Our topic for Autumn 1 was: What is life like in the Alps? 

Our topic for Autumn 2 was: How did the Mayan civilisation compare to the Anglo-Saxons? 

Our topic for Spring 1 was: Why do Oceans matter? 

Our topic for Spring 2 was: What was life like in Tudor England? 

Our topic for Summer 1 is: Would you like to live in the desert? 

Term 1.1

English: We have been working on our grammar and punctuation skills. Children took part in activities to help them better understand how grammar is used and how to manipulate it in their own writing. 

Maths: This half term, we are focusing on number and place value. We are looking at numbers to one million, rounding, estimating and Roman numerals. We are also beginning to look at more explicit ways of calculating mentally and by using compact, shortened written methods. We will be applying our learning of new mathematical concepts to real life problems and will focus upon reasoning with our new skills!

Topic: Our topic for this half term is, 'What is life like in the Alps?'. Children will be focusing on the Alps, major mountains of the world and the UK. We will find out the different ways in which the Alps have been formed, and how different physical and human features of the mountain ranges have been shaped over time. We will have the opportunity to consider what the weather is like in a mountainous environment and to evaluate the impact that tourism has on mountainous regions.

Science: Our science topic for this half term is 'Mixtures and Seperation'. During this unit of work, we will be looking at different materials, their uses and properties as well as dissolving, separating mixtures and irreversible changes. 

Term 1.2 

Maths: In maths, our focus will be on fractions, multiplication and division. We will refine our knowledge from Year 4 to learn how to use the long method for multiplication and the short method for division including the interpretation of remainders. We will also begin looking at shape, space and measure.

English: Our focus for this half term is the Lewis Carroll novel: 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'. As part of the topic, we are transported to fantasy lands that we describe in detail to bring them to life. We also have chance to get our creative juices flowing by writing our very own fantasy stories. 

Science: Our science topic for this half term is 'Properties and Changes of Materials'. During this unit of work, we will be looking at different materials, their uses and properties as well as dissolving, separating mixtures and irreversible changes. We will sort and classify materials according to their properties and find suitable materials for different purposes.

Topic: Our new topic is called, 'How did the Maya civilisation compare to the Anglo-Saxons?' We will be comparing the Maya and the Anglo-Saxons, learning  mainly about the Maya civilisation. We will investigate how the Maya settled in the rainforests of South America, their religious beliefs, homes and what archaeological remains tell us about Maya cities. Using primary evidence, we will examine theories into how the Maya cities declined.

Term 2.1 

English: This half term we are focusing on vivid imagery and story telling. We are exploring the short film 'The Piano' by Aidan Gibbons. This allows us to explore deep feelings and how to express them. Children are able to use a range of descriptive and figurative language to express their feelings and become high-quality storytellers. 

Maths: This half term, we are focusing on fractions, written methods for long multiplication and percentages and decimals. We will continue to improve the consistency and accuracy of our key recall of known facts and use them to free up our working memory when solving complex problems.

Science: Our science topic for this half term is 'Earth and Space'. During this unit of work we will be looking at the spherical, celestial bodies of our solar system, the planets, historical ideologies about the movements of the Earth and how our moon plays a part in the make up of our daily life. We will also look at how night and day cycles are created and how the tilt of the planet affects our seasonal differences!

Topic: Our topic for this half term is 'Why do Oceans Matter?'. We will learn about the oceans of the world before looking in more detail at some of the contrasting oceans and their uses. We will find out about the ecology, geology and key locations in different areas of our planet. We will bring together our learning about an area of eastern Europe with field research in our local area.

Term 2.2 

English: This half term we focused on descriptive writing and figurative language. We watched the short video, 'The Alchemist's Letter' and were inspired to write about a fantastical machine that can turn precious memories into gold. 

In addition, we studied a Dr Who suspense story called, 'Haunted' and turned our hands to writing our own science fiction suspense stories. 

Maths: This half term, our main focus was on angles. We measured, drew and estimated angles. Our skills were also put to the test when we found missing angles around a point, on a straight line and even as part of a right angle. 

We continued to work on our geometry skills by identifying and naming 2D and 3D shapes and learning about position and direction. 

Science: Our science topic for this half term was 'Life cycles and reproduction' where we explored the life cycles of plants and animals and the life process of reproduction. 

Topic: Our topic for this half term was, 'What was life like in Tudor England?'. Our learning took us on a journey through Tudor times while we: extracted information about Henry VIII from portraits and written records; justified our interpretation of Henry VIII using evidence from sources; made deductions from a range of sources about marriage, power and punishment; wrote an eyewitness account of Elizabeth I’s Worcester Progress and made deductions using inventories about the wealth and position of an ordinary Tudor person.

Term 3.1 

English: This half term we studied Shakespeare's: 'The Tempest'. We utilised our descriptive writing skills from last half term to draw and describe a fierce tempest. We then focused on the character of Caliban and wrote a set of instructions for any owners that were hoping to adopt their very own as a pet. Finally, we wrote an alternate ending to the story as we felt it could be improved with more excitement and action.  

Maths: This half term, our main focus was on decimals. We are now confident when it comes to adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing them. We are also building our confidence when it comes to solving worded problems. 

Science: Our science topic for this half term was 'Unbalanced Forces' where 

we investigated gravity, friction, air and water resistance and their effects.

Topic: Our topic for this half term was, 'Would you like to live in the desert?'. In our topic we: identified the lines of latitude where hot desert biomes are located, described the characteristics of a hot desert biome; located the largest deserts in each continent; described ways the Mojave Desert is used and named and described the physical features found in a desert. In addition we considered how human activity may contribute to the changing climate and landscape of a desert.

Creating papier maché planets for our very own solar system!

We have been using a variety of tools to sculpt clay representations of our very own Ickabogs

We have been Building up layers of clay to form 3D sculptures during an art lesson

We have created our own compositions on steel pans during music lessons

We have used acrylic paints to illustrate our Ickabogs before varnishing them!