Farewell to the Rainforest

Hawk Owl class have been finishing off preparations for their Experience Outcome this week, beginning with creating the final soundscape for their films using body percussion and assembling their beautiful collages for the backdrop of their green screen films. The week ended with a focus on Science, during which time the children learnt about different types of plant roots. We then looked at a section of the Great Kapok Tree book in which the monkeys suggested that the roots of trees help prevent soil erosion. Using their knowledge of roots, the children planned and carried out an experiment to test this theory and found that less soil is lost when water is poured over soil that contains more roots. The children are looking forward to completing their Experience Outcome films on the Tuesday after half term, before they head off on their residential trip. We hope they enjoy a restful half term and come back ready and raring to go!

 

Save the Rainforests!

It’s been another productive week in Hawk Owl Class. The children have been working towards writing a persuasive text about saving the rainforest. They learnt about features such as superlatives, emotive language and rhetorical questions and used them to great effect to write their own persuasive pieces. They did a fantastic job and were very convincing – Greenpeace would be proud! In Art, the children continued to work towards their final collage piece by painting their rainforest animals using watercolour paints. In Maths, the children have been continuing their work on time, learning about a.m and p.m and the 24 hour clock. It would be great if you could practise getting the children to use an analogue clock to tell the time at home and perhaps challenge them to tell you what the time would be on the 24 hour clock. In R.E, the children have been learning all about Buddhism and are looking forward to finishing off the unit with the meditation session next week.

 

Cricket Crazy

Our learning journey continued this week with the children getting a bird’s eye view of the rainforest, which they used to write a report about the human and physical features of these locations. In English, we have been looking at the features of persuasive writing and thinking about how they are different from those of a balanced argument. The work we have been doing this week will feed into our BIG WRITE, in which the children will be writing a persuasive piece about preserving our rainforests. In Maths, we have moved on to the topic of time, learning how to convert between days, weeks, hours, minutes and seconds, as well as being able to tell the time to quarter past, quarter to and to five minutes. In Art, the children focused on sketching rainforest animals in preparation for making their rainforest collages. They first experimented with drawing specific parts of their chosen animal, including any patterns or textures they could see and then progressed to sketching their final picture ready to be painted next week. The end of the week was spent going cricket crazy. On Thursday afternoon, the children enjoyed their cricket session with Mr Nichols, during which they were practising their bowling skills ready for the Rapid Fire Cricket tournament on Friday. The class then finished off the day on Friday with a Chance to Shine cricket session delivered by a specialist coach. We can safely say that the children are now cricketing experts and we expect to see many of them showing off their skills at Lords in years to come!

 

 

Rainforest Rumblings.

We have had another exciting week in Hawk Owl class this week. The fun started on Monday with the Year Fours attending their first swimming lesson while the Year Threes took part in an Outdoor Adventure P.E lesson, practising team work and problem solving skills. In Maths, we have been continuing our work on money, adding amounts and subtracting to find change. In English, the children have furthered their understanding of balanced arguments, using the Great Kapok Tree book to find arguments against deforestation. The class then role played telling the man in the rainforest why he should not cut down the tree. Later in the week, the children found the key arguments in support of deforestation in a non-fiction text. They then used these arguments for and against to write their own balanced argument about the pros and cons of deforestation in our BIG WRITE.

As part of our Experience Outcome, the children have learnt about the location of different countries that have rainforests, as well as the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. In Art, the children were asked to create rainforest leaves to be used in a collage that will become the backgrounds for their green screen films. They learnt a new way of mixing paint colours to make different shades of green and then had a go at using the ‘sgraffito’ technique, which involves using the end of the paintbrush to scratch lines and textures into wet paint. In preparation for their films, the children also began creating a soundscape, using body percussion to mimic the sounds of rainfall. Next week, they will be experimenting with different instruments to recreate rainforest animal sounds.  It has been lovely to see the children working so hard this week and enjoying their journey through the rainforest!