Sapphire’s Newsletter
Our 2nd week back had an investigation into how Tutankhamun died. We had to look at different theories as well as copies of x-rays of his skeleton showing the damage to his body. We used all of this to come up with our own ideas and then presented our work on evidence cards for our archaeological notebook. There are lots of different theories out there. Some of us think he was murdered by his advisor Ay because Ay wanted to be on the throne to rule Egypt and the only way he could get there was if Tutankhamun died. Others think that he died from an infection from either a mosquito bite or a cut on his leg. A small minority believe that Tutankhamun died of natural causes as he was not a healthy child and suffered from many illnesses.
In English we are still working on Marcy and the Riddle of the Sphinx. We have had to do quite a bit of writing over the past few weeks which has helped us to get ready for the next challenge of writing our own version of a graphic novel!
The storyteller, Ben Heggarty, is continuing to work with us every Monday. This week he told us stories that were linked to the Day of the Dead festival. We love how he tells a story that has us completely engrossed so when he does something unexpected, we jump out of our seats! We are looking forward to learning how to tell our own stories in a similar style.
In Y3 Maths we have been looking at different strategies for subtracting. How would you solve 184-99? We have learnt to do 184-100 and then +1 back on as it is easier to subtract 100 in our heads, so the answer is 184 – 100 = 84 + 1 = 85. This is called rounding and compensating. The Y4s had to do something similar but with larger numbers e.g. 2569 – 499 becomes 2569 – 500 = 2069 + 1 = 2070.
Science lessons have been happening every 2 weeks as we are observing what happens to apple halves when they are covered in different substances. Our apples are covered in sand, sugar, bath salts and sodium bicarbonate in sealed jars. We also have one that is completely uncovered and is just sealed in a jar. Look at the photo collage to see the changes in the apples so far. We are going to continue the observations until the end of term so that we can see which substance has preserved the apples the best.
In Art, we have been learning about different drawing skills so we could draw different Egyptian artefacts. This week though we got to use clay to make our own versions of scarab beetles, amulets, ankhs and different jewellery. We are pleased with the results; we think they look really realistic.
Every Wednesday afternoon we swap teachers with Cyan Class. While Miss Tonner teaches Art to Cyan Class, we go to Mrs Saeed for Computing. We are learning to use the Scratch programme where we get to ‘control’ a small character that is known as a sprite. We can make it move, speak, sing and even dance. Some of us also know how to change the sprite or add in new ones as well as different backgrounds and music; we even know how to add in our own voices to the animation!
