing the impact of water pollution on our environment. They shared how this made them feel and created a bank of questions that they want answering.
English
Calligram poems
In Class 3 we have been working towards writing a calligram poem. Using our global theme and our core text ‘Once Upon a Raindrop’ for inspiration, we created poems in the shape of a raindrop.
We have been learning how to use alliteration to create rhythm. We have used various resources to build ambitious vocabulary banks to support us when writing. Then we drafted, edited and re-drafted our poems.
We performed our poems using our voices and actions to enhance and emphasise.
Fruity Friday
In class 3 today we have been making fruit kebabs!
Geography
The water cycle
As part of our global theme, the environment, we have been learning about the water cycle.
We have been learning key vocabulary: evaporation, condensation, precipitation and collection. We have learned a new song to help us remember this process.
We then made our own version of the water cycle. The children were very excited to watch the water cycle happen in our classroom.
Art
Who was Claude Monet?
The children have been researching our artist 'Claude Monet'. We created a fact file about his early life and his influence on the art world. Once the children discovered he was one of the founders of Impressionism Art, they practised some of the key techniques and skills of this art form. We are building up to producing our own version of the 'Water Lily Pond'.
Science
Water transportation in plants
In today's Science lesson, we have been learning about water transportation in plants. We set up a comparative experiment to answer the question, "Does temperature affect the speed of water transportation in plants?"
The children made predictions about what they think will happen. They then set up their experiment using blue dye and white flowers. They spent the day carefully observing every few hours whilst making notes on their observations.
"I predict that the warmer environment will make the water be transported quicker" - Ava.
"The cold environment will be best" - Jenson
"I think it won't matter what temperature the room is, the plant will transport water the same" - Moira
Spanish
“Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes en Espanol”
This half term’s focus in Spanish is learning about ‘My Body’ and the simple body parts, along with learning the actions that we all make. The children have also learnt how to sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” in Spanish and produced some creative work this week, to reinforce their vocabulary.
PE
Bowling skills
Our sport for this half term is Cricket. We have been practising our bowling skills and improving our technique. The children have loved coaching each other to improve their accuracy.
World Book Day 2022
World Book Day 2022 brought 'Starbooks' to Class 3 this year.
We arrived at school to find our classroom had been turned into a cafe! We took part in a five course 'taster' menu, which allowed us to explore 5 different books. We used our V.I.P.E.R.S to dive into our books, beginning with the front cover. We then read the first chapter before deciding whether it enticed us enough to continue reading.
We had a fantastic day dressing up as our favourite book characters!
Sharing our Core Texts
(2nd March 2022)
As part of our book week we had a very special assembly this Wednesday. Representatives from each class took the opportunity to share the book their class will be focussing on this half term. They went on to explain how their book fits into our whole school theme of ‘Saving our Environment’. It was a joy to see children sharing their enthusiasm of reading and looking forward to a half term packed with learning.
Our Core Texts
Class 1 - Window
Author and Illustrator: Jeannie Baker
Class 2 - Greta and the Giants
Author: Zoë Tucker Illustrator: Zoe Persico
Class 3 - Once Upon a Raindrop (The Story of Water)
Author: James Carter Illustrator: Nomoco
Class 4 - The Lost Book of Adventure
Author: Unknown Author Editor: Teddy Keen
Class 5 - Natural World
Authors: Amanda Wood & Mike Jolley Illustrator: Owen Davey
Class 6 - Greta's Story (The Schoolgirl Who Went on Strike to Save the Planet)
Author: Valentina Camerini Translation: Moreno Giovannoni Illustrator: Veronica Carratello
Welcome to Spring 2- Saving our environment
We have begun the term by introducing our core text 'Once upon a raindrop by James Carter'.
It is a narrative poem that describes water's journey from raindrop to river with stunning illustrations.
We have been using our V.I.P.E.R.S skills to predict and make inferences from the front cover and the children are extremely excited to begin reading.
