English
Poetry – We started this week looking at poems by Joseph Coelho who is the Children’s Laureate. He has written lots of different poetry collections including the one we are studying this term, Werewolf Club Rules. His poems are easy to grasp and he talks about so many different things like school, friends and food.
Here are some videos of Joseph performing his work:
Maths
We have just started looking at dividing this term. So far we have learnt how to divide any number by 10 and 100. We know that when you divide by 10, all of the digits will move one space/column to the right and when you divide any number by 100, the digits move 2 spaces/column to the right. Next in our division learning, we will be looking at how to divide any number by a single digit.
Art
We completed one of our final pieces in the style of Stephen Wiltshire.
A lot of us were inspired to draw Big Ben or the Eiffel Tower. They are not easy to draw at all, especially using a pen. A few of us chose to lightly sketch them in pencil (which Stephen wiltshire does sometimes) and then go over the lines in fineliners. We are all so proud of the final pieces of work and think that they are really effective being drawn in pen rather than pencil.
Science/DT
Last term we learnt about electricity and had lots of fun with the different experiments. To finish off the unit we made fairground rides with electrical circuits. We had a great couple of days making fairground rides. We spent the first day talking about circuits, safety features, followed by lots of practice measuring and then sawing pieces of wood as we needed to make sure we could all be precise in our actions. Once we knew we were, we spent the first afternoon prepping all of the pieces we would need for day 2 of the project. The second day focused on us building the structure of the ride, connecting a circuit to power the ride and then adding on features like chairs, passengers and decorations. We faced a few challenges along the way – some of our rides didn’t spin round even though the circuit worked. We had to do quite a bit of problem solving to see what needed adjusting. Luckily, by the end of the day, all of our rides worked and we were really pleased with them.
RE
Just before half term we visited the Mandir in Cheltenham as part of a topic focusing on Hindu worship. We were lucky enough to watch the aarti taking place. This involved the local Hindu community praying and worshipping to their gods. They rang bells for 5 minutes. It is said that the bell ringing is to alert the gods that the aarti is happening as well as cleansing the ears of all the worshippers so that they are able to listen better to the world around them. Some of the worshippers blessed the murtis (statues of the gods) with blessed water. They also offered fruits to them, which we were then allowed to eat at the end of the service. We all took part by clapping along with the community. At the end of the aarti, we were allowed to ask questions and then go up close to see the murtis and offerings. It was really cool to be part of a real service.
